Global Libidinal Economy

Claims unconscious desire plays a constitutive role in global political economy.This is the first book to examine global political economy from a psychoanalytic perspective. It claims that the libidinal-the site of unconscious desire-plays not a supplementary or trivial, but a constitutive role in global political economy. Consumption, for example, is not simply a way of satisfying a material or biological need but a doomed attempt at soothing our deeply held sense of loss; and capital is not just a means to material growth and prosperity but is invested with "e;drive"e; that seduces, beguiles, and manipulates in the service of unending accumulation. Thus, in contrast to political economy, which assumes a rational subject, libidinal economy is founded on the notion of a desiring subject, who obeys a logic not of good sense or self-interest but profligacy and irrationality. By applying a psychoanalytic lens, Global Libidinal Economy thereby seeks to uncover the unconscious excesses and antagonisms emergent in such key political economy categories as "e;production,"e; "e;trade,"e; and "e;ecology,"e; while also bringing out significant contemporary themes relating to "e;gender"e; and "e;race."e;