When someone raises the question of capitalism and perversion, it is often the case that consumerism and commodity fetishism (and its epitome, feminine bodies objectified in the media “spectacle”: Debord) take the total blame, so that the productive field of labor-power (still imagined to be fundamentally masculine) can be fully vindicated from obscenity.

Is it truly the case that the productive labor is so purely innocent and “idyllic” (despite its intense opposition to “idleness”)? Or is this the final frontier where Socialist Feminism catches Marxism red handed, who still seems to sacrifice women’s embodiment in order to save men’s authorization? [1] The idealization of productive labor has deep roots in the following Marxian notion:

Labor-power (variable capital) is the only true source of value, i.e. only labor-power can generate surplus-value; in contrast, factories and machinery (constant capital) can only displace the existing quantities of value around the system.

This notion of labor-power as the eternal fountain of all earthly riches is quite suspicious to psychoanalytic ears. It rather sounds like a fantasy screen whose function is to conceal an obscene reality.

In linguistic terms, the notion above seems to turn labor-power into a “basic metaphor” that can generate all new meanings, while also turning the capitalist machinery into some kind of “basic metonymy” that can serve as an (im)passive ground that will silently support the sublime generative activity of the labor-power (notice here the masculine productive activity housed by the feminine reproductive ground). Although Bogdanov’s Tektology (1917) surely contains the notion of “labor as the basic metaphor” [2], it never mentions any metonymy, basic or otherwise, which would of course not stop the notion of “system as the basic metonymy” from being one of the hidden presuppositions of Bogdanov’s Universal Organizational Science.

To drop the fantasy curtain of labor-power as the fountain of all riches, let’s make a definition: Effort is engaged labor-power [3]. Unlike the positive emanations of labor-power, this term manages to catch the ambivalence between “effort as sacrificial initiative” and “effort as meaningless waste of time”. This imbalance relates to other terms, consider the ambivalence between “struggle as righteous fight” and “struggle as hopeless flounder” or the ambivalence between “(s)he deserves to succeed” and “(s)he deserves to die”. These deep ambivalences are sure indications that we are in perverse waters. This is the topsy-turvy domain of jouissance and drives.

Another such term is “working-class pride” which is ambivalent between “pride as self-confidence” and “pride as sheer vanity” [4]. All these ambivalences (effort, struggle, deserve, pride) obviously relate to one another, but what holds them together by “grabbing” the core of them all, as it were?

Now imagine hearing drum rolls and fanfare before I announce the true perverse core of capitalism:

1) Capitalist production is all about steering people into making themselves used by bosses and enjoying to suffer this passivity.

2) Consumer markets are all about selling people a million ways to disavow this perverse core of capitalist production.

“Making oneself used” is an addition to Lacan’s phrases about drives; like the scopic drive as “making oneself seen”, the invocatory drive as “making oneself heard”, etc. (Seminar 11, p. 195) [5]

What does this mean? It means that the true fetish of capitalism is not money but labor-power [6]. Money is a universal commodity only in the symbolic sense, just as the Master-Signifier S₁ is a symbolic exception (proof that one is exempt from castration); whereas labor-power is a universal commodity in the real sense, just as the lack in the Other S(Ⱥ) is a real exception (evidence that nobody is exempt from castration) [7]. In other words, money encapsulates the conservation of energy, whereas labor-power encapsulates the increase of entropy (since working dissipates heat, it makes perfect sense that consumption would totally be about being cool) [8].

Financial and other compensations that the boss pays to the worker are not just means to help the worker withstand the suffering and pain that (s)he endures by making himself/herself used by the boss. It’s also (and perhaps mainly) a legitimate cover to veil the obscene enjoyment of making oneself used. Unable to acknowledge this passive fantasy directly, the worker projects both (active and passive) sides of it onto (powerful and weak) others, neighbors, his wife, the immigrants, the president or whomever.

It is not impossible to escape the clutches of this drive, but it’s much more convenient to just project and displace it onto the others. The main concern of the superego is to veil this drive, which is why these two are coexistent. But the superego necessarily fails to veil this perverse obscenity, since this fantasy is quite obvious for all to see in a common notion: One can deem labor-power “productive” only insofar as the worker makes themself used by their boss.

The objectification of feminine bodies in the media spectacle is merely a secondary perversion; it’s a screen for the workforce to project their traumatic enjoyment of making themselves used, which constitutes the primary perverse core of capitalism. It’s structured like Freud’s “A child is being beaten” formulas [9]. The sad fact is that all socialist and communist attempts to negate capitalism reproduced this core drive by founding their camaraderie on “making oneself used by the party of the proletariat”. Trump was able to win the elections only because his bossy ego construction tapped into the people’s obscene drive to make themselves used by the boss.

(Turkish)

Işık Barış Fidaner is a computer scientist with a PhD from Boğaziçi University, İstanbul. Admin of Yersiz Şeyler, Editor of Žižekian Analysis, Curator of Görce Writings. Twitter: @BarisFidaner

Notes:

[1] See “The Traversal of the Phallus”

[2] This is based on Wark’s revival of Bogdanov. See “Against Social Determinism” and Molecular Red (2015) by McKenzie Wark.

[3] See “Effort is engaged labor-power”, “Symbolic Engagement and Real Engagement”, “Knowledge-at-work is an Effort with Real Engagement”, “All Success is a Success of the Repression of Sacrifice”, “Masculine and Feminine Marxism”; my emphasis on effort was inspired by “Designs for a New World” by McKenzie Wark.

[4] See “Working-Class Pride and Authorization”

[5] About the evolutionary drive of making oneself worked on, see “Dissipative Adaptation is Death Drive”

[6] See also “Manifesto against Labour” (31 December 1999) by Krisis-Gruppe (a nice way of marking the turn of the century)

[7] See “Symbolic Exception and Real Exception”, “Proof is masculine, evidence is feminine”

[8] See “Incomplete Universe: Energy & Entropy, All & Not-All”

[9] See “An account is being blocked”

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