Lacan on the discourse of capitalism; Critical prospects

Bert Olivier
Philosophy, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University

Abstract

In his seminar on the four discourses, Lacan seemed to group capitalism under the heading of the discourse of the university, but a few years later, in the Milan lecture, he changed his mind and characterized it as discursively hysterical, in this way providing a powerful methodological conceptual configuration for the analysis, and ultimately, intellectual strategies for the subversion of capitalist practices (although some have raised doubts about this). Several other texts, including Naomi Kleins recent book, The Shock Doctrine, which outlines her assessment of the phase (in the history of capitalism) known as disaster capitalism, on the other hand, provides just the kind of information and insight to help one put Lacans theory to work. This paper is an attempt to understand how this could happen (and is perhaps already happening).
The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little. - Theodore Roosevelt.

The present essay should be read in the spirit of a conception of the humanities which is predicated on the capacity of these disciplines to advance the cause of human freedom at every level, including the economic, in so far as it is inescapably implicated in the domain of political freedom. It is almost inconceivable that human beings could take an abstract economic theory sufficiently seriously to use events such as natural, military or economic disasters including hurricanes, tsunamis, wars and hyperinflation or severe recession to destroy and/or replace previously existing public institutions or social structures for the sake of establishing private structures and organizations for the sole purpose of profit. It may be argued that putting the matter in this way is to provide the obvious reason for such inconceivable value attached to the theory: the profit motive. And this is probably the case as far as the developers of private, profit-oriented organizations are concerned, but Im not so sure that it accounts for the
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theorists axiological attachment to the theory in question; by all accounts, this seems to be closer to an ideological belief. I believe that Thompsons (1990, p. 7) characterization of ideology, that it is meaning in the service of power, comes closer to explaining the sheer fervour with which proponents of the theory in question have promoted it, and yet it is still baffling that anyone could promote the implementation of such a theory in light of its consequences, namely to enrich (and empower, politically as well as economically) the few at the grave cost of the many. The theory at stake here is that variously formulated by members of the Chicago School of Economics, foremost among whom is the recently deceased economic theorist, Milton Friedman. It is that economic theory which elevates the market to the position of governing principle, not merely for economics as if one could ever separate economics from the material conditions, the political, social and cultural relations pertaining to human lives! but for the entirety of human society. In short, the hallowed market becomes the final, fundamental mechanism for establishing, reinforcing and extending social relations, that is, society in all its complexity. Any interference in the operation of the market, whether by individuals, non-governmental organizations, or by government agencies is regarded as a form of socialist heresy (Klein, 2007, pp. 49-57) by free market fundamentalists for make no mistake: this is a kind of fundamentalism; probably the most far-reaching ever devised and put into practice as far as its effect on human lives, as well as on the rest of the planet, is concerned, and which, absurdly, seems to go unnoticed by the vast majority of people (see Kovel, 2007, pp. xi-xv). To those familiar with Lacanian psychoanalytic theory, at first sight it may seem plausible that another way of putting what has been said so far, is to say that the Chicago School (capitalist) economic theory formulated by Friedman and others, or neoliberal economics, is the masters discourse of the present era. And they would be right, exceptas I shall argue here (with the help of others), it is no longer the traditional master who speaks, but a protean, mutated master. As I shall point out towards the end of the paper (on the basis of Naomi Kleins work), however, it is perhaps the case that the protean disguise of the traditional master is disintegrating for various reasons, revealing once again the old, familiar features of inexorable, nonsensical subjugation of the other. Nevertheless, the fact that some Lacanians talk as if capitalism simply represents the current version of the masters discourse (see for example Fink, 1997, p. 131), may hide the implications of Lacans own evolving thought on the matter. Lacan on discourse Concerning the question of discourse Lacan himself is most informative (Lacan, 1978, 12):
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What is a discourse? It is what, in the order in the ordering of what can be produced by the existence of language, makes some social link function There must be at least two signifiers. This means, the signifier insofar as it functions as an element: the signifier insofar as it is the mode by which the world is structured, the world of the speaking being, which is to say, all knowledge. Thus there is S1 and S2 which is where we must start for the definition [] the signifier is what represents a subject for another signifier.

The way in which a specific signifier represents a subject for another signifier, thus determines how the social field will be structured. For Lacan, the masters discourse (S1 = master signifier) is one of four different discourses or types of discourse the other three of which are the discourse of the university (or of knowledge; S2 = knowledge), the discourse of the hysteric ($ = split subject) and that of the analyst (a = surplus pleasure, object a), and what distinguishes them is articulated in terms of relations of repression and address (the master signifier repressing that of the split subject, while addressing or commanding that of the university, for instance), in other words, of mutating power relations. Schematically Lacan represents this state of affairs as follows: Terms: S1 Master signifier; S2 Knowledge (Knowing that); $ - The divided subject; a objet a and surplus pleasure. Masters discourse: University discourse: Analysts discourse: Hysterics discourse: S1 > S2 S2 > a a>$ $ > S1 $ a S1 $ S2 S1 a S2 Capitalists discourse: $ > S2 S1 a Positions: Agent address/command Truth

Other product

What this shows, is that discourses enable social (and political) relations to function because of the ordering enacted by the representational relations between signifiers, and these are invariably asymmetrical. Why? Because signifiers are diacritically related in the linguistic system, that is, in terms of difference, and the representation of the subject to one signifier by another the emergence of the subject (of discourse) in the interval or gap between signifiers therefore ineluctably involves relations of difference in the social field of intersubjectivity. The social link that is, relation between or
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among speaking subjects is therefore differentially structured or ordered by virtue of the signifiers representation of the subject to another signifier, as Lacan states. And because this mode of representation of the subject is different from one signifier to the next the master signifier has vastly different implications in this regard as compared to that of the divided subject or of surplus pleasure discursively ordered social relations are bound to be cratologically asymmetrical. In other words, given the ordering function of discourse, social relations are simultaneously power relations. Every ideology is discursively articulated. Patriarchy (or managements position) is a discourse in this sense, and feminism (or labours position) marks the site of its counter-discourse: wherever a discourse functions, it engenders its own counter-discourse. Another way to explain discourse, is to say, in Althusserian terms, that it is a mode of interpellation of the subject where it is no accident that interpellation is a legal term that means the procedurally admissible interruption of a persons speech in a legal chamber (by way of objection, for instance). In other words, discourse is language in so far as it is marked by the speaking subjects interpellation or subjection to the law (for example of patriarchy: the Name of the Father) governing a certain set of norms oriented around it and implying behaviour and action in accordance with its tenets. The masters discourse is that kind of discourse which functions to organize the social field according to its (ideological) master signifier (S1) whether that be empire, masculinity, kingship, whiteness, blackness, the market, development, or globalization. It follows, therefore, that once the masters discourse has established its dominance, other discourses play second fiddle to it. Importantly, the masters discourse can only operate by way of asserting itself ruthlessly in the social field to the extent that the master signifier represses all knowledge or acknowledgement of its own finitude ($); that is, of the inadequacy of the master, and to the extent that it commands or addresses the signifier of knowledge (S2), which here occupies contrary to what one may think in the first place the position of the (Hegelian) slave (although, if I understand him correctly, it later changes, according to Lacan, in the age of the dictatorship of knowledge, where it appears that he regards S2 as assuming the position of the classical, [premodern?] master signifier). As Lacan (Fink, 1997, p. 132; Lacan, 2007, pp. 20-22) points out, universities have always functioned largely to support the cratological status quo, that is, the existing order or extant masters discourse. The master is not primarily interested in knowledge (he has better things to do; Lacan, 2007, p. 24); he does not doubt himself, but merely uses knowledge to organize things in such a way that his position is secured and perpetually strengthened. The discourse of the hysteric represents the split subject ($) in the
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position of address, in so far as the latter is always already constituted by the division between consciousness and the unconscious, self-confidence and self-doubt; it represents the finitude of the subject in relation to master signifiers that which is not explicitly recognized by the master; in fact, he represses any such knowledge. In its turn, the discourse of the analyst stands for the primacy of surplus pleasure or jouissance (a) as the cause of desire (which operates via what Lacan calls the objet petit a little other object as proximate cause of desire, for example a colour1, a melody or a certain aroma that triggers in the subject an inexplicable longing, or anxiety, or both) in other words, that which can never be accounted for in systems of knowledge, and can therefore never be colonized by the imperatives of the master. This explains, as Joan Copjec points out (more pertinently regarding the present paper), why capitalism cannot abide the kind of pleasure signalled by a, the primary signifier configuring the discourse of the analyst (1994, p. viii):
the pleasure that the unconscious sets to work accumulating is a surplus pleasure which has no use for material reward or even well-being; it contributes nothing to the subjects inclination towards survival. This lessthan-useless surplus pleasure cannot, therefore, enter the calculus of capitalism except to undermine it.

The discourse of the capitalist It is precisely capitalism as a social and economic practice that interests me here, in so far as it may be rendered intelligible by psychoanalytic theory. What motivated this paper, is a curious discrepancy in Lacans work. In the 17th Seminar of 1969-1970 (The other side of psychoanalysis; 2007, p. 3132), he says the following:
we began with the fact that in the initial status of the masters discourse knowledge is on the side of the slave. And I thought I could indicatethat what happens between the classical masters discourse and that of the modern master, whom we call capitalist, is a modification in the place of knowledge The fact that all-knowing has moved into the place of the master is something that does not throw light on it, but rather makes a little bit more obscure what is at issue, namely, truth. How does it come about that there is a masters signifier in this place? For this is well and truly the S2 of the master, revealing as it does the bare bones of how things stand under the new tyranny of knowledge Now the sign of truth is somewhere else. It is to be produced by what has come to be substituted for the ancient slave, that is, by those who are themselves products, as we say, consumables every bit as much as the others. Consumer society, we say. Human material, as it was called at
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one stage to the applause of some who thought there was something tender in this.

This passage, although not straightforwardly interpretable, suggests an identity between the universitys discourse (S2) and that of the capitalist as master. Further on in the same text (2007, p. 168) he speaks of this capital mutation, also, which gives the masters discourse its capitalist style, and raises the question, how this society called capitalist society can afford to allow itself a relaxation of the university discourse a somewhat baffling formulation, except if one sees it as a subtle allusion to the sometimes flamboyant, always innovatively self-promoting appearance of capitalist production and development, which have not left the previously austere, rather staid faade of universities untouched either. But although he first, in Seminar 17, intimates that the discourse of the capitalist belongs with the discourse of the university or knowledge (S2), two years later, in his Milan lecture (1978), he shifts his position on capitalism by identifying it with the discourse of the hysteric ($). Why this curious shift? For one thing, if one considers that the discourse of the hysteric elicits the following characterization from Mark Bracher, then capitalism might seem the least likely candidate for inclusion in this category (1994, p. 122):
The hysterical structure of discourse also characterizes other instances of resistance, protest, and complaint from the plaintive anthems of slaves to the yearning lyrics of lovesick poets to the iconoclastic rhetoric of revolutionaries. The hysterical structure is in force whenever a discourse is dominated by the speakers symptom that is, his or her unique mode of experiencing jouissance, a uniqueness that is manifested (in experiences such as shame, meaninglessness, anxiety, and desire) as a failure of the subject, $, to coincide with or be satisfied by the master signifiers offered by society and embraced as the subjects ideals.

How could capitalism possibly be construed, then, as being at one with experiential phenomena symptomatic of the failure of the masters discourse? After all, it may seem to make perfect sense that capitalism would be in a similar position to the university as servant of the dominant order of the master (through the expansion of a certain kind of knowledge). It is important to remember, however, that in Seminar 17 (2007, p. 31-32) Lacan suggests that knowledge, or the discourse of the university, has moved into the place of the master, and that capitalism is subsumed under this discourse. On the other hand, as observed earlier, many would argue that today, capitalism is identical to the discourse of the master, although not necessarily conceiving of the latter in the same sense as it was traditionally the case. And if this is so, what does that make of capitalism? Why did Lacan effect the small inversion (Lacan; see below) between the masters discourse and that of the hysteric, by putting the master signifier
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(S1) below that of the hysteric ($), indicating its repression by the latter (instead of the other way around, as before)? It is telling, in this regard, that while he earlier claimed that the university discourse and that of the capitalist master is the same thing, here Lacan (1978: 10 11) describes capitalist discourse as the substitute of the master discourse, and claims that the crisis of the former is overt. He continues by saying the following in Stones translation (1978, 11):
I am not at all saying to you that capitalist discourse is rotten (moche), on the contrary, it is something wildly clever, eh? Wildly clever, but headed for a blowout (crevaison). After all, it is the cleverest discourse that we have made. It is no less headed for a blowout. This is because it is untenable. It is untenable in a thing that I could explain to youbecause capitalist discourse is here, you seea little inversion simply between the S1 [and] the S2 [sic]which is the subjectit suffices to the extent that it runsas if on a roulette wheel, but it runs too fast, it consumes, it consumes so well that it consumes itself...2

For this quotation to make sense, however, one must assume that Jack Stone, the translator, suffered a slip of the finger when he wrote S1 [and] the S2, given that, earlier in the lecture (1978, p. 6), Lacan indicates, in schematic form, that the inversion is in fact between S1 (the master signifier) and $ (signifier of the split, finite subject). In corroboration of this, Matthias Pauwels (2008, p. 1) translates the relevant passage from Lacans Milan Lecture as follows: the discourse of the capitalist is there (in the formula of the master)a very tiny inversion simply between S1 and $. Here one has to remember that the discourse of the hysteric relentlessly questions that of the master, and by implication also that of the university, regardless of whether the latter is conceived as a slave-discourse, or in the novel guise of the master of the knowledge society, as claimed by Lacan in Seminar 17. And while one might expect the university discourse to embody genuine science, Lacan identifies the hysterics discourse with it instead. The reason is not hard to find: the problematization or questioning of the masters discourse by the hysterics corresponds with the structural indeterminacy at the heart of science, as exemplified by Heisenbergs uncertainty (indeterminacy) principle (Fink, 1997, pp. 133-134). One has to admit that such a stance on the part of the scientist-cum-hysteric is rather disarming, exhibiting as it does a logic which limits and simultaneously subverts all those claims to unconditional power, and to the supposed systematic wholeness of knowledge, usually associated with science, from within. Who could accuse such a scientist of epistemic complacency or dogmatism, or such a master of tyranny? This is precisely the reason for Lacans claim, that
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capitalist discourse is the cleverest discourse that we have made. It is also the most unassailable, as Matthias Pauwels (2008) has brilliantly argued. In his paper Lacan and the subversion of the discourse of the capitalist (2008, pp. 1-11) Pauwels not only offers a clear explanation of the meaning of Lacans tiny inversion between S1 and $, which renders the formula of the discourse of the (paradoxical) hysterical master, he also fills in the gap left by Lacan himself in so far as the latter failed to elaborate on what this would mean in practice. In brief, what the inversion means is that, in contrast to the masters discourse, where the master signifier, S1, hides the truth about the self-assured masters own finitude (symbolized by the signifier $), by inverting these two signifiers it is suggested that the new masters position is one where he is only too aware of his own shortcomings, is plagued by self-doubt, indulges in regular self-criticism, and so on. However, what is hidden in this case is the truth which the capitalist hysterical master would rather keep out of sight that, no matter how convincingly the capitalist may show solidarity with workers, ecologists, social activists and so on, claiming that he is equally committed to finding solutions to ostensibly intractable problems, deep down there is no doubt in his own mind about his project: it is still the masters. Hence, as Pauwels (2008, p. 3) rightly points out, the hysterical capitalist master is at most a pseudo-hysteric, because, although his style of rule has changed fundamentally, it is really only part and parcel of capitalisms fiendish (wildly clever) capacity to re-invent itself whenever it faces a crisis of legitimacy. By displaying such flair in adapting to what might otherwise be adverse conditions, the capitalist takes the wind out of his worst critics sails, and even succeeds in making allies of them (Pauwels, 2008, pp. 4-5). Evidence of hysterical capitalist discourse One of the most revealing instances that Pauwels (2008, pp. 4-6) adduces, in his effort to compensate for Lacans lack of specific, concrete examples of hysterical capitalist discursive behaviour, concerns an episode from the film documentary, The Corporation, based on Joel Bakans book by the same title. The scene-sequence in question shows an encounter between the Chairman of Shell and a group of activists that visits his rural home with the purpose of denouncing the activities of the Shell Corporation in Third World countries like Africa, where it stands accused of grossly exploiting human and natural resources. To the utter surprise and consternation of the activists, the Chairman and his wife not only readily talk to them in an ostensibly open and receptive manner about their grievances, but also treat them hospitably by giving them lunch on their lawn. Most importantly and here the sheer genius of the capitalist masters discourse surfaces unmistakably the
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Chairman displays an eagerness to resolve the problems listed by the activists, to the point of inviting them to join Shell in finding such solutions. The implication extremely effective in its discursive power is that, while the activists are in the position of merely agitating for solutions in a fairly impotent manner, the Shell Corporation has the power and resources to do something about it. Small wonder that such rhetorical mastery leaves those with legitimate grounds for objection without ammunition! And yet, no one should be fooled by it: the bottom line remains the same, namely for corporations like Shell to maximise profits even as their hysterical discursive style of mastery succeeds in covering up their real intentions. Small wonder, too, that (as Pauwels remarks) this discursive style has contributed substantially in defusing criticism of capitalism from the left the capitalists consistently appear in the guise of being more radical than their critics! So apart from that provided by Pauwels, what evidence is there that the capitalist is indeed in the position of the hysteric or what I would prefer to call (as Pauwels does) the position of a pseudo-hysteric, given Lacans characterization of it as wildly clever? As the earlier discussion of Pauwelss highly suggestive paper has indicated, there are many sources (including other critical ones) which confirm this unlikely diagnosis. In a recent TIME magazine (Woo Liu, 2008, pp. 46-47), for example, an article on an international brand, Coca-Cola, announces the companys intention to become water neutral: its CEO offered the assurance that:
every drop of water it uses to produce beverages would be returned to the earth or compensated for through conservation and recycling programs. Water is the main ingredient in nearly every beverage that we make, Isdell said. Without access to safe water supply, our business simply cannot exist.That big thirst is why its essential that Coca-Cola addresses water issues as part of its corporate social responsibility program, says Jeff Seabright, the companys vice president of environment and water resources. Population growth and climate change mean that water is no longer available in seemingly limitless quantities and Coke needs to be part of the solution, not part of the problem.

If one considers that climate change has itself been persuasively linked to industrial activity of mainly a capitalist kind (Kovel 2007; Bakan 2004), and that the masters discourse in the political register has always drawn on the economic power imparted to it by such activity, it may seem as if Coca-Cola as capitalist company par excellence is distancing itself from the master, refusing it in a paradigmatically hysterical manner. This impression would be erroneous, however. Does the company not admit that, without access to clean water, its businesscannot exist? Which, the impression of being on the side of the clean water-activists notwithstanding, is a confession that the bottom line remains power through profit.
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This pretence on the part of the capitalist, that (usually) he is in the position of the hysteric, who incessantly questions recalcitrant authority in the name of the improvement of the social, economic and (more recently) ecological aspects of the human condition, is constantly exposed as being precisely that: a mere pretence. Pauwels discussion of the encounter between the Chairman of Shell, as well as my reference to Coca Colas show of ecological concern already demonstrates how easily this may be done, but to drive the point home, consider the following. As I was writing this sentence, my eye was caught by a report on the front page of the (Eastern Province) Weekend Post (Hayward 2008: 1) on the table next to me, with the heading: Supermarkets destroying East Cape farming. It concerns the worry, on the part of farmers in this region, that their situation is increasingly becoming economically untenable, due to the fact that powerful supermarket chains which sell their produce, such as meat and milk, are paying them far below the supermarket selling prices for these products (the article refers to huge profits made by supermarket chains) in some cases the mark-ups on products are in the region of between 200% and 300% (for example, farmers receive R22/kg for prime beef, while it sells for more than R72/kg in stores). If one considers that this is happening in the context of supermarkets constantly assuring consumers that they are paying low, low prices (an assurance I saw about a week ago at Shoprite Checkers, where the CEO is paid an annual salary of just below R60 million according to the local press), or that We are on your side, keeping prices down, it is not difficult to discern the discrepancy between the supermarkets positioning themselves as hysterics that constantly question and challenge the economic status quo for the benefit of consumers, while secretly acting according to the hidden (repressed) law of the master: Reinforce and extend my power at by all available means in this case through the accumulation of capital (indispensable for wielding economic, political, social, cultural and military power) at the apparent cost (according to the report in question) of the very agricultural producers who, ironically, the supermarkets depend on! No doubt, should the supermarkets be approached on this matter by the press, their public relations representatives would show (that is, feign) the greatest concern for the plight of farmers who fear going out of business, and declare themselves willing to meet with farmers to find innovative ways of addressing the problem. But no one should be fooled by such a gesture: As Joel Kovel, following Marx, observes, capital always tends to degrade the conditions of its own production for the maximization of profit (Kovel, 2007, p. 38). Such degradation of production-conditions includes paying suppliers in this case the farmers as little as they (the retailers) can get away with, as well as the lowest possible wages to their workers (for the minimization of which management is rewarded royally), and conducting
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the least amount of maintenance necessary of production-facilities (which are continually deteriorating, until such time when they have to be replaced by technologically superior ones). There are many other instances that could be cited here as evidence of the hysterical persona adopted by the capitalist (see for example Kovel, 2007, p. ix), all of them extremely effective in assuaging potential public concern about the extent to which capitalism is complicit in the widening gap between rich and poor in the world, as well as being the main culprit as far as the worsening ecological crisis goes (Kovel, 2007, pp. 1-25; Olivier 2005b, 2007a), but I believe the point has been made adequately within the limits of a paper such as the present one. Critical prospects? Hence, what is to be done? And done without wasting any time, given the rapid rate at which unbridled capitalist activity is depleting natural resources and continuing its breaking up of communities?3 What critical methods4 are available to one in ones effort to convince onlookers that the emperor is sans clothes? One such approach is suggested rather cryptically by Pauwels (2008, p. 9), following Agambens interpretation of a Kafka short story, according to which the open door of the law is more forbidding as far as challenging the law goes, than a closed door, which seems to indicate that ones strategy should be a patient one of waiting for the door to be closed, and perhaps employing tactics and stratagems to bring about the closing of the door. The open door of the law here corresponds to the new, protean style of the hysterical capitalist master who, instead of closing the door to criticism, maintains an open door policy, inviting criticism instead of repelling it, in this way defusing its potential impact and validity in advance. An avenue of critical action, which appears to me to be consonant with what Pauwels is suggesting, is encountered in the work of social theorist Ulrich Beck, where he argues for a switch to a complex cosmopolitan vision that would subvert an outmoded commitment to binarist thinking at all levels. Focusing on the privileged position of capital in the present world order, Beck stresses something that most appropriately so-called consumers easily forget vis--vis capitalism, namely, that (2007: 9-10):
the counter-power [to capital] of global civil society rests on the figure of the political consumer. Not unlike the power of capital, this counterpower is a consequence of the power to say always and everywhere no, to refuse to make a purchase. This weapon of nonnon-purchasing cannot be delimited, whether spatially, temporally, or in terms of an object. It is, however, contingent upon the consumers access to money, and upon the existence of an [sic] superfluity of available commodities and services among which consumers may choose.
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This insight seems to me to propose a strategy which corresponds to the psychologically paralyzing open door policy on the part of the hysterical capitalist master as its critical counterpart: just as the latter short-circuits criticism from the left in advance, so consumers on condition that they wake up to their own potential power of putting their consumer behaviour on hold regarding specific commodities can paralyze capital selectively, stunting its indispensable growth in the process, thus negotiating for themselves (and perhaps for the planet) a better material and ecological dispensation.5 Beck therefore reminds consumers forcefully that they could organize themselves transnationally into a lethal weapon against capital after all, they cannot be fired (Beck, 2007, p. 10)! This growing counter-power of the consumer points to a valuable lesson by saying no to the exhortation to buy, one could join the increasing numbers of people who are becoming aware of their power to combat the excesses of capital (the mainstay of the hegemonic nations, and the main threat to psychological and ecological health today) where necessary. After all, consumers must realize, sooner or later, that their actions are predicated on the fact that the state no longer constitutes the counter-power to capital. Once this course of action is adopted on a large enough scale, it would seriously limit gross exploitation of resources it is nonsensical for the state to intervene in free economic activity by forcing it to be un-free in the context of the free market. I would further argue that Naomi Kleins (2007) unmasking of the latest phase of capitalisms development as disaster capitalism is another instance of what Pauwels hints at as a possible strategy against the disarming self-criticism of the hysterical capitalist master, to wit, finding the means for obliging the capitalist to close the door that he has so beguilingly left open. This is what I initially described as the possible disintegration, in certain areas of capitalist activity today, of the hysterical capitalist masters (hysterical) disguise, which if it is indeed the case would amount to closing the door, thus enabling criticism instead of defusing it. Through intelligent, relentless and thorough research Klein has uncovered the links between the shock therapy used initially in psychiatric hospitals, supposedly to give psychiatrists a clean slate (of patients psyche) to work on, and later by the US military to disorientate prisoners with a view to breaking down their resistance, on the one hand, and the Chicago School economic theory referred to at the outset in this paper, on the other. The connection consists in this: just as the concept of shock operated in psychiatry (before it was discredited) and still does in the military, Friedmans purist neoliberal-capitalist economic theory, which insists on the primacy of the market, is further predicated on the very same principle of disorientation through shock for laying the foundation of market-driven
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privatization of every sphere of social life (in anticipation of huge profits). Klein quotes Friedman to this effect (2007, p. 6):
only a crisis actual or perceived produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable.

Given the shape assumed by the implementation of this brand of capitalist economics, Klein (2007, pp. 3-21; 49-71) dubs it disaster capitalism, and proceeds to enumerate some of the recent instances of forcible imposition of Friedmanite principles in the wake of the crises that he saw as golden opportunities. These include the virtual eradication of public schools in New Orleans during the period following Hurricane Katrina, and their replacement by publicly funded, but privately run, for-profit charter schools (a process that saw job-losses of many erstwhile teachers in the public school system, and is widely perceived as having reversed the gains of the civil rights movement regarding the same standard of education for all children). Similarly, in the wake of the devastating tsunami in the vicinity of Sri Lanka, the people who had previously lived in fishing villages on the coast found themselves dispossessed of their livelihood (fishing in the ocean where they lived) when pristine coastal areas were made available to developers for the establishment of world class resorts (the playgrounds of the rich) by the government at a time when they were still reeling with shock. Again, the American invasion of Iraq left the local population severely traumatized, creating the desired opportunity for private companies to gain a foothold in the country. The cynicism behind the pretence, to be bringing democracy, with all its hysterical discursive associations of freedom (accompanied by the real thing, free trade) to Iraq, is captured to perfection by Mike Battless remark (quoted in Klein, 2007, p. 9), that For us [his private security company], the fear and disorder offered real promise. This is hardly an instance of the hysteric speaking; I would argue that the voice of the master can be detected there. As Klein wryly observes, His words could serve just as well as the slogan for contemporary capitalism fear and disorder are the catalysts for each new leap forward. Her fearless excavation of the dirt underneath capitalisms perhaps largely (globally) persuasive hysterical persona (in the etymological sense of mask) gives the lie to its performance on the world stage. Kleins, merciless exposure of the excesses of capitalism (and one could add Bakans and Kovels as well) must surely rank as a means of painstakingly forcing capitalism into a corner by means of scrupulous argumentation, backed up with incontrovertible evidence. Such a patient, critical intellectual strategy gives new impetus to the critical resources of
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those concerned with capitalisms sinister, but wildly clever ruse of adopting the manner of its severest critics, with debilitating results for the latter. Being forced into a corner by such relentless scholarship, it is difficult even for the capitalist discourse to extricate itself from the well-founded charges of promoting its own narrow economic interests at the cost of those of the people directly and detrimentally affected by its cynical exploitation of natural as well as humanly caused disasters. To be sure, signs of its adopted hysterical persona abound, and this is emblematically evident in Milton Friedman, arguably (together with Friedrich Hayek) the chief architect of the hegemonic neoliberal variety of capitalism, being proclaimed a champion of freedom when he died (Klein, 2007, p. 18). (Ironically, Californian governator, Arnold Schwarzenegger known for his many film appearances in the roles of a variety of freedom fighters, that is, hysterics vis--vis a dictatorial order of some kind even publicly dedicated a day in Friedmans honour following his death!) That the hysterical capitalist master is secretly governed by the masters discourse, is strikingly confirmed by none other than Milton Friedman, in conversation with Joel Bakan (writer of The corporation), in response to the latters question, how far Sir John Browne, chief of the BP oil company, could push his newly professed green convictions, that BP is beyond petroleum, and that the oil companies should no longer choose between profits and a clean environment (which makes it very clear that they are not about to give up profits). According to Bakan (2004, pp. 41-42) Friedman said:
He can do it with his own money. If he pursues those environmental interests in such a way as to run the corporation less effectively for its stockholders, then I think he is being immoral. Hes an employee of the stockholders, however elevated his position may appear to be. As such, he has a very strong moral responsibility to them.

Theres the rub no matter how persuasively capitalist companies employ the adopted discourse of the hysteric to convince the public of their concern for the environment and for society at large, their overriding concern, professionally and legally if not morally is to guarantee profits for stockholders; in fact, this is their only legal obligation (see Bakan, 2004, pp. 35-37). Friedmans claim that Browne has a moral responsibility to put stockholders interests first should be placed in relation to the question, whether unbridled capitalist growth is not perhaps the most egregiously immoral, unethical process imaginable, when the well-being of the entire planet and its inhabitants is at stake.6 One cannot easily overestimate the pervasiveness of the hysterical discourse on the part of the new capitalist masters, even if the mask sometimes slips, revealing the cynical features of the beast (as in the case of
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the private security executive quoted by Klein, above). An exemplary instance of capitalisms hysterical persona, in addition to that of Sir John Browne, Bakan (2004, p. 32) concerns a Shell television advertisement, showing a romantic woman environmentalist (who also happens to be a Shellemployed geologist) flying by helicopter in an area with beautiful mountains and lakes, talking to indigenous people in their huts, and looking skeptically at heavy trucks trundling across an unspoilt landscape. As Bakan observes, the point of the advertisement is to let the audience suspect that the woman is an ecological activist, only to be informed, in a charming Scottish-accented voice-over, that shes not at war with the oil company; she is the oil company. Viewers should therefore (supposedly) be reassured that Shell is leading the field in its concern for the environment. But, as I hope to have shown, there are limits to the persuasiveness of this hysterical behaviour on the capitalists part. Conclusion Hence, to conclude, if the hysterical strategy of the capitalist has been largely effective in defusing even the most valid, well-grounded criticism aimed at uncovering the obscenely destructive side-effects of capitalist production and development socially as well as ecologically then one has to create (or report) circumstances that leave the hysterical capitalist master no option than to the drop the mask and reveal him- or herself as being really a pseudohysteric, secretly committed to an unassailable or rather, unquestioned project, propelled by the relentless privatisation or colonization of the natural and social world in pursuit of more profit. This is a prerequisite for socially and politically effective critique. It may be argued that stripping the hysterical capitalist of his or her mask cannot itself happen by means of critique of any kind whether the latter assumes a philosophical, psychoanalytical, socialscientific or journalistic character and that it can only happen, as hinted at by Lacan (above), in capitalist discourse itself being headed for a blowout, because it consumes so well that it consumes itself... (an extremely suggestive remark, not elaborated on further by Lacan). And yet, I believe that Lacans own work, in conjunction with that of Lacanian intellectuals like Pauwels, Copjec and Zizek, as well as persistently investigative (journalistic or philosophical) writers like Naomi Klein, Joel Bakan and Joel Kovel, has been in the process of advancing the kind of critique which has, slowly but surely, been eroding the mask of pseudo-enlightenment and quasi-selfcriticism, donned by the hysterical capitalist master, thus forcing him (or her) to close the door and show his (or her) true colours. Even if it turns out not to be sufficient in exposing the capitalist emperor as being without clothes, if the blowout which Lacan believes the capitalist discourse is destined for does
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eventually occur possibly in an indirect manner, in the shape of an unprecedented ecological catastrophe, which cannot be ruled out (see Kovel, 2007, pp. 21-25) all these instances of critique (including the present one) will have been vindicated.7
References Bakan, J. (2004). The corporation. The pathological pursuit of profit and power. London: Constable. Bracher, M. (1994). On the psychological and social functions of language: Lacans theory of the four discourses. In Bracher, M., Alcorn Jr., M.W., et al. Lacanian theory of discourse. Subject, structure and society (pp. 107-128). New York: New York University Press. Beck, U. (2007). A new cosmopolitanism is in the air. Signandsight.com Lets talk European (http://www.signandsight.com/features/1603.html; accessed 22/11/2007). Byatt, A.S. (1998) Jal, in Elementals: Stories of fire and ice. London: Random House. Copjec, J. (1994). Introduction. In: Supposing the subject. Ed. Copjec, J., pp. vii xiii. New York: Verso. Fink, B. (1997). The Lacanian subject. Between language and jouissance. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Harvey, D. (1990). The condition of postmodernity. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Hayward, B. (2008). Supermarkets destroying East Cape farming Agricultures outcry: Chains exorbitant prices and failure to split profits fairly cited for plight. Weekend Post, May 31, p.1. Klein, N. (2007). The shock doctrine. The rise of disaster capitalism. London: Allen Lane Penguin. Kovel, J. (2007). The enemy of nature. The end of capitalism or the end of the world? Second, revised edition. London: Zed Books. Lacan, J. (2007). The other side of psychoanalysis; 1969-1970 The seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book 17. Trans. Grigg, R. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. Lacan, J. (1978). On psychoanalytic discourse. (pp. 1-15). Trans. Stone, J.W. Available online at http://web.missouri.edu/~stonej/Milan_Discourse2.pdf ; Accessed 9 May 2008. Olivier, B. (2008). Negotiating the paranoiac structure of human knowledge: Fowless The Magus and Lacan. South African Journal of Psychology 38 (1), pp. 176-199. Olivier, B. (2008a). Private health care, or health-needs exploitation? Posted on the Mail & Guardian Online Thought Leader site www.mg.co.za, 11 January. Olivier, B. (2008b). Naomi Klein on disaster capitalism. Posted on the Mail & Guardian Online Thought Leader site www.mg.co.za, 19 January. Olivier, B. (2008c). The excesses of capitalism. Posted on the Mail & Guardian Online Thought Leader site www.mg.co.za , 1 July. 40
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Olivier, B. (2007). Truth, power, intellectuals, and universities. Paper presented, by invitation, at International Conference on Philosophy in Africa, organized by the Philosophy Department of St Augustines College, Johannesburg, South Africa, 23 October (submitted for publication). Olivier, B. (2007a). Nature as abject, critical psychology, and revolt: The pertinence of Kristeva. South African Journal of Psychology, Vol. 37, No. 3, 2007, pp. 443-469. Olivier, B. (2007b.) Wake up and smell us burn and crash. Article published in the (Johnnic Communications, SA) Weekend Post. 10 November, p. 9. Also posted on the Mail & Guardian Online Thought Leader site www.mg.co.za, as The urgent need to wake up to the demands of the environment. 23 November. Olivier, B. (2007c.) The obsession with money. Posted on the Mail & Guardian Online Thought Leader site www.mg.co.za, 23 November. Olivier, B. (2007d). Neo-what? Posted on the Mail & Guardian Online Thought Leader site www.mg.co.za, 7 December. Olivier, B. (2005). Lacan and the question of the psychotherapists ethical orientation. SA Journal of Psychology 35 (4), 657-683. Olivier, B. (2005a). Lacan and narrative identity: The Piano Teacher. In Word, (wo)man, world: Essays on literature (pp. 94-112). Festschrift for Ina Grbe. Oliphant, A.W. & Roos, H. (Eds). Pretoria: UNISA Press. Olivier, B. (2005b). Nature, capitalism, and the future of humankind. South African Journal of Philosophy 24 (2), pp.121-135. Pauwels, M. (2008). Lacan and the subversion of the discourse of the capitalist. Paper (unpublished, to the best of my knowledge) presented at PSSA Conference, University of Pretoria, 17 January. Thompson, J.B. 1990. Ideology and modern culture. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Woo Liu, L. (2008). Water pressure. TIME magazine, June 23, pp. 46-47. iek, S. 1993. The thing that thinks: The Kantian background of the noir subject, in Shades of Noir A reader, ed. Copjec, J. London & New York: Verso, pp. 199-226. 1. A telling example of such an objet a is found in a short story by Antonia Byatt (1998), namely Jal, in the volume, Elementals, where the colour red triggers in the narrator the unsettling memory, in the first place, of the colour with which she illustrated the biblical story where the eponymous heroine kills the enemy general sleeping in her home, causing the red blood to flow from his head. But secondly, it simultaneously triggers her confused memory of her (probable) involvement in sabotaging the attempt, on the part of her schools best athlete and leader of the in-group at their school, to repeat her usual victory in a cross-country race, inadvertently causing her severe injury when she fell and hit her head against a hard object. Byatt subtly intimates that there are associative similarities between the biblical story of Jal and the deed (gone seriously wrong) committed by the narrator, born of envy and resentment at not being allowed into the other girls group. The colour red is therefore her object a, and represents or causes her desire for a life, not merely free from the pangs of conscience resurrected repeatedly whenever she sees a certain hue of red, but most fundamentally her desire for being part of a community represented by the girl whom she inadvertently injured. To belong to
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such a community represents her unattainable jouissance. Slavoj iek (1993, pp. 206207) draws attention to another illuminating instance of objet petit a documented in Freuds work. 2. I dont think it is an accident that, further on in the text, Lacan (1978, 11) hints at the prospect of psychoanalysis becoming an accomplice of capitalism in America: A discourse that would finally be truly pestilent, wholly devoted, finally, to the service of capitalist discourse. This seems to me to suggest that, just as mainstream psychology easily (and usually) functions to prop up the discourse of the master or the dominant order, so, too, psychoanalytic practice could easily, in a country marked by unbridled capitalism, become the slave discourse, endlessly reproducing servants of this order. 3. See in this regard Kovel, 2007, pp. 57-60, for an account of such a disintegrative effect of capitalism on communities in Mexico, by luring young people to the free trade border city of Juarez with the promise of earning a few measly dollars. In the process especially the young women risk losing far more than just their family life, as they are easily drawn into the night club, sex and drug business, again with the carrot of supposed high dollar earnings. Kovel (2007, pp. 54-55) also describes a similar effect of capital on equatorial rain forest villagers, some of whom blindly exchanged a simple, but fulfilling community life for the real thing, Coca-Cola, where the latter functions as emblem for the quick fix wages promised by the mining companies to susceptible young people from these villages. The price they pay is ultimately the socially integrated village life they once had, where, to be sure, wealth in western terms did not exist, but in its place there was a life of plenty of food, as well as family and community cohesion, interwoven with a worldview which was not shot through with the nihilism which is typically produced by capitalisms tendency to exploit everything nature as well as people for profit. 4. On several earlier occasions (including Olivier 2007 and 2007a) I have put forward other avenues of criticism aimed at dislodging capitalisms stranglehold on societal organization, for instance via a discourse-analytical unmasking of the corporatization of universities, and an enlargement of the practice of critical psychology so as to include the relation of human beings with nature in an encompassing sense. 5. Incessant growth is one of the indispensable conditions for capital to operate, and capitalism as a way of life to exist. The other two are, firstly, exploitation of labour in the sense that a gap necessarily has to obtain between workers wages (and other production costs) on the one hand, and capital income through sales, on the other, and secondly, the need for continued technological development and innovation, without which the required diversity in commodity production cannot be regularly introduced (see Harvey 1990: 180). 6. See in this regard Olivier 2005b and 2007a. 7. Personally, I believe that the gravity of the matter is such that one should utilize every possible avenue to conscientize colleagues, students and the public at large. This would include lectures, conference papers, radio and television as well as other public talks and discussions, and also publications ranging from academic articles and books to popular ones in newspapers or on the internet (see for example Olivier 2008a, 2008b, 2008c, 2007b, 2007c and 2007d).

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