.jpg) Cover of the first edition | |
| Author | Jean-François Lyotard |
|---|---|
| Original title | Économie Libidinale |
| Translator | Iain Hamilton Grant |
| Language | French |
| Subjects | |
| Publisher | Les Éditions de Minuit,Indiana University Press |
Publication date | 1974 |
| Publication place | France |
Published in English | 1993 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover andPaperback) |
| Pages | 275 (English edition) |
| ISBN | 978-0253207289 |
| Preceded by | Discourse, Figure |
| Followed by | Duchamp's TRANS/formers |
Libidinal Economy (French:Économie Libidinale) is a 1974 book by French philosopherJean-François Lyotard. The book was composed following the ideological shift of theMay 68 protests in France, whereupon Lyotard distanced himself from conventionalcritical theory andMarxism because he felt that they were still toostructuralist and imposed a rigid "systematization of desires".[1] Drastically changing his writing style and turning his attention tosemiotics, theories oflibido, economic history anderotica, he repurposedFreud's idea of libidinal economy as a more complex and fluid concept that he linked topolitical economy, and proposed multiple ideas in conjunction with it. AlongsideGilles Deleuze andFélix Guattari'sAnti-Oedipus,Libidinal Economy has been seen as an essential post-May 68 work in a time when theorists in France were radically reinterpretingpsychoanalysis, and critics have argued that the book is free of moral or political orientation. Lyotard subsequently abandoned its ideas and views, later describing it as his "evil book" ("livre méchant", literally "nasty book").[2]
Lyotard appropriates various ideas ofFreud's, in particular his idea of libidinal economy by whichlibido flows, like a form of energy, through a structure ofdrives, while also using his idea ofpolymorphous perversity and appropriatingJacques Lacan's idea ofjouissance to detail how masses of intensities form. He also introduces ideas of his own, such as a "great ephemeral skin" or "libidinal band," which serves as a surface of reality, harboring signs through which libidinal intensities pass; the "tensor," a nihilist semiotic idea that stands for a sign with no "unitary designation, meaning, or calculable series of such designations or meanings";[3] "great" zeros (which correspond to Lacan'smaster signifier) and "concentratory" zeros (which correspond toMarx's notion ofcapital). These ideas are used to discuss relations of force, flow and intensity in philosophy and economics, while mainly asserting thattheory, because of its "immobility", has never adequately described or caught up to these relations. Lyotard concludes the book by proposing in a revolutionary manner that thinkers should "stay put, but quietly seize every chance to function as good intensity-conducting bodies."[4]
Alongside wildly varying references, Lyotard incorporates the work of Marx (in particular his theory of organic and inorganic bodies),Nietzsche andSaussure in this context of this appropriation of Freudian ideas, as well as the perverse sexuality displayed in the fiction of theMarquis de Sade andGeorges Bataille. The economic work ofJohn Maynard Keynes is deployed to, in the context of libidinal economy, define credit and interest as circuits of intensity. Lacan,Deleuze and Guattari andJean Baudrillard are evoked pertaining to the aftermath ofMay 68; while being indifferent to their ideological concerns, he points out both similarities and differences between his work and that of Baudrillard, but argues against him that "every political economy is libidinal", and against his use ofhistorical materialism, writes that "there are no primitive societies".[5]
Libidinal Economy was first published in 1974 byLes Éditions de Minuit. In 1993, it was published in the philosopherIain Hamilton Grant's English translation byIndiana University Press.[6]
Commentators have comparedLibidinal Economy to Deleuze and Guattari'sAnti-Oedipus.[7] The philosopherPeter Dews argues thatLibidinal Economy, while part of a phase of Lyotard's thought less well-known thanAnti-Oedipus in the English-speaking world, is important for its "treatment of the problem of the appropriate reaction to the erosion of the traditional" caused by "the incessant expansion of capitalist economic relations"; he also praises Lyotard's critique of Lacan. However, he argues that because Lyotard rejects Deleuze and Guattari's idea of opposing "good" revolutionary desire to "bad"fascist desire,Libidinal Economy is "bereft of any political ormoral orientation". He notes that Lyotard subsequently rejected ideas he had advocated in the book, in order to discuss a "post-modern concept ofjustice", arguing that this could be considered an attempt by Lyotard to "make amends" for its "implicit amoralism". Dews suggests that Lyotard too quickly rejected the perspective advanced in the work.[8]
The term "accelerationism" was first coined by professor and authorBenjamin Noys in his 2010 bookThe Persistence of the Negative to describe the theoretical trajectory of certainpost-structuralist works embracing unorthodox Marxist and counter-Marxist overviews of capitalism, such asAnti-Oedipus,Libidinal Economy andBaudrillard'sSymbolic Exchange and Death.[9]
The philosopherDouglas Kellner writes thatLibidinal Economy andAnti-Oedipus were both key texts in the "micropolitics of desire" advocated by some French intellectuals in the 1970s; according to Kellner, the "micropolitics of desire" advocates revolutionary change in practices of everyday life as a way of providing "the preconditions for a new society". He contrasts Lyotard's views with those ofBaudrillard, noting that the latter eventually abandoned the "micropolitics of desire".[10] Grant comparesLibidinal Economy to the philosopherJacques Derrida'sOf Grammatology (1967), the philosopherLuce Irigaray'sSpeculum of the Other Woman (1974), and Baudrillard'sSymbolic Exchange and Death (1976), as well as toAnti-Oedipus, noting that like them it forms part ofpost-structuralism, a response to the demise ofstructuralism as a dominantintellectual discourse. He writes that the book is less well-known thanDerrida's work, and that Dews's critique of it reflects a widespread view of it, that it drew a hostile response from Marxists, and that Lyotard himself was subsequently critical of it. However, he also notes that Lyotard is reported as having seen it as one of his key works, alongsideDiscourse, Figure (1971) andThe Differend (1983).[11]
Simon Malpas suggests that the book is Lyotard's most important early work available in English translation, crediting Lyotard with providing "fascinating discussions ofFreud,Marx andcapitalism." He observes that as of 1993, the book was generating increasing interest among critics who have given attention to the work Lyotard produced before becoming interested in postmodernism.[12] Anthony Elliott argues that Lyotard's ideas are problematic from the standpoint of criticalpsychoanalytic theory, and involve questionable assumptions about human subjectivity and agency. In his view, Lyotard's "celebration of the energetic component of the unconscious is achieved at the cost of displacing the vital role of representation in psychic life" and his contention that representation is a local effect of libidinal intensities "erases the fundamental stress upon representation in Freud's interpretation of the self." Endorsing Dews's criticism of the work, he concludes that Lyotard's concept of libidinal intensities is not useful for "critical social analysis".[13] The philosopherAlan D. Schrift writes thatLibidinal Economy reflects the passion surrounding the events ofMay 1968 in France, as well as disappointment with the Marxist response to those events.[14]
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