The Capitalist Unconscious ─ Marx and Lacan

A major systematic study of the connection between Marx and Lacan’s work

This book discusses the importance of Marx’s critique of political economy in Lacan’s attempt to rethink the political and philosophical legacy of Freudian psychoanalysis. By situating Marx in the broader context of Lacan’s teaching, it highlights the ongoing importance of the capacity of psychoanalysis to reaffirm a dialectical and materialist thinking in philosophy and beyond. Lacan presents an unorthodox image of Marx, linking his critique of capitalism with the fundamental concepts of psychoanalysis, the Freudian “labour theory of the unconscious” and emancipatory politics, showing that psychoanalysis, structuralism and the critique of political economy participate in the same movement of thought, which revolutionized the human sciences and whose relevance remains intact even today.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Samo Tom?ic obtained his PhD in philosophy at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. In the past he has worked at the Institute of Philosophy in Ljubljana and at the Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht, and is currently research assistant in the interdisciplinary cluster “Image Knowledge Gestaltung” at the Humboldt University in Berlin.


From the eBook edition.