[lbo-talk] Capitalism & Psychoanalysis

joanna bujes jbujes at covad.net
Thu Jul 15 08:35:41 PDT 2004


One way of avoiding being in the present is by dwelling in the future. The symptom is anxiety. The symptom of the living in the past is depression. In bold strokes, of course.

Capitalists don't enjoy their profits in the future. They enjoy them in the present. As for the rest of us....well.

When you plant a seed, you are investing in a future harvest. I don't think it makes sense to characterize capitalism as something that is future oriented, though there is every reason to expose its notion of progress.

Joanna

Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:


> Joanna wrote:
>
>> psychoanalysis is more about making people conscious of the
>> multitutde of ways they avoid being in the present. Most of these
>> strategies, of course, have to do with relating to the present as if
>> it were nothing other than a symbolic sediment of the past.
>
>
> "Making people conscious of the multitude of ways they avoid being in
> the present" probably is a decent summary of psychoanalysis, but,
> then, psychoanalysis misses the most potent source of anxiety under
> capitalism: future. Even in its simplest form, capitalism sacrifices
> the present for the future: capitalists make investments to make
> profits -- not now but later. Since capitalism has developed to a
> more complex stage, expectations and obligations that mature in the
> future have come to poison the minds of not just the bourgeoisie but
> also the proletariat: mortgages, installment plans, credit cards, car
> payments, student loans, etc.



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