Julien-François Gerber: The Psychoanalytic Critique of Capitalism and Its Elements
I. Introduction This article attempts to systematize the psychoanalytic critique of capitalism, aiming to promote a shift or return in contemporary psychoanalytic research toward the study of capitalism and its alternatives. Research on this issue revolves primarily around the following questions: What are the psychic foundations of capitalism? How are we integrated into it, and what are its psychic costs? Why does capitalism hold sway over so many of us? How does the economy constrain us? And how do we unknowingly shape and support the economy? Furthermore, as David Graeber asks: "What are the possible dimensions of non-alienated experience?" This is the deepest question of critical theory.
In describing these issues, the author’s goal is to begin addressing the "missing psychoanalysis" of capitalism. Although Yannis Stavrakakis provided a brief introduction to capitalism from a Lacanian perspective in his recently edited volume, economic issues are strikingly conspicuous for their lack of psychoanalytic investigation within the social sciences. Psychoanalyzing capitalism is not without precedent, but it has never formed a self-conscious field of inquiry. At worst, most research findings are disjointed and often scattered within closed "theoretical black boxes." Therefore, the purpose of this article is to encourage dialogue within this "field," in the hope that a comprehensive psychoanalytic critique of capitalism will emerge soon.
Generally speaking, social scientists studying economic issues rarely utilize psychoanalytic theory. Regrettably, the late Neil Smelser—the father of economic sociology and a trained psychoanalyst—never elaborated on any "psychoanalytic economic sociology," aside from occasional mentions in essays written from an Eriksonian perspective. The same is true of Smelser’s doctoral advisor, Talcott Parsons, despite his also having been trained in psychoanalysis. Similarly, very few economists hold a positive view of psychoanalysis, even though some of the most influential economists, such as Joseph Schumpeter and John Maynard Keynes, did. Schumpeter believed that psychoanalysis had "possibilities of wide application in economics." Keynes’s fascination with psychoanalysis was well-known; he wrote in a very psychoanalytic vein that the "essential characteristic of capitalism" is its "dependence upon an intense appeal to the money-making and money-loving instincts of individuals as the main motive force of the economic machine." While psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic writers frequently mention economic issues, they have never actually addressed them in any systematic manner.
II. A Brief History of the Psychoanalysis of Capitalism (1) Beginnings Sigmund Freud was keen to apply his views to economic analysis; he famously compared the "economy" of the mind to a commercial enterprise. According to this comparison, libido—as a form of currency—can be stored, invested for profit, or closed off non-reproductively in neurosis like a dormant asset. Freud overturned the "economic man" model; he argued that emotions and unconscious desires are the key drivers behind human behavior, including in the economic sphere. Keynes’s concept of "animal spirits" can be seen as the psychoanalytic counterpart to "economic man." Freud remained open to the possibility of combining psychoanalysis with Marxism.
In his early works, Freud conceptualized humans as a conflict between two aspects: on the one hand, their libidinal energy is rooted in the "Id," seeking pleasure, play, and love, which he called the "pleasure principle"; on the other hand, he conceptualized the "reality principle" as economic constraint. Thus, the essence of the "Ego" lies in the fact that repressed desires cannot be satisfied within harsh economic reality, a fact reflected to some extent in the prohibitions and injunctions of the "Superego."
However, starting in 1920, Freud moved away from the opposition between "libido" and "economy" to emphasize something even more disturbing: the conflict between libidinal repression (Eros) and the death drive (or Thanatos, though Freud himself never used the term). The death drive refers to the self-destructive tendency to repeat trauma, loss, and failure; an experience that provides the subject with a certain satisfaction but is not inherently pleasurable. It can be understood as an impulse aimed at throwing off all tension to reach a state of complete stillness and rest. Freud called this the "Nirvana principle," [1] a principle with profound economic significance.
(2) Early Psychoanalytic Views on Money Freud's early followers wrote several articles on economic issues, focusing primarily on the psychoanalysis of money. For them and for Freud, the link between money and feces was deeply rooted in our psyche: "Wherever ancient modes of thought predominate or persist... the relationship between money and feces is most intimate." Géza Róheim noted that in Melanesia, shells used as money were also called the "excrement of the sea." Ernest Borneman discovered hundreds of German and English expressions linking money with excreta. According to recent research, this connection can be traced back to the infant's earliest relationships and sensations. Within this foundational framework, the accumulation of money is seen as a form of "retention" originating from excessive toilet training in childhood, and is associated with a character type allegedly well-suited to capitalist society—the "anal character"—characterized by orderliness, parsimony, and self-discipline.
(3) The Expansion of Psychoanalytic Research on Capitalism Among early psychoanalysts, there were four prominent Austrian "outsiders" who also studied economic issues. On the political right, Edward Bernays and Ernest Dichter exerted a profound influence on 20th-century capitalist management. Bernays, Freud's nephew, was a pioneer in the fields of public relations and propaganda, applying psychoanalytic tools to sectors such as tobacco and banana companies. Dichter pioneered the field of marketing and applied Freudian methods to the study of consumer behavior and the advertising industry. This psychoanalytic tradition persists and is not limited to Freudian theory; the views of Carl Jung have also been adopted by professional marketers attempting to influence consumers using "deep metaphors" (archetypes).
On the radical left, the anarchist psychoanalyst Otto Gross was the first scholar to use Freudian ideas to critique capitalism, proposing alternatives based on early forms of feminism and sexual liberation. Similarly, the radical psychiatrist Wilhelm Reich articulated the first attempt to reconcile psychoanalysis with Marxism. Like Gross, Reich realized that individual therapy would always be limited unless integrated with broader social change. He specifically pointed out that the traditional patriarchal and authoritarian family model was a veritable "factory" for reactionary ideology and structures: this model suppresses and often brutally treats the libido, ultimately propping up the entire political-economic structure of capitalism. He called his method "sex-economy," thereby emphasizing that both sexual and economic liberation are necessary for true emancipation. If life energy were allowed to flow freely through appropriate social transformation, neurosis—as well as the capitalist spirit of possession, conquest, and accumulation—could be subverted. These ideas had a major influence on the Frankfurt School, as well as on Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s Capitalism and Schizophrenia—though this point is not always appropriately acknowledged.
(4) The Post-War Boom The "Glorious Thirty" (1945–1975, the thirty years of French economic growth) witnessed a boom in the psychoanalysis of economic issues—particularly research carried out by the Frankfurt School, the Tavistock Institute, and French post-structuralism. It was not until the late 1970s that this encounter between psychoanalysis and economics became highly influential.
The "Freudian Marxism" of the Frankfurt School expanded upon some of the theories originally proposed by Reich. Scholars of this school believed that Marx's analysis of the superstructure had to be further refined. To this end, they revisited German Idealism, especially Hegel’s theory, and applied sociological and psychoanalytic insights. They demonstrated how social structures—through the culture industry—appear in the deepest recesses of our psyche, as well as in our blind spots, neuroses, pleasures, and frustrations. Few members of the Frankfurt School explicitly addressed economic issues from a psychoanalytic perspective; the most prominent were Herbert Marcuse and Erich Fromm (who had immense influence beyond academia), along with many distinguished fellow travelers such as David Riesman, Walter Weisskopf, Norman Brown, and later Russell Jacoby, Christopher Lasch, and Joel Kovel. This group continues to resonate in contemporary social thought and has inspired scholars like Anselm Jappe and Hartmut Rosa.
In London, the Tavistock Institute played a pioneering role in the psychoanalysis of capitalist corporations. Early collaborators of the institute included Wilfred Bion, who was influenced by Melanie Klein. Bion believed that both groups and organizations possess an unconscious life that can be psychoanalyzed. This research method stemmed from the view that modern psychoanalysis could "revolutionize" workplace relations. Ultimately, two camps emerged: a management camp seeking to "cure" organizations and reform capitalism, and a more critical camp seeking post-capitalist alternatives. A few socialist Kleinians associated with the Tavistock Institute made explicit reference to capitalism.
In France, post-structuralist intellectuals have written extensively on the link between libido and capitalism. Most of them maintained complex relationships with Jacques Lacan, the primary progenitor of French psychoanalysis. Lacan argued that our transition from "nature" into "culture" is accompanied by a profound sense of loss or lack, which influences all our subsequent pursuits. He explained that every infant experiences their first loss upon realizing they cannot permanently possess the mother. Consequently, throughout their lives, the subject subconsciously searches for this elusive "object-cause of desire" (objet petit a) that attracted the caregiver. Then, when the infant acquires language and internalizes the established cultural order—which Lacan calls the "Symbolic" order or the "Other" of the subject—they experience a second loss. Because any system of signification will forever remain incomplete, the subject will never be able to fully capture that which must be expressed or understood—what Lacan calls the "Real." This again produces frustration and desire; the infant's alienation from the Other generates a longing for a sense of fullness that haunts them forever. Thus, desire has a fundamentally traumatic origin, as well as an exogenous and unachievable nature, which is of great significance for understanding capitalism.
(V) New developments under the influence of neoliberal thought
The 1980s and 1990s witnessed the rise of Lacanian approaches to the critique of capitalism, influenced by the Ljubljana School [2] and the post-Marxist Essex School [3]. The Ghent School and representatives of the Lacanian school concerning growth and development represent the latest branches of these studies. Furthermore, a Latin American branch led by David Pavón-Cuéllar is emerging. Most of these Lacanian-inspired critiques initially departed from an elaboration of Marx’s concepts of "ideology" and "hegemony." In short, a key idea can be summarized as follows: the inevitable and painful gap between the "Symbolic" and the "Real" is ultimately "sutured" in the "Imaginary" by appealing to various fantasies. If "capital itself is the Real of our time," then its connection with capitalism becomes obvious. As we have seen, fantasy, desire, and the disavowal [4] of counter-evidence become key means by which capitalism sustains its own existence ideologically, economically, and politically.
Since the mid-1980s, a small number of Jungian and Jungian-inspired scholars have also written on economic issues, such as Theodor Abt, Luigi Zoja, Andrew Samuels, Bernard Lietaer, and Tomáš Sedláček. Jung never wrote systematically on economic issues, though he offered a harsh critique of capitalist modernity and expanded the concept of alienation. For him, the root of alienation lies in modernity's overconfidence in the conscious ego, which separates the subject from their "Self" (their entire psyche, including the conscious and unconscious, as well as body, soul, and mind), thereby creating a profound sense of meaninglessness and disorientation. This form of alienation obstructs the process of "individuation"—the lifelong journey of developing an individual's unique potential by integrating conscious and unconscious content.
As Cornelius Castoriadis once remarked, we have a wealth of ideas in this area that might one day produce a synthetic "economic psychoanalysis." Such a field would be capable of discerning the "true" meaning of economic values, norms, and behaviors; linking them to political-economic and cultural structures; and guiding the construction of post-capitalist alternatives to promote human and non-human flourishing. In the following, the author will review these ideas and propose a holistic typology capable of bringing them together.
III. Four Directions of the Psychoanalytic Critique of Capitalism
The psychoanalytic model of the "economic actor" corresponds to an individual wedged between instinctual drives and moral principles (Freud), between the expression and repression of vital energy (Reich), between the Real and the Symbolic (Lacan), and between opposing archetypes (Jung). The formation and resolution of these conflicts depend on multiple factors, including personal capacity, childhood, gender, education, or culture; however, it also depends largely on the economic system in which the subject lives. This system defines structures of oppression and privilege, as well as several key ideological narratives that the subject is forced to internalize.
First, individuals can collectively introject specific political-economic norms and values. Individuals can also project unconscious material onto economic phenomena or economic actors for the purpose of production or reinforcement—for example, when the working class identifies with the upper class to protect themselves from the suffering of powerlessness (projective identification). Often, this relationship is bidirectional (introjective and projective) and produces a powerful reinforcement mechanism, which helps explain why an unjust and unsustainable system like capitalism persists.
Psychoanalysts have questioned the flaws of capitalism from different perspectives. The author proposes a "roadmap" that will help integrate the research findings of the psychoanalytic critique of capitalism. It consists of a typology of four key "mainstreams," symbolized by four mythical figures: Eros, Thanatos, Ahriman, and Lucifer. Eros and Thanatos are well known in psychoanalytic literature: Eros represents the life energy (libido) associated with sex, love, and creativity, while Thanatos represents the death energy (death drive) associated with destruction and aggression. The repression of Eros leads to various forms of alienation, while the acting out of Thanatos leads to self-harm and repetition compulsion.
In contrast, the figures of Ahriman and Lucifer are not frequently used by psychoanalysts. Occasionally, Jung mentioned both, but Rudolf Steiner conceptualized them as two key "adversaries" of humanity: Ahriman representing materialism, mercantilism, and the abuse of technology; and Lucifer representing intellectualism, abstraction, and hubris. From a psychoanalytic perspective, broadly speaking, Ahrimanic impulses refer to basic drives that prioritize individual bodily pleasure combined with a will to power; while Luciferian tendencies narcissisticly overvalue the individual’s conscious ego, deny material limits, and tend toward grandiosity. Both tendencies indicate an inability to love and can be understood as overcompensations against existential dread.
From this view, these four research themes can capture the trends in the psychoanalytic critique of capitalism, each of which can be linked to specific scholars and achievements. For example, the critiques of Gross, Reich, and Marcuse can be linked to sexual repression (Eros); the Lacanian school is particularly interested in repetition compulsion (Thanatos); the early Freudian school was concerned with accumulation, greed, and their link to bodily pleasure (Ahriman); and Jung and Fromm explored the dangers of overconfident intellect (Lucifer).
(I) Eros: Capitalist Repression and Resultant Alienation
This line of critique argues that capitalism creates "false needs" and directs the libido (Eros) toward the advantages of capital in a way that is existentially harmful to the subject.
Marcuse claimed that capitalism imposes a one-dimensional world of commodities, including "one-dimensional sexuality," upon the subject. He elaborated on how capitalism’s competitive "performance principle" prevents the subject from sublimating their libidinal energy in creative ways—a phenomenon he termed "repressive desublimation." Deleuze and Guattari also argued that capitalism has been more successful than any previous mode of production in separating labor power from life energy. They wrote that capitalist society is unique in human history because it tends to decode and deterritorialize [5] all things with intrinsic value, replacing them with quantified monetary value.
For Marcuse, Deleuze, and Guattari, Freud failed to develop the emancipatory possibilities of his theory. Therefore, Marcuse sought to prove that human drives are not only biologically fixed but also socially and historically constructed, which creates possibilities for liberation. He argued that we need to reconnect the body and passions (Eros) with reason (Logos). He hoped for Eros and Logos to stand on equal footing and, unlike Freud, viewed unconscious resources as a potential supporting force for progressive social change. Deleuze and Guattari also argued that the commodification process not only fuels exploitation but also liberates (or detaches) desire from "social norms," thereby releasing a vast amount of "free-flowing energy" that capital does not always recaptivate for private accumulation. Thus, for them, desire is not related to any primordial loss; it can be subversive.
Freud always maintained that society needs to exercise some judicious repression over individual instincts: this might lead to collective neurosis, but it also ensures socio-economic reproduction and allows for constructive sublimation. For Marcuse, some form of "basic repression" might be necessary for social life, but the "surplus repression" exerted through various forms of coercion is not, and this is where things can be changed. For the past 40 years, Christophe Dejours has been clinically studying the processes of repression and sublimation in French workplaces. He argues that the social organization of work could be a "shortcut" for expressing or sublimating libidinal energy; however, neoliberalism destroys the possibility of nurturing this process. Similarly, outside the workplace, Rosa [6] proposed the concept of "resonance." Resonance has a quasi-physical quality (vibration) and involves the body, soul, and mind. Rosa argues that capitalism's addiction to growth prevents resonance from occurring because it constantly accelerates and produces chronic exhaustion.
From Reich to Rosa, this line of critique has produced a wealth of influential theories but has also invited criticism. Jean-François Lyotard did not agree with Marcuse’s view that capitalism "alienates" its subjects and represses "healthy" Eros. He argued that it is impossible to have any standard to define a healthy Eros because our libidinal investments possess an ingrained ambiguity that will always permeate society.
(II) Thanatos: The Endless Movement of Capitalism
Lacan argued that the death drive explains the dynamics of capitalism better than Eros and its repression. Unlike Marcuse and Deleuze, Todd McGowan wrote: "Many critics of capitalism fail to see that desire itself... is the problem rather than the solution."
In the late 1960s, in addition to proposing his famous "four discourses," Lacan occasionally commented on a fifth—the "capitalist discourse"—attempting to explain the notorious, never-ending movement of the capitalist economy. In it, he offered a non-Marxist explanation for capitalist dynamics. For him, capitalism exploits the subject’s primordial loss for its own benefit. Essentially, capitalism posits that there is a solution to this loss because the resulting desire can be satisfied through commodities. Even if the final satisfaction is an illusion, the object-cause of desire is real within the subject’s psyche.
It is pointless to argue, as some critics of consumerism do, that capitalism "creates" desires or false needs. Instead, capitalism—like any economic system—channels pre-existing desires in a specific way. From this perspective, the concept of "alienation" is problematic if it is premised on the claim of restoring a healthy "human essence," because we are universally alienated from the very beginning.
For the Lacanian school, capitalist ideology is rooted in the promise of a future of full satisfaction based on consumption. In reality, however, the capitalist subject endlessly oscillates between "success and failure, satisfaction and emptiness, infinite credit and infinite debt." What remains unconscious in this process is that the repetition of failing to achieve total satisfaction is actually a hidden source of pleasure. Consumers are rationally aware that consumption will not make them happier, but at the same time, they are unconsciously drawn to their own failure, which in turn stimulates their desire. While desire searches for the "lost object," the drive is attracted to the primordial loss itself; thus, they can only endlessly cycle around it without ever finding it. Most importantly, since desire is always the desire of the Other, the subject's primary question is not "what do I desire?" but "what am I supposed to desire?" Ideology, therefore, activates and manages desire while simultaneously teaching us how to desire. This Lacanian understanding of ideology does not always conflict with "Freudo-Marxist" interpretations—for instance, when Marcuse points out that the modern subject "desires what he should desire."
McGowan argues that the "genius" of capitalism lies in integrating primordial loss into its core, within the concept of the fetishized commodity. Consequently, the superego of contemporary capitalism does not repress desire, but rather commands us to satisfy it. The new superegoic injunction—"Enjoy!"—applies to all classes and explains why Lacan believed that under capitalism, "every individual is a true proletarian." From this perspective, McGowan writes, "the feeling that capitalism fits our pattern of desire is not entirely ideological," because "the emergence of capitalism and its psychic appeal are related to the nature of human subjectivity." While nothing in the development of capitalism was inevitable, "one might say that we are psychically predisposed to invest ourselves in the capitalist system," which explains why capitalism holds such an extraordinary grip over us.
Many social critiques from the contemporary Lacanian school exhibit a pessimistic tone; however, Lacan himself proposed a way out that is rarely discussed by Lacanians, which he called the posture of the "Saint." For Lacan, the "Saint" seems related to ancient spiritual concepts of non-attachment: "The Saint refuses enjoyment (jouissance)." We can contrast this statement with Slavoj Žižek's observation that "the lesson of the drive is that we are doomed to enjoy: enjoyment persists no matter what we do; we can never get rid of it; even our most radical efforts to renounce it are contaminated by the enjoyment of the effort itself." Figures such as Pieter de Vries, Ceren Özseluk, and Yahya Madra can be seen as exceptions within the Lacanian school, as they argue that enjoyment or desire holds potential constructiveness in post-capitalist politics.
Not every scholar understands the death drive in a Lacanian way; some non-Lacanian scholars also emphasize the close relationship between capitalism and destruction. Benjamin Fong has conducted a sophisticated non-Lacanian study of capitalism’s death drive. He argues that the death drive should be distinguished into three interrelated but distinct forces acting upon the infant psyche. First, the death drive of the Nirvana principle can be understood as a longing for the care structures of early life, a time when the boundaries of the mind, body, and others were fluid. Second, aggression and power are distinct from this, as they are initially violent reactions to the death drive itself and the omnipotence of the caregiver. Finally, one should not confuse Freud’s frequent mentions of the "drive for mastery" (Bemächtigungstrieb) [7] with the "will to power," the latter of which is often combined with the death drive. In fact, relevant to our current discussion, the drive for mastery also represents a counter-impulse to the death drive, aimed at protecting oneself from the loss of self and from the caregiver. Fong explains that in the desire to possess and develop technology, its effects may remain visible socially. However, this positive, self-protective side of technology can also produce harmful effects, particularly when combined with the will to power, as we shall discuss next.
(III) Ahriman: Capitalism’s Hedonistic Will to Power
The third line of critique associates the subjectivity of capitalist modernity with a type of hedonism that manifests particularly clearly through the centrality of technology and money. Dany-Robert Dufour argues that the novelty of capitalist modernity lies in its profound reshaping of our psyche. He contends that capitalism has "de-symbolized" the world, largely erasing transcendental values and minimizing the prohibitions of the superego; otherwise, the way is clear, leaving subjectivity largely free-floating and easily lost in the constant flow of commodities. The surge of addiction under the capitalist system—from internet pornography to technology—is a severe consequence of this phenomenon.
Under capitalism, prioritizing material hedonism requires money, and thus socio-economic power. Psychoanalysts have had much to say about money, greed, and the will to power. For example, Wolfgang Harsch explores the idea that the commodity-money relationship is a primordial version of the breast-feces exchange between mother and child. Harsch argues that sometimes capitalism can be interpreted as a regression to this infantile economy: just as a child is able to receive more than they must "give," so too is the successful investor in a capitalist society. Money and property rights allow the rentier capitalist to live off the labor of others, much like an infant living off a mother, where natural resources are viewed as inexhaustible. Similarly, Nick Haslam notes that Freud’s old concept of the "anal character" has reappeared in literature under different names, though its research potential has yet to be fully excavated.
At the social level, Bernard Lietaer proposed an original Jungian view of money and power. He argues that different economic systems—especially different monetary systems—can be associated with specific dominant archetypes. Centralized systems involving precious metal coinage, interest-bearing loans, and money as a store of value are related to the Warrior and Sovereign archetypes common in patriarchal societies. Conversely, decentralized mutual credit systems without interest or storage are related to Relationship and Nurturing archetypes common in societies where women have higher status. In Lietaer's view, both monetary systems have their respective advantages, and in the few historical cases he documented where both systems coexisted, they produced surprisingly positive socio-economic outcomes, including impacts on women.
Does this mean that a return of the "feminine principle" might be a way out of the capitalist materialism-power complex? Some psychoanalysts remain open to this idea from different angles. For example, Jean-Joseph Goux argues that "feminization" represents a departure from the three key, structurally similar oppressors of Western modernity: patriarchy, logocentrism, and capitalism. For the Jungian school, they sometimes advocate for a return to "feminine imagery" (anima) in an economic system currently dominated by "masculine imagery" (animus) archetypes. However, for Juliet Mitchell, femininity is an ideological construct rooted in the Oedipus complex. She argues that the latter provides a blueprint for understanding how women and men unconsciously form selves in unequal ways within a patriarchal context. Nevertheless, Mitchell's approach is not necessarily incompatible with Jung's, as they may focus on different contents of the unconscious: while Mitchell focuses on the superego, the Jungian school is interested in deeper "pathways," even if these "pathways" are expressed in socially constructed ways.
(IV) Lucifer: Capitalism’s Rationalizing Hubris
The Luciferian dimension represents a force opposite (even if sometimes complementary) to the Ahrimanic: it insists that the rational intellect is omnipotent, superior to matter, and capable of transcending any limitation, including death—a fact that is easily denied.
The way capitalism conceptualizes itself is most evident in the discipline of economics. Walter Weisskopf provided the first, and perhaps to date the only, systematic psychoanalytic study of neoclassical economics. He argues that neoclassical economics is a clear example of "rationalization" in the Freudian sense: it serves as a defense mechanism against the ego’s fear of a world full of irrationality, uncertainty, and imbalance. Concepts such as "equilibrium," the "invisible hand," or "perfect information" produce a reassuring picture of economic reality. While neoclassical economics acts as a tranquilizer for internal conflicts, its self-confidence and ambition are simultaneously boundless, as it claims universality and seeks to reorganize the world in its own image.
Fromm’s character analysis skillfully continues this theme. For him, the "anal character" of the Freudian era was being gradually replaced by a new ultimate variant of the capitalist character: (the Luciferian) "monocerebral man," who is "almost entirely brain-oriented, wanting to know what things are, how they work, and how they are constructed or manipulated." For this character, "emotions have withered rather than been repressed; they are alive but uncultivated, and relatively crude; they appear in the form of passions (such as the passion to win or to prove superiority over others)." The monocerebral character tends to exhibit narcissistic traits, which are usually compensations for an unconscious sense of powerlessness. Fromm believes the monocerebral tendency applies to the majority of people in modern economic society, and its primary flaw is manifested in an overconfidence in intelligence and a disconnection from the feeling function—the "heart."
Theodor Abt applied Jungian theory to analyze the transition of the 20th-century Swiss Alps toward capitalist modernity. He argues that with industrialization and the introduction of schools, media, and state laws, a new ego-oriented lifestyle emerged. "We believe that through our own ingenuity, we can control the growing (existential and ecological) imbalances [of capitalist modernity], but we will also remain unable to understand the spirit of moderation in nature," a spirit found in the unconscious and expressed in myths, rituals, and the living symbols of the Self.
Capitalism is saturated with unconscious dynamics, a point that is self-evident to any researcher with a psychoanalytic orientation. Maureen Sioh studied an East Asian corporation, demonstrating that when managers confront the anxiety provoked by an unequal global financial system, their performance tends toward: (1) denying the unfairness of the rules; (2) splitting subjectivity into "good" and "evil," equating "good" with affluent nations; (3) identifying with the idealized aggressor (predatory capitalism) to protect themselves from feelings of helplessness; and (4) projecting failure onto poorer citizens, neighboring countries, or ethnic minorities. She claims that all these defensive measures allow these managers to temporarily restrain their fears. Similar observations can be made at the macro level. As Ilan Kapoor argues, economic development is replete with disavowed memories (such as colonialism), traumatic prohibitions (such as economic recessions), fantasies (such as structural adjustment), obsessions (such as economic growth), and stereotypes (such as the infantilization of "underdeveloped" regions). We are now far removed from the rationalist dreams of neoclassical economists. On the contrary, as Sedlacek has argued from a Jungian perspective, economics is a product of Western civilization and is therefore closely linked to its cultural subconscious.
In contrast to the Luciferian tendencies of the "single-brain" subject, all these studies call for more humility and the precautionary principle, more ecology and somatic foundations, and, most importantly, more "interiority" in order to come to terms with unconscious attachments—potentially including our own unsettling unconscious attachments to neoliberalism, sexism, or racism. This also applies to radical scholars, who should not prematurely believe that it is sufficient to launch a rational critique of capitalism without needing to examine the deeper irrational forces within it.
IV. Conclusion
This article has sought to contribute to the psychoanalytic critique of capitalism. It first identified the primary historical approaches to such critique and then presented several representative concepts along four complementary axes: libidinal repression (Eros), repetition compulsion (Thanatos), hedonistic will to power (Ahriman), and narcissism and rationalized hubris (Lucifer). Each type may apply to different social strata and groups within capitalist society, yet each has its preferred target: the first fits the condition of the working class; the second fits consumers of any class; the third fits the affluent class; and the fourth fits the managerial class and the economists who represent its interests. While these four themes are sometimes complementary, they also contain significant points of tension.
Disagreements exist regarding the content of the contemporary capitalist superego: does the latter repress creative libidinal energy, or does it compel us to "enjoy" at any cost? Disagreements exist on the question of capitalist subjectivity: is it infected by "head-shrinking" (apathy) or "single-braining" (hubris)? Disagreements exist regarding the concept of alienation: is alienation part of the human condition, or do specific social conditions corrupt our innermost "core"? Disagreements also exist on post-capitalist practice: is desire to be released and cultivated, or reduced and controlled? Finally, what is to be gained politically from "feminization"?
Despite the aforementioned disagreements, this article has attempted to show that there are no insurmountable differences between different schools of psychoanalytic thought in the study of capitalism. Consequently, this article also calls for more dialogue and cooperation between methods and traditions.
Among the most influential psychoanalysts, the theories of scholars such as Alfred Adler, Erik Erikson, Otto Rank, Melanie Klein, or Donald Winnicott remain underutilized in the critique of capitalism. As the field integrates, this situation is expected to change. Furthermore, the extent to which Jungian perspectives can assist the radical left may still surprise some. Wilhelm Reich’s subversive research on subtle energies may echo ancient East Asian and South Asian traditions, but in the West, it may still be ahead of its time. It would be a serious mistake to hastily dismiss Reich as a relic of the radical left.
In any case, capitalism has never been a monolith, nor is there a single "capitalist subject." Nuanced distinctions and attention to class, gender, race, and cultural diversity will surely be central to a comprehensive psychoanalysis of capitalism. How to adapt or transform the psychoanalytic critique of capitalism in non-Western contexts remains a challenge. We can learn much from the pioneering research of Frantz Fanon or Ashis Nandy, or from recent works in Latin America.
Finally, this article contends that psychoanalysis can provide nourishment for post-capitalist politics. We have seen that psychoanalytic research into alienation, ideology, and possessive individualism cannot be limited to curing the capitalist subject. Individual recovery can only succeed when it goes hand in hand with the transformation of broader political, economic, and ecological relations. However, to achieve these transformative goals, activism [8] must have a clearer understanding of the internal dynamics of anti-capitalist subjects and movements; the success of external goals alone will be limited, and the historical mistakes committed by the anti-capitalist left are likely to be repeated time and again.