The Masochism and Sadism of Capital

“Disruptive innovation” and the “Creative Destruction” or “Schumpeter’s Gale” in terms of technology also led us to the cause and root of why liberal bourgeoisie power has been decaying in the first place, namely, the logical inconsistencies and flaws which can be found throughout liberal discourse. In a sense, it all comes down to discourse. It is the discourse which then impacts our collective and social reality. And there are four major discourses which we must reckon with one way or another, namely, Marxism, Islam, Bourgeoisie Liberalism, and Populism. Each discourse also comes with its own ontological condition. In other words, each discourse consists of a particular state of being. 

In terms of Marxism, the core of the discourse is class and revolution. Islamic discourse is theocentric. Liberal bourgeoisie discourse revolves around capital and money. And populist discourse is rooted largely in anger and frustration. Analysis is largely discourse analysis. When we analyze speeches and texts, we must take the next step of deciphering what the discourse is behind the speeches and texts. As mentioned before, capitalism and bourgeoisie liberalism go hand in hand. But the broader decay of liberal bourgeoisie power which we highlighted before is libidinal in nature. What capitalism does is that it sets a “libidinal infrastructure” first and foremost. And when capitalism transforms and passes through its various life stages, the transformations are largely libidinal in nature. It follows that without an understanding of Freud and Marx, our analysis and understanding of the Modern West would be incomplete and stinted. We would not be able to analyze and understand the Modern West properly and thoroughly without an incorporation and understanding of Freud and Marx. 

There is also the idea that everything is either capital, or everything is primitive. In other words, pre-capitalist social relations may have never even existed. Or, there is the possibility that there is a primitive, pre-capitalist realm in which one can escape to and is outside of capital, and that in fact there were pre-capitalist social relations which existed before capitalism and the rise of modern civilization. The “libidinal infrastructure” and the idea that capitalist transformation is libidinal in nature comes into the picture when we take one of Freud’s main assertions into account, which is that modern civilization and discontent are intertwined with one another. Modern civilization is the root cause of repression, as was contended by Freud. How do desire and modern work accommodate one another? This question is then answered and resolved through the issue of Freudian instincts.

And by contemplating this question, we bring Freud and Marx together. Freud and Marx ultimately come together in our assessment of capitalism as both the organizing principle of the Modern West and as something which goes through libidinal transformations over the course of time. In turn, the libidinal transformations of capitalism lead us to wonder if there are any “subversive” regions or alternatives to capital. Is there anything separate from or outside of capital? Some Marxists would even suggest that even the proletariat can never really be separate from capital. There is nothing outside of capitalist realism, as some would suggest. We would never even be able to go as far as finding something primitive and pre-capitalist in terms of social relations. The proletariat themselves, the object of adoration and affection for Marxists, is itself absorbed and drawn to the “masochism” and “sadism” of capital. To be free from capital would mean to be free from desire, and ultimately, there is no decoupling from desire. And as a result of the fact that there is no decoupling from desire, one is “bound” to capital through both desire and libidinal considerations. Moreover, capital is not even the main focus anymore. Desire is “immanent” to capital. Yet, the paradox is that given that there is no longer an outside to capital and that as a result there is no inside-outside distinction to our social space as a result of capital, we can then perhaps go beyond capital and beyond the truth that everything is bound to capital. Hence, the notion or the idea of “post-capitalism” which has entered into academic and intellectual discourse in recent times.