Toward a political economy of subjection: the fetishistic dialectic and the production of subjects in capitalism La Dialéctica Fetichista y la Producción de Sujetos en el Capitalismo

Abstract

Through an approach that combines political economy and psychoanalysis, this paper proposes a way to understand how the logic of capitalist reproduction produces both the subjects and the processes of subjectivation that sustain this social bond. To this end, we explore the homology established by Jacques Lacan between his concept of surplus-enjoyment and Marx's surplus-value. Based on this homology, we believe it is possible to conceive the dialectic in the early chapters of Capital as a movement of signifiers, which produces meaning. In this process, the fetishistic containment and negation of the forms and contents associated with the commodity create the space of possibility for reason and subjection that support the reproduction of capital.