Paradoxes of the capitalist discourse: a new subject?

Abstract

This article proposes, based on Jacques Lacan's theory of discourses, a questioning about the capitalist discourse in the matheme form presented in 1972, by the occasion of Milan’s Conference. The capitalist discourse had already been mentioned by the author in another form, especially in the Seminar 17, "The other side of psychoanalysis" (1969/1970), when he pointed it as a variant of the discourse of the master. Herein, Lacan always referred to this discourse by emphasizing the difference between the modern master (capitalist) and the traditional master (lord), albeit both occupying similar positions, that is, revealing the same configuration of relationship in the social bond. In 1972, on the other hand, in the conference above mentioned, Lacan proposed the matheme of the capitalist discourse, yet he pointed out that this form would be condemned to consume itself, and therefore not to sustain its own existence. We then question the possibility of the capitalist discourse existence as an unprecedented expression of the subject’s relation which has never occurred in any other historical moment.