154 Dolar

masculinejfeminine as a distinction between localization and nonlocalization: mas­

culine enjoyment is localized in a particular organ (and is thus circumscribed with
"
a "phallic" signifier, castration, etc.), while feminine enjoyment is omnipresent and
thus dangerous; it opens up a dimension beyond phallic enjoyment. But Plato's ways
part with psychoanalysis with his commonsense advice that sexual satisfaction is the
way to eure hyseeria. 8
II lf it was true that for the ancients (not only for Plato, but also for Hippocrates,
Galen, etc.) hysteria originated from the "lack of sex, lack of children" (lack of whae WIIen Su. .lul
a woman wants) and that "sex and children" would magically eure it, the medieval
perspective presented the opposite picture: the difficulties of hysteria were rooted Ellio....nt Meetl
precisely in intemperance, connections with demons, copulation with the devil, the
secret orgies, unbounded jouissance, and the eure was to be sought in Christian virtue,
Alenka ZupanCic Su. .lul Value
celibacy, refraining, and so on. Too much enjoyment or the lack of enjoyment? The
trouble is that there is no proper measure of enjoyment.
12 A good compendium of various follies uttered by philosophers, from the pre-Socratic
times up to RusselI, on the subject of women, is to be found in Annegret Stopczyk,
ed., Was die Philosophen über Frauen denken? (Munieh: Matthes and Seitz, 198o). Lacan's theory of discourses (or social bonds) is among other things a
13 In her first book, Subjects of Desire (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987)­
monumental and in many respects a groundbreaking answer to the ques­
a book she should be reminded of-Judith Butler argues a similar point: desire is
something philosophy has traditionally either tried to get rid of in order to arrive at
tion of the relationship between signifier and enjoyment. This point has
pure knowledge, or else something that had to be reduced to philosophical thought already been made by Jacques-Alain Miller: before The Other Side of
anu ineorporated into its progression. Her close reading of French interpretations Psychoanalysis, Lacan's conceptual elaborations were based on a fun­
of I legel (Kojcve, lIyppolite, Sartre, Lacan, Foucault) tries to isolate a gradual de­ damental antinomy between signifier and enjoyment. 1 These two terms
taehment from Hege!, for whom desire was subsumed to a unitary philosophical were either radically opposed (as in The Ethics of Psychoanalysis) or else
projeet and served to determine a subject's self-reflexivity in it. But the gradual de­
posited as two heterogeneous elements qualified by a certain structural
parture from Hege! in those readings brought desire to light as something irreducibly
heterogeneous and dislocated, a process in which its su bject lost the ground of self­
homology (as in The Four Fundamental Concepts ofPsychoanalysis, where
reflexive conceptuality. Yet her very title shows amistaken perspective: the problem Lacan claims, apropos of the drive, that "something in the apparatus
with desire is not so much its subject as its object. The object presents the nonreflex­ of the body is structured in the same way as the unconscious" -and we
ive heterogeneous moment; this is what brings about an unsurpassable dislocation of know that "the unconscious is structured like speech." We thus have a
the subject, its bar, and this is the point of Lacan's objet a. Subject and desire form a structural analogy between enjoyment and signifier: the two elements
dialectics ("Subversion of the subjeet and dialectics of desire," says Lacan), while ehe
are heterogeneous and remain apart, yet they are related by this struc­
object is recalcitrant to dialectics and reflexivity.
14 The distinceion between Erkenntnis and Wissen is actually crucial to Hege! as weil.
tural analogy).
One can read ehe "Introduction" to the Phenomenology precisely as a passage from The theory of discourses is something else: it articulates the enjoy­
the structures of Erkenntnis to those of Wissen (and its relation to truth). ment together with the signifier and posits it as an essential element of
15 Lacan, "Intervention on Transferenc",;' in Feminine Sexuality, ed. J. Mitchell and every discursivity. Moreover; this recognition of the discursive dimen­
J. Rose, trans. J. Rose (London: Macmillan, 1982), 65. sion of enjoyment brings forward the political dimension of psycho­
16 See Slavoj Zizek, For They Know Not What They Do (London: Verso, 1\191), 142.-46.
analysis: "These reminders are absolutely essential to make at a time
[7 Theodor Adoeno, Drei Studien %~Hegel (Frankfurt Olm Main: Suhrkamp, 1\171), <).
18 I owe this suggestion to .Im:l.Jues-Alain Milll,r.
when, in talking of the other side of psychoanalysis, the question arises
19 The formula was pn~p()st'u hy Alliin 111,~lioll. of the place of psychuQnalysis in politics. The intrusion into politics can
only he made by re~oKnillinK that the only discourse there is, and not

l rMtu
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156 ZupanCic When Surplus Enjoyment Meets Surplus Value 157

just analytic discourse, is the discourse of jouissance, at least when one This example is indeed most instructive. It circumscribes two essen­
is hoping for the work of truth from it."2 tial points that Lacan takes up in relation to this Freudian notion. First,
The question of how enjoyment articulates with the signifier, and the although the unary trait can be absolutely arbitrary, its significance for
fact that it does so, is thus the very point where psychoanalysis inter­ the subject that "picks it up" as the point of identification is of course
venes in, "intrudes" into, the political. Lacan makes a point of the fact not arbitrary at all. The uniqueness of the trait springs from the fact that
that enjoyment is (or has become) a political factor, be it in the form of it marks the relation of the subject to satisfaction or enjoyment, that is
promise ("make another effort, work a little harder, showa little more to say, it marks the point (or the trace) of their conjunction. This is quite
patience, and you will finally get it!"), or in the form of the impera­ apparent in the boarding school example. Something else is also obvi­
tive "Enjoy!" which often weighs down our contemporary existence in ous in this example: the hysterical attack of the first girl is the trait (in
a rather suffocating manner. this case, already a symptom) that commemorates her love affair at the
But first-how does Lacan, in Seminar XVII, succeed in conceptu­ precise point where there is an imminent danger of the girl losing the
ally linking enjoyment with the signifier? Via the following suggestion (beloved) object; hence her jealousy. This is the second important point
which he repeats, in different forms, all through the seminar: the loss of of emphasis that Lacan picks up from Freud, and which concerns the
the object, the loss of satisfaction, and the emergence of a surplus sat­ link between loss, the unary trait, and a supplementary satisfaction. Ac­
isfaction or surplus enjoyment are situated, topologically speaking, in cording to Freud, in thc event of the loss of the object the investment
one and the same point: in the intervention of the signifier. Lacan de­ is transferred to the unary trait that marks this loss; the identification
velops this in reference to the notion that Freud introduces in his essay with a unary trait thus occupies the (structural) place of the lost object.
on Group Psychology, that is to say, in the work that constitutes precisely Yet, at the same time, this identification (and with it the repeating and
an inaugural attempt by Freudian psychoanalysis to think some essen­ reenacting of that trait) becomes itself the source of a supplementary
tial aspects of the social (and the political). The notion at stake is that of satisfaction.
the "unary trait" (einziger Zug) with which Freud points out a peculiar Lacan transposes this into his conceptual framework by interpreting
characteristics of (symbolic) identification. The latter is very different the unary trait as "the simplest form of mark, which properly speaking
from imaginary imitation of different aspects of the person with which is the origin of the signifier" (52). He links the Freudian unary trait to
one identifies: in it, the unary trait itself takes over the whole dimension what he writes as 51. Furthermore, he delinearizes and condenses the
of identification. For example, the person with whom we identify ha~ a moments of loss and supplementary satisfaction or enjoyment into one
peculiar way of pronouncing the letter r, and we start to pronounce it single moment, moving away from the notion of an originalloss (of an
in the same way. That's all: there need be no other attempts to behave, object), to a notion of loss which is closer to the notion of waste, of a
dress like this other person, do what she does. Freud hirnself provides useless surplus or remainder, which is inherent in and essential to jouis­
several interesting examples of this kind of identification - for instance, sance as such. This thinking of loss in terms of "waste" is also what
taking up a characteristic cough of another person. Or there is the fa­ leads hirn to introduce the reference to the thermodynamic concept of
mous example from a girl's boarding school: one of the girls gets a letter entropy, to which we return below. So, jouissance is waste (or loss); it
from her secret lover which upsets her and fills her with jealousy, which incarnates the very entropy produced by the working of the apparatus of
then takes the form of an hysterical attack. Following this, several other the signifiers. However, precisely as waste, this loss is not simply a lack,
girls in the boarding school slJ.ccumb to the same hysterical attack: they an absence, samething missing. It is very much there (as waste always
have known about her secret liaison, cnvied her her love, and wanted to is), something to be added to the signifying operations and equations,
be like her. Yet, the identification with her wok this extmordinary form and to be reckoned with as such. In Seminar XX, Lacan will sum up this
of identifying with the trait thot emcrgcd, in the ~irl in QUCStlOI1, ot the status of cnjoyment as loss-waste by the following canonical definition:
moment of the crisis in her rc:1l1t!unlhlp. "jouissance is what serves no purpose II.a ;ouissance. c'est ce qui ne sert a

l ---;1iW't1"" .~-
 ~

158 Zupancic When Surplus Enjoyment Meets Surplus Value 159

rien]."3 This is precisely what distinguishes waste from lack: something One could say that for the Lacan of Seminar XVII jouissance is noth­
is there, yet it serves no purpose. What it does, on the other hand, is ing but the inadequacy of the signifier to itself, that is to say, its inability
necessitate repetition, the repetition of the very signifier to which this to function "purely," without producing 01 useless surplus. More pre­
waste is attached in the form of an essential by-product. "Jouissance is cisely, this inadequacy of the signifier to itself has two names, appears in
what necessitates repetition," says Lacan, and he goes on to show how two different entities, so to speak, which are precisely the two nonsigni­
it is precisely on account of this that jouissance goes against life, beyond fying elements in Lacan's schemas of the discourses: the subject and the
the pleasure principle, and takes the form of what Freud called the death objet a. To put it simply: the subject is the gap as negative magnitude
drive. or negative number, in the precise sense in which the Lacanian defini­
This is indeed 01 very significant shift in Lacan's conceptualization of tion of the signifier puts it. Instead of being something that represents
jouissance. There is an immediate link between signifier and jouissance: an object for the subject, 01 signifier is what represents the subject for
it is by means of the repetition of 01 certain signifier that we have access another signifier. That is to say that subject is the inner gap of the sig­
to jouissance, and not by means of going beyond the signifier and the nifier, that which sustains its referential movement. The objet a, on the
symbolic, by transgressing the laws and the boundaries of the signifier. other hand, is 01 positive waste that gets produced in this movement and
Lacan makes 01 point of stressing several times that "we are not dealing that Lacan calls the surplus enjoyment, making it clear that there is no
with 01 transgression" (56). Let me quote the most significant passage: other enjoyment but surplus enjoyment, that is to say that enjoyment as
such essentially appears as entropy.
[Enjoyment] only comes into play by chance, an initial contingency,
Let us now first take 01 look at how 0111 this can be seen in the func­
an accident. The living being that turns over normally purrs along
tioning of the master's discourse as 01 fundamental form of discursivity.
with pleasure. If jouissance is unusual, and if it is ratified by having
the sanction of the unary trait and repetition, which henceforth in­
stitutes it as 01 mark-if this happens, it can only originate in 01 very The Master's Discourse
minor variation in the sense of jouissance. These variations, after
Si ~ S2
0111, will never be extreme, not even in the practices I raised before

[masochism and sadism]. (56) $ a

So, what do we have here? First an accident, an initial contingency'in In reading the master's discourse, as well as in reading 0111 the other
which 01 subject encounters 01 surplus pleasure, that is to say jouissance; discourses, we must start from what constitutes its fundamental im­
this encounter might be unusual in respect to the pleasure principle as possibility. All four discourses revolve around 01 centrOll impossibility:
norm, yet this does not mean that it is in any way spectacular or colos­ mastery, education, analysis-the famous "impossible professions,"
Soll. lt is unusual, since it represents 01 deviation from the usual path of characterized as such already by Freud (and Lacan adds to this list of im­
pleasure in the direction of jouissance, yet this deviation or divergence is possible professions also "inciting desire," which relates to the hysteric's
never extreme, not even in what seem to be the most extravagant prac­ discourse). Lacan circumscribes the fundamental impossibility that de­
tices of enjoyment. It is bound to the repetition of the signifier that insti­ termines the master's discourse by pointing out that it is strictly im­
tutes it as 01 mark, and in this sense it always remains within the realm possible for the master as subject to faire marcher son monde (mOlke the
of the signifier. The status oE jpuissance (and of the death drive) is thus world around hirn run). To mOlke people work, he says, is even more ex­
essentially that of something intersiKnifying, so to speak: it takes place, hausting than it is to do the work oneself. And the master never does
or gives body to, 01 gap or deviation that iM internat tu thc held of signi­ this. Instead, he gives 01 sign (master signifier), and everybody starts run­
fiers. ninK·

l "",,.ti'· •. _--y..4tw'.;~,_~
%"1'=1 f
 r60 ZupanCic
, When Surplus Enjoyment Meets Surplus Value r6r

SI ~ S2 cal work and, on the other, the signifiers that fail to account for this
work, the loss (or entropy) being the amount of physical work not ac­
$
counted for. Yet, this kind of duality (which might indeed be found in
This part of the schema is thus the very formula of a "signifier repre- . earlier Lacan) is emphatically not what he aims at here. There is no pure
sents the subject for another signifier." In sociopolitical terms it could be physical work at the outset of this process, the only pure work is pre­
also read as: it is impossible to establish any sufficient reason for a mas­ cisely the element of entropy produced by it. In order to see this more
ter to be the master. There is always a gap or a leap involved here (which clearly, we must remember that what we have at the outset is a signifying
is precisely where the hysteric attacks the master), an arbitrariness on knowledge (S2), propelled to work by the master-signifier.
account of which a concrete subject-master is instituted by the signifier, SI ~ S2
and draws its power not from any of his or her inner abilities, but solely
from this signifier itself. We know that in the context of new (demo­ In other words, what we have is savoir faire, know-how, or, more pre­
cratic) masters, it is precisely this leap that is under the imperative of cise1y, knowing-how-to-do, knowledge at work, (signifying) knowledge
disintegrating into something linear and, above all, accountable (count­ and work as originally bound together (S2)' We could also formulate this
ing the votes, knowledge, skill, weaIth), as weIl as being filled in with Lacanian claim by saying that work is originally structured as a signify­
the question of merit, substituted for the chain of reasons. The modern ing network.
form of the social bond is largely determined by the imperative (call it In the master's discourse, the master signifier induces something simi­
unattainable ideal) of commensurability between the (master) signifier lar to the process of the distillation of knowledge (as savoir faire):
and the subject. knowledge becomes detached from the work with which it is bound up
What about the other part of the schema, which concerns the rela­ upon entering this discourse and is attached instead to the master signi­
tionship between the signifiers and surplus enjoyment? fier.

It is here that you have the entire effort to isolate what is called
SI ~ S2
episteme. It's a funny word, I don't know if you've ever given it
a much thought- "putting oneself in the right position", in short it's
the same word as "Verstehen". It is all about finding the position
Lacan illustrates this part by introducing the thermodynamic notion
that makes it possible for knowledge to become the master's knowl­
of entropy. In a famous passage, he invites us to imagine the following
edge. The entire function of the episteme in so far as it is specified
scene. We are invited to descend 500 meters with a weight of 80 kilos
as transmissible knowledge-see Plato's dialogues-is always bor­
on our back and, once we have descended, to go back up. It is clear that
rowed from the techniques of craftsmen, that is to say of serfs. It is
while performing this operation we will sweat our guts out and will be
a matter of extracting the essence of this knowledge in order for it
under the impression that we have performed some serious work. Yet,
to become the master's knowledge. (2I)
if we overlay signifiers of the theory of energetics on this exercise, we'll
get an astonishing resuIt: namely,. that no work was done, that the per­ Lacan lays great emphasison this point: a knowledge that "does not
formed work equals zero. For Lacan, entropy names this fact of loss, know itself" and that works passes into articulated knowledge that can
waste, or, considered from anöther angle, pure surplus, which he dcsig­ be written down and thought independently of the work which it is
nates as small a. bound up with at the outset. This is why Lacan can go on to make the
However, we must be very cardul in undersranding rhis example. The rather surprising claim that what is thus being stolen from the slave (and
idea we might get from it iN thllr we hllve, on rhe one hlllld, relll phYNi- appropriated by the master) is not the slave's work, but his knowledge.

l .•'''·$h''
 r62 ZupanCic
-,
When Surplus Enjoyment Meets Surplus Value 163

This, for Lacan, is the real spoliation and alienation at work in this dis­ To recapitulate the four fundamental features of the master's dis­
course. On the other hand work as such, "pure work," is strictly speak­ course:
ing the result, the product, the fall-out of this operation. The product
1. We have the prima facie dimension of symbolic castration­
of the master's discourse is surplus work, work as surplus (and, at the
power is bestowed upon the subject by a master signifier; it
same time, as "pure work"). Surplus work is the element of entropy tha't
comes and determines hirn from the outside, quite independently
appears as the positive correlate of a subject who appears as a negative
of the question of his "real being."
magnitude of the symbolic.
2. We therefore have a pure negative magnitude (or incommensu­

$ a rability) as the truth of this discourse, in other words, not only

that the subject is but that which the master signifier represents
The lower level of the master's discourse displays precisely this: there
for another signifier; at the same time, the truth (or essence) of
is a (non)relationship between the negative magnitude brought about by
the master signifier is nothing else than this internal gap, its in­
the intervention of the signifier ($), and that other negativity that this
adequacy to itself, the fact that it can be what it is only via a
system produces as a waste or surplus (a), on account of which the whole
minimal·difference toward itself.
of the system never exactly equals the sum of its parts. The a, the sur­
3. In the place of the other we have the signifying knowledge at
plus enjoyment, can thus also be read as work that seems to go to waste
work, subjected to what I am calling the distillation of knowl­
and that nobody knows what to do with-except for trying to regulate
edge from work. Knowledge binds with the master signifiers,
it through the science of ethics. 4
thus:
The pure work is the entropy of this system (of the master's discourse ),
4. We have, as product of this discourse, a pure surplus work or
its point of loss, something that wouldn't be there were the result equal
surplus enjoyment, a positive waste, which is not exactly the
to the sum of its elements, something that wouldn't be there if the self­
unaccounted-for work, but rather the result of the knowledge­
referential work of the signifiers were to function perfectly, without that
at-work being accounted for and articulated. This is the point of
negative magnitude ($) on account of which the apparatus of signifiers
the coincidence of loss and surplus, a coincidence that is essen­
is also the apparatus of enjoyment.
tial to the Lacanian notion of the objet a.
This brings us to another crucial point that I would like to stress be­
fore leaving the master's discourse: in this seminar Lacan often po§es
(and presupposes) a certain equivalence between work and enjoyment, The Hysteric's Discourse
and this is what makes it possible for hirn to directly relate his theory
of the discourses to some aspects of Marxian theory. There is some­ $ ~ 51
thing in the status of work (or labor) which is identical to the status of a 52
enjoyment, namely, that it essentially appears as entropy, as loss, or as
an unaccounted-for surplus (by-product) of signifying operations. (lt is The hysteric's discourse could perhaps best be described as a sort of
needless to stress that this structurallink between work and enjoyment "objection of conscience" -a reminder (often in the form of a symp­
has absolutely nothing to do with "enjoying one's work" or "enjoying tom) that thc apparatus 51 ~ 52 does not exhaust the integrity of the dis­
working," which presuppose the work to be thc means of enjoyment. course, that, in the end, it does not come out without a remainder or sur­
Lacan's point, on the contrary, is that signifying kl10wlcdgc is thc menns plus, and that it is blind to its own truth. The hysteric's discourse is the
of work and/or of enjoyment.)1 Lncan's further point is thnt in thc mas­ discourse of the subject (as agent) who bases her revolt on the following
ter's discourse this entropie 14UrpluH element incllrnntes its inherellt ob· grand narrative, which is also a pcrspectival illusion: the master signifier
stnde or impoNsihility 11l1cJ clllIlI fur rcpetiti()Il. pushc!l thc suhject under the hllr, suppresses it, conceals it, and huilds

l.
4"''1#-.'·W 'is
 tr

r64 ZupanCic When Surplus Enjoyment Meets Surplus Value r65

its mastery on that eoneealment. The perspectival illusion involved here subjeet whieh I pointed out when diseussing the master's diseourse (to
eoncerns the fact that both terms aetually appear simultaneously, and put it simply: the ineommensurability between what I am personally and
that the subject itself (preeisely as embodiment of the inherent gap of my symbolic role or funetion). This gap, this negative magnitude, eon­
the signifier) is more a result of the inaugural signifying gesture than of stitutive of the signifier and the symbolie order, is, as it were, the tran­
something that simply exists before it or independently of it. seendental incommensurability (or "injustiee") on whieh the hysterie re­
We saw before that the starting point of the master's diseourse is pre­ lies when making her empirieal eomplaints and aeeusations, and from
cisely the impossibility for anything like a subject to actually run or pro­ whieh these latter draw their diseursive power. For, false as these aeeu­
pel diseursive reality. It is this very impossibility that seems, in the hys­ sations might be empirically, on the transeendentallevel they are always
teric's discourse, to suddenly beeome a possibility, for the subjeet now true; they point toward an essential feature of symbolie diseursivity as
appears as the agent of the diseourse. However, what is at stake in this such.
diseourse, whieh is very much areaction to the master's discourse, is This is why, here we eome to the seeond thesis, the hysterie likes to
rather that the subjeet is affirmed as an (otherwise) seeret agent of the point out that the emperor is naked. The master, this respeeted SI, ad­
agent, its eause (or the eause of the eause), as the real motivation of the mired and obeyed by everyone, is in reality a poor, rather impotent ehap,
motivation, that is to say of S1 . who in no way Iives up to his symbolie funetion. He is weak, he often
doesn't even know what is going on around hirn, and he indulges in "dis­
~ ~ S\
gusting" seeret enjoyment; he (as aperson) is unable to eontrol hirnself
Here the essential impossibility related to this diseourse eomes into or anybody else.
play (namely that of "ineiting desire"), for if the subjeet is to funetion as In popular jargon, this attitude of attaeking and undermining the mas­
the cause of the eause, it is by beeoming the eause of the (other's) desire. ters, pointing at their weaknesses, is usually said to be eastrating. Yet,
According to Lacan, the hysterie's diseourse is the only discourse that although it does indeed have to do with the question of eastration, it is
actually produees knowledge. On a slightly different level, one eould mueh more ambiguous than this popular wisdom implies. The hysterie's
also say that the hysteric usually puts forward a few fundamental theses, indignation about the master really being just this miserable human be­
which I propose to sum up as folIows: "An injustiee is being done to ing, full of faults and flaws, does not aim at displaying how eastrated he
the subjeet," "the Master is incompetent," "The signifier always fails to is; on the eontrary, it is a eomplaint about the faet that the master is pre­
aecount for the truth," and "Satisfaction is always a false satisfactiori." eisely not castrated enough-if he were, he would utterly eoineide with
Let us take a c10ser look at these theses. his symbolie funetion, but as it is, he nevertheless also enjoys, and it is
Half jokingly one might say that hysteria is an allergy to S1, and that this enjoyment that weakens his symbolie power and irritates the hys­
it appears in the name of its repressed truth. The hysterie's discourse terie. In this sense, the hysterie is mueh more revolted by the weakness
often appears as discourse about injustiee, and enthusiastieally pleads of power than by power itself, and the truth of her or his basie eom­
for the rights of that whieh remains outside or at the edge of the signifier plaint about the master is usually that the master is not master enough.
as symbolic. The complaint about injustiee is of course usually formu­ In the person of a master, the hysterie thus attaeks preeisely those rights
lated as an empirieal claim, and as such, it could be "true" or "false." she is otherwise so eager toproteet, namely what remains or exists of
Yet, and more importantly, with the hysteric this is also always a struc­ the master besides the master signifier. In other words, the target of the
tural complaint (this is why itoften seems that hysterie subjeets ean find attaek on the master is his surplus enjoyment, a. This is what is super­
something to eomplain aboutin every situation); it is struetural beeause tluous, what should not be there, and what, on the obverse side of the
it is based upon, and points ut, a constitutive fact of evcry signifying dis­ same coin, represents the point where the master is aeeused of enjoying
eursivity: namcly the incommcllllurl1bility betwccn thc siMllifier and the at the subjeet's expense.

l.

 'PI'

166 ZupanCic When Surplus Enjoyment Meets Surplus Value 167

The next thesis of the hysterie's is that the signifier always fails to ae­ The hysterie loves truth and wants to have it whole. To this end, the
count for the truth. There is an important and massive affinity between hysterie subjeet tends to disjoin the conjunetion of the signifier and the
the hysterie's discourse and the mistrust of the symbolie (of language) lack, to situate them on two different levels, and to declare the eastra­
as medium of truth. This failure extends from the c1assieal hysteri~al tion/laek to be the truth of truth. The truth of truth-and thus what
question, "This is what you are saying to me, but what is it that you reveals symbolie truths as "lies" -is the lack as real. The other variant of
really want?" via a rejeetion of symbolie power as ungrounded in (sub­ this thesis is that surplus enjoyment (or indeed any kind of enjoyment) is
jeetive) truth, proclaiming symbolie forms and rituals as empty, to a by definition false, whieh simply means that it is never eapable of utterly
direet wager on truth as the real that evades all of the symbolic. The compensating, or eovering, the real of the lack. The hysterie plaees the
question why the hysterie insists so mueh on the claim that the signifier whole truth preeisely in that half, where there is nothing (more) to say.
always betrays the "true truth," that it misses the truth in the very aet At the same time, he or she goes to great lengths to make it speak. The
of formulating it, is an interesting one. It seems that the hysterie plaees hysterie often offers herself as artieulation of truth and, instead of speak­
the whole truth preeisely in that Laeanian "other half" of truth that is ing it out, enaets it in her own being, by lending it her body in the form
never eovered by the signifier. of a symptom.
In Seminar XVII, Laean formulates this notorious and persistent This brings us to the hysterie's fourth thesis, whieh eoneerns the ques­
theme of his teaehing: "The only way in whieh to evoke the truth is by tion of satisfaetion: the latter is always false, inadequate; that is, it is
indieating that it is only aeeessible through a half-saying [mi-dire], that disproportionate in respeet to the negative magnitude that founds any
it eannot be said eompletely, for the reason that beyond this half there discourse. "That is not it!" is the well-known motto of hysteries when it
is nothing to say. That is all that ean be said.... One is not speaking of comes to matters of satisfaetion, and the other notorious feature is the
the unsayable, whatever the pleasure this seems to give eertain people" emphasis on renuneiation, loss, nonsatisfaetion, saerifiee. The hysterie
(57-58). The way Laean eoneeptualizes this claim in Seminar XVII could is the guardian of the negative, of the ineommensurable and the impos­
perhaps be most simply summed up as folIows. If truth is aeeessible only sible. The well-known problem of this stanee is that it fails to see that
through a half-saying, this is beeause of its speeifie topology, beeause this renuneiation and saerifiee themselves very quiekly become a souree
truth is essentially a plaee: the plaee, to be preeise, where the signifier of surplus enjoyment or satisfaetion. The hysterie is satisfied with noth­
touches, or holds on to, castration (and viee versal, the plaee of their ing, in both possible meanings of this expression. It is not only that noth­
eonstitutive conjunetion, the lack (or the negative magnitude) being the ing ean satisfy hirn or her, but that the nothing itself ean be an important
very pillar of the signifier. In other words, the whole truth would be the souree of satisfaetion. This is why, in Laean's schema of the discourse,
signifier + eastration/laek. Yet, sinee the latter is constitutive of and in­ surplus enjoyment (a) is in the plaee of truth.
herent to the signifier, and not something existing beside it, the truth Consequently, one of the important things that the hysterie's discourse
is never "whoIe." At the same time, this inherent lack is preeisely the bears witness to is that surplus enjoyment eannot be eliminated from
gap that enables the "deviations" in the direetion of (surplus) jouissanee, discourse, however hard one tries; that a "not enough" always meets
whieh I have referred to above, to take plaee; it is, as Laean puts it, when its "too mueh," whieh only further complieates things; that the prob­
something strikes on the walls of this lack, or gap, that enjoyment is lem is not only a lost, inaeeessible enjoyment, but also a surplus enjoy­
ereated. In this perspeetive, the other half of truth eould simply he said ment that we eannot exaetly get rid of. On a eertain level, the dreams or,
to be jouissanee. Yet, again, I!:ot in the sense of the whole truth heing more preeisely, the ethieal ideal of the hysterie is that a diseursive sys­
something like "the signifier + jouissanee," hut in the sense of jouissanee tem would work by relying only on its eonstitutive negative magnitude
being the inherent impasse or impossihility of thc !iiKnifier itsclf. These or loss: this way, things would be clean, and truth would immediately
remarks ean perhaps shed some light on the hysterie'" position eoneern· eoincide with the real as impossihle. However, a discourse does not only
inK thc 'Iucstion of truth "mI !lignitic:r., lcun upon an impossible, but Illso eonstantly produces the impossible

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 r68 Zupancic
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When Surplus Enjoyment Meets Surplus Value r69

in the form of surplus enjoyment, which it often doesn't know what to the only way for hirn to justify the fact that he has freely (and rationally)
do with. chosen his course of action.
This is one face of the university discourse. I will concentrate here
on another face, which is more directly econornic and links it, as sug­
The University Discourse
gested before, to the logic of capitalism and to its specific way of dealing
S2 ~ a with enjoyment. Several authors have already pointed out that we live
in a "society of enjoyment." Not simply in the sense that we massively
51 $ indulge in all sorts of enjoyment while neglecting or bypassing social
Let us now move on to the university discourse, which could be under­ duties and responsibilities, but rather in the sense that enjoyment itself
stood as the predominant social bond that we live in today, following has become our most prominent and inexorable duty.? I propose to ex­
some of Lacan's own indications that point, among other things, to a plore this thesis from a specific angle: through a reading of the university
fundamental affinity between the university discourse and the capitalist discourse-following Lacan's suggestion-in the light of how it modi­
economy. I will thus proceed by comparing what Lacan refers to as the fies the nature and the status of enjoyment (in relation to the master's
discourses of "the old and the new masters." discourse).
What Lacan recognizes in the university discourse is a new and re­ In discussing the master's discourse, we've seen that a distillation of
formed discourse of the master. In its elementary form, it is a discourse knowledge (as know-how) is central to it: knowledge becomes a pure
that is pronounced from the place of supposedly neutral knowledge, the signifying knowledge, while pure work is produced by this discourse
truth of which (hidden below the bar) is Power, that is, the master sig­ as its "indivisible remainder" -as waste or loss, something that is not
nifier. The constitutive lie of this discourse is that it disavows its perfor­ covered by the signifier, something that does not count (but can, pre­
mative dimension: it always presents, for example, that which leads to a cisely because of this, appear as pure sign of the prestige of the mas·
political decision, founded on power, as a simple insight into the factual ter- prestige in the sense that it is prestigious to take on something that
state of things (or public polis, objective reports, and so on). serves no purpose and is not immediately involved in the economy of
Jean-Leon Beauvois provides a good example of this in his discussion exchange).
of aseries of sociopsychological experiments, which involve precisely Now, how does this change on the ground of the economy of the re­
this paradigm of the authority camouflaging itself behind what is pre­ formed discourse of the master, of modern capitalism? To put it sirnply
sented as a free, objective choice. 6 We confront the other from a posi­ -and as Marx has already pointed out-this pure work, work as such,
tion of a certain (social) authority, with a choice between two actions, itself has to appear on the market as a commodity for sale. The very
one of which he is most reluctant to do, while making it known, at the existence of capital hinges on this point. Capital emerges only when the
same time, that this is precisely the action we expect from hirn. Sec­ possessor of the means of production finds, on the market, a free worker
ond, we keep repeating that the choice is entirely his. Given these two selling his labor power as object. 8 This is something new, something
circumstances, the following will happen: he will do exactiy what we that emerges only in a specific historico-economic stage. In other words,
want hirn to do, which is contrary to his (previously tested) convictions. labor power as pure (labor) is already a result of a complex signifying
Furthermore, because of the configuration of free choice, he will ratio­ operation: in itself and before that operation, pure work is never pure
nalize his action by altering these very convictions. In other words, in­ work, but is something closer to the slave's "knowledge at work." Pure
stead of viewing the action that was so perfidiously imposcd upon hirn work is not what is originally given, and then lost when one lays the
as sornething bad rhat he had ro do (sinCl~ the authority dcrnanded ir), apparatus of signifiers over it: it is a product of this operation. Labor as
he will convince himlielf rhl1r the had rhinK iN l\ctually I(oml, Nince rh iN iN commodity is labor as objc:ct. But this also rneans that the entropic ele-

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 170 ZupanCic
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When Surplus Enjoyment Meets Surplus Value 171

ment (a) changes its place in the social bond. It now-and only now­ so far as to call it now "an imitation surplus jouissance" (or "a semblance
appears in the place of the Other, which Lacan describes as "the place surplus jouissance").
of more or less tolerable exploitation." What does this expression mean? It means that the valorization of sur­
A very significant implication of this shift is that, in order for capitalist plus enjoyment eliminates or neutralizes the element of obstruction at
exploitation to function, the entropy or loss, the amount of work not ac­ work in surplus jouissance, the element that, in the master's discourse,
counted for, or simply not counted, has, precisely, to start to be counted binds enjoyment with repetition. Repetition is, in its essence, the repe­
(and "valued"). This is the whole point of the surplus value that Marx tition of enjoyment as impossible (which is not to say as nonexisting:
conceives as the core and driving force of capitalism. The fact that labor­ enjoyment exists precisely as "impossible"). I would say that this is what
power appears as commodity or object is what makes this possible. The Lacan has in mind when he says that the master's discourse grapples
revolution related to capitalism is none other than this: it founds the with a fundamental impotence concerning the creation of a joint or link
means of making the waste count. Surplus value is nothing else but the between surplus enjoyment and the master's truth (the split subject).
waste or loss that counts, and the value of which is constantly being Repetition could be seen precisely as a symptom of this difficulty. Lacan
added to or included in the mass of capital. goes on to claim that with the passage to the university discourse (and
to the logic of capital) "the impotence [impuissance] of this conjunction
S2 ~ a
is all of a sudden emptied. Surplus value combines with capital-not a
The shift to this new discourse is founded upon two major changes problem, they are homogeneous, we are in the field of values. Moreover,
that characterize it. The first is that we are no longer dealing with a con­ we are all up to our necks in it, in these blessed times in which we live"
figuration where everything adds up (or should add up) to the same total ( 20 7).

(plus, of course, the element of entropy). The total is increasing, and this The problem at the very core of surplus enjoyment is thus "emptied";
is called accumulation of capital. What makes this accumulation pos­ everything runs smoothly, we are enjoying and having the time of our
sible is, as Lacan himself puts it, that the surplus enjoyment starts to life. Except that this is not exactly the case. Feelings of frustration grow,
be counted. 9 The entropic element is itself transformed into value and and the imperative of enjoyment becomes more and more suffocating.
added as supplement. The second point is that we are no longer deal­ Capitalism, in its junction with the university discourse, is above all
ing with the form of repetition characteristic of the master's discourse. the discourse of the possible. Its fundamental slogan could be expressed
Instead, we have an endless movement where the otherness linked' to in these terms: "Impossible is not possible." Just think of how compa­
the surplus (enjoyment) is smoothly and constantly reintegrated into the nies like to advertise themselves with the motto: "Impossible is not in
mass of capital, which needs this constant differentiation and reappro­ our vocabulary." Yet the psychical counterpart of this-on the side of
priation of the differential as a condition of its increasing power. Marx the subjects falling out of this discourse as its products-is either a gen­
summarizes this in terms of the value becoming the subject (we could eral ennui, or alternation of apathy and frenetic activity. Why? It is not
say the agent) of the process. lO It is operating and accumulating at the enough to say that desire is awakened only by an obstacle and sustained
place of S2 by appropriating what is working at the place of a. hy an element of the impossible. What is at stake is the problem of the
Lacan formulates this shift as folIows: "Once a higher level has heen framework of enjoyment, which collapses in upon itself. Lacan speaks
passed, surplus jouissance is no longer surplus jouissance hut is inscrihed of imitation surplus jouissance. Does this imply an opposition between
simply as a value to be ins,tibed in or deducted from thc totality of authentic and nonauthentic enjoyment? No, at least not in the sense in
whatever it is that is accumufating-what is accun1ulating from out of which an authentic enjoyment is also being sold to us as yet another
an essentially transformed nature" ('}2.). In this passaKe from the level form of the possihle, as some supposedly lost original state of harmony
helow to thc level ahove, loullillanec ehnnMcs its nl1ture, I1nd Ll1ean KoCS where all things added up pcrfectly.

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 172 ZupanCic
.,.
When Surplus Enjoyment Meets Surplus Value 173

One of the central points of psychoanalysis is the following discovery: to say, by the reminder of the obstructive element at work in any enjoy­
jouissance, the practice of enjoyment, is what gives form to some funda­ ment. And this double bind is then followed by the promise of salvation
mental impossibility-this is what distinguishes jouissance from plea­ which will separate these two facets: we produce and offer harmless en­
sure. And what is "imitation (of) enjoyment"? In Lacan's time, the prod­ joyment, enjoyment without the element of obstruction, jouissance sans
ucts that so clearly and directly answer this question were not yet as entraves or, to put it yet another way, entropy-free enjoyment, enjoyment
omnipresent as they are today (and I will come to this in amoment). as pure value.
What was present was a slogan that appeared in the name of freedom The valorization of enjoyment is part of a new process of what I pre­
and in which Lacan immediately saw something of a deadlock: Jouir viously called distillation. In this discourse, it is no longer knowledge
sans entraves! (Enjoy without hindrance!) He saw this so quickly be­ that is being detached from the entropic element of work/enjoyment, it
cause in his theory (and practice) he'd already come to the insight that is this very entropic element itself that is being detached, in the name of
jouissance as such is a hindrance, and that "to enjoy without hindrance" knowledge and value, from its own entropy or negativity. What is being
amounts to nothing else but "enjoyment without enjoyment," that is, exploited and squeezed in every imaginable way is now precisely our en­
without that which is constitutive of enjoyment. And is not "enjoyment joyment as an immediate source of surplus value. For if-as I argued be­
without enjoyment" precisely the formula prescribed to enjoyment in fore and to put it simply-contemporary exploitation of enjoyment and
our societies? Sweets without sugar, fat-free pork roasts, coffee with­ excess operates by eliminating the obstructive element in it, this by no
out caffeine-these are all excellent examples of imitation surplus en­ means signifies that this obstructive element simply disappears from the
joyment in the most literal sense of the term. They are also very good face of the earth. Ir means only that it keeps reappearing in new, unex­
examples of a short circuit between enjoyment and abstinence, so char­ pected configurations, which can then in turn be subjected to the extri­
acteristic of capitalist economies. Just think of how to spend is to save, cation of surplus value. Drives are plastic; just let them come up with an­
and to save is to spend. If I want to save, say, $IOO, I have to buy this other symbolic (or imaginary) configuration of enjoyment that can then
computer (instead of that one); on the other hand, if I don't buyanything be detached from enjoyment per se, cashed in as "positive value," and
and just keep the money, I save nothing. of course sold back to us as "Iife-style" (of enjoyment). Yet what at the
If we come to perceive this kind of enjoyment more and more as being same time drops out below is precisely a pure negativity: the death drive
"empty," the reason is not that it is deprived of its full substance, since as incarnated in the subject who is in no way the master of knowledge
the image of enjoyment as something full and substantial is in itself fän­ and value accumulated in this discourse, and even less the master of en­
tasmatic, and the will to aim directly at the pure substance of enjoy­ joyment, but who is their fall-off, excrement, the refuse of his or her own
ment is the obverse side of the same coin that I was describing above. (ideological) value, refuse of the very value so generously attributed to
The problem is that this kind of enjoyment without enjoyment is de­ the subject in this discourse (I am referring of course to the ideological
prived of the very impossibility that structures the enjoyment and gives celebration of free subjectivity).
it its form (also its social form). Removed from the above-mentioned
products is what binds them to what Freud called the death drive­ a

their (potential) danger, the limit that they set to pleasure or, to put it $
in another way, the fact that enjoyment is precisely the inherent limit of
pleasure. If we now go a step further (or rather a step backward, to the left
The inexorable imperative "Enjoyl" is hcing systcmatically accompa­ side of the university discourse), we will be able to see how this emptied
nied by the warning (weil known, fur cXllInplc, to thc smokcrs): "Hn­ impossibility and impotence (or, from another perspective, this omni­
joymcnt will kill you. Enjoymcnt iN dnmll~in~ to your hcnlth" - thl1t iN present possibility) goes hand in hand with an even more massive and

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 174 Zupancic
,
When Surplus Enjoyment Meets Surplus Value 175

striking impotence and impossibility, indicated by the position of the hijacks affect in order to intensify profit potential. It literally valo­
master signifier in this discourse. rizes affect. The capitalist logic of surplus-value production starts
to take over the relational field that is also the domain of political
S2
ecology, the ethical field of resistance to identity and predictable
S1 paths. It's very troubling and confusing, because it seems to me that
there's been a certain kind of convergence between the dynamic of
In Lacan's words: "What is striking, and what no one seems to see,
capitalist power and the dynamic of resistance. l l
is that from that moment on, by virtue of the fact that the clouds of
impotence have been aired, the master signifier only appears even more This insightful passage condenses very weil the two basic points that,
unassailable, precisely in its impossibility. Where is it? How can it be following Lacan, I think qualify the now predominant social bond.
named? How can it be located-other than through its murderous ef­
fects, of course. Denounce imperialism? But how can this little mecha­ 1. The hijacking, diversifying and exploiting of what Massumi calls
nism be stopped?" (207). Is this double bind not the most striking figure the affect and what Lacan calls (surplus) jouissance, by valoriz­
of today's so-called world order? There is certainly no shortage of un­ ing it or recognizing it as a potentially infinite source of surplus
satisfied people, also ready to show this nonsatisfaction in a number of value.
various ways. But there is also a general feeling of utter impotence, not 2. The paradoxical convergence of power and resistance, the grow­

only as to the effect of this demonstration of nonsatisfaction, but also as ing impossibility of delimiting them, the unassailability of the
to the question of whom exactly to attack. Who, for instance, is global­ master signifier, which account for the frustrating impotence of
ism? any resistance.
The capitalist production (also in its social dimension) is a constant
Let us stop briefly at some recent modifications that have affected the
production of otherness, and a constant valorization of this otherness,
prevalent postmodern imperative of happiness, and which function as
of its transformation into a value. Capitalism is a major producer of dif­
the ideological means of exploitation of (surplus) enjoyment.
ferences, as weil as a major leveler or equalizer of these same differences.
First of all, one should point out that happiness is a weighty duty,
This is what makes it the greatest promoter of liberalism and of all kinds
much weightier perhaps than any patriotic duty. Consider the follow­
of liberties and rights (especially the right to be different), and the gr~at­
ing striking passage that comes from one of the promoters of the im­
est deactivator of any realliberating or subversive potential of these dif­
portance of happiness, Dennis Prager: "We tend to think that we owe
ferences. Let me again resort to a quote, this time from Brian Massumi,
it to ourselves to be as happy as we can be. And this is true. But hap­
who formulated this very well.
piness is far more than personal concern. It is also a moral obligation.
The more varied, and even erratic, the better. Normaley starts to ... We owe it to our husband or wife, our fellow workers, our chil­
lose its hold. The regularities start to loosen. This loosening of nor­ dren, our friends, indeed to everyone who comes into our lives, to be as
maley is part of capitalism's dynamic. It's not a simple liberation. happy as we can be."12 Instead of mocking this passage or taking it as
It's capitalism's own form of power. It's no longer disciplinary in­ aperverse attempt to justifya selfish pursuit of personal happiness and
stitutional power that defines everything, it's capitalism's power to satisfaction by presenting it as emanating from a universal moral duty,
produce variety - becau~e markets get saturated. Producc voriety wc would do better to take it quite literally. What does it say? That it
and you produce a niche market. The oddest of affectivc tenden­ is our social duty to be happy, and that this is far from easy. It is hard
cies are okay-as long os they PllY. Capitalism starts intensifying to he happy. Which is very true. Something runs persistently against it.
or divcrsifying nffect, but ol1ly in order to extrnct surplus-vnlue. It Thc moment our social duty largcly coincides with what we are sup­

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 176 ZupanCic
f
When Surplus Enjoyment Meets Surplus Value In

posed to want anyway (happiness), it becomes abundantly dear that it are made turn out to be fabrications? In other words, and to put it in
is far from dear what we actually want. Be happy, it's only up to you, Lacanian terms, will it rest content with pointing out the gap between
nobody stands in your way any longer. As subjects, we are brutally and S2 (the chain of reasons) and SI, demanding that it disappear (or become
massively confronted with the impasse of our enjoyment (and desire), al­ less obvious, i.e., that SI be properly hidden under the bar), or will it
most as in a gigantic, world-scale burlesque psychoanalysis. Before you recognize that it is precisely this gap, on account of which no political
come around complaining about anything, try to resolve your personal decision can ever be fully absorbed into the chain of reasons, that is also
problems, since it is they, and only they, that stand in the way of your the condition of possibility of any alternative politics? To put this in thc
happiness! This is a very powerful and ingenious ideological maneuver present context: if the reports about Iraqi nudear weapons had in fact
which, in the first move, makes the traditionally personal issue of happi­ been true, would the decision to attack Iraq have been any less political?
ness a public, social, and political concern, makes it an inseparable part No, it would still be a political decision, and precisely as such it could be
of these concerns, and then, in a second move, pushes it back to our per­ countered by a different political decision or will. Thus, by pointing up
sonallives precisely as inseparable from these concerns. That is to say, in the irreducibility of the gap between S2 and SI in all the forms of discur­
a caricature, that the global economic problems will be resolved when sivity, I don't mean to imply that since no political decision or project
we all resolve our personal problems and frustrations. can ever be fully justified by or grounded in what precedes it (or in its
However, it is also a fact that this burlesque social psychoanalysis was circumstances), we might as weIl stap complaining about it and pointing
at least partly interrupted by September I I or, more precisely, by what at dirty interests behind it. Or that it doesn't really matter what we do
was made of it. On the ideologicallevel, terrorism (as "our common" (politically), since whatever we do, this gap will always be there and all
and dangerous enemy) shifted the logic of happiness into a new form of a political decisions will ultimately always be decisions of Power. On the
more traditional configuration: there is something objective that stands contrary, it is precisely because of this that it matters very much what
in the way of our happiness; personal sacrifices will have to be made we do.
(economic as weIl as the sacrifice of some of our acquired social and
private liberties); duty no longer directly coincides with happiness, and
Notes
nobody is asking us to think positive about terrorism and to make the
best of it. To be sure, what we have now is hardly a move forward. Yet r Cf. Jacques-Alain Miller, "Paradigms of ]ouissance," Lacanian Ink I7 (2000): IO-47.
something that one might call a repoliticization of the political is eme'rg­ 2 Jacques Lacan, Le seminaire, livre XVII: L'envers de la psychanalyse, ed. J.-A. Miller
ing. Political struggles and antagonisms are forced to come forward as (Paris: Seuil, I99r), 90. Parenthetical citations in the text list page numbers in the
French edition.
political struggles and antagonisms, and as much as they still try to hide
3 Lacan, The Seminar of ]acques Lacan, Book XX: Encore or On Feminine Sexuality, the
behind supposedly neutrallaws of economy or intelligence reports, this
Limits of Love and Knowledge, ed. J.-A. Miller, trans. B. Fink (New York: Norton,
is less and less successful. The political resistance that is also emerging 1998), IO.
and building up, especially since the beginning of the war in lrag, will 4 Lacan says, "When we read Aristotle we have the suspicion that the master's relation
soon face an imminently political decision. Will it rest content with forc­ 10 the slave really presented hirn with a problem.... We can see clearly what is at
ing the "democratic masters" to start (again) playing hy the mies of the stake, it is what, in the name of surplus jouissance, the master receives from the slave's
university discourse, demanding that all political decisions he grounded work.... The problems of ethics here, suddenly, start to abound-the Nicomachean
l·;thics, the I~udemian Ethics, and several other works of moral reflection. Ir is irresolv­
in objective knowledge and fpllaw only from an insight into the factual
ahle. Nohody knows what to do with this surplus jouissance. In order to successfully
state of things, and then punishing them whcn thc gap hetwcen po!iti­ pl:lce n sovereign good at the heart of thc world, you need to be as embarrassed as a
cal decisions and the ohjective argumClltli Icadin", to thcm becomes tnn fish wilh an apple" (204).
apparellt, or whcll thc repnrt8 on the hllllill nf which politicnl dccisinnli I.l\clln slIys, "The 11, 118 luch, IN Nlrktly spl'akinj1, what follows from the fact that, at

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 178 Zupancic
.,.
its origin, knowledge is reduced to an articulation of signifiers. This knowledge is a
means of jouissance. And, I repeat, when it is at work, what it produces is entropy.
This entropy, this point of loss, is the sole point, the sole regular point at which we
have access to the nature of jouissance" (56-57)·
6 jean-Leon Beauvois, Traite de la servitude liberale: Analyse de la soumission (Paris:
Dunod,1994)· 9
7 See Todd McGowan, The End of Dissatisfaction? Jacques Lacan and the Emerging 50­
ciety of Enjoyment (Albany: Press, 2004)·
SUNY lBiov VOM' SIaVI
8 In Capital (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1990), Marx writes, "Labor-power can appear
on the market as a commodity only if, and in so far as, its possessor, the individual Structural e.......

whose labor-power it is, offers it for sale or seils it as commodity. In order that its
Oliver Feltham in .....;1111' ""'.
possessor may seil it as a commodity, he must have it at his disposal, he must be the
free proprietor of his own labor-capacity, hence of his person" (17 1 ).
9 According to Lacan, "Something changed in the master's discourse at a certain point
in history. We are not going to break our backs finding out if it was because of Luther,
or Calvin, or some unknown traffic of ships around Genoa, or in the Mediterranean
Sea, or anywhere else, for the important point is that on a certain day surplus pleasure The whole of Nature is one sole Individual whose parts, that is, all bodies, vary in an
became calculable, could be counted" (207). infinity of modes, without any change of the whole Individual.-Spinoza
10 Marx writes, "In truth, however, value is here the subject of a process in which,
while constantly assuming the form in turn of money and commodities, it changes its
own magnitude, throws off surplus value from itself considered as original value, and There is a problem in Lacan's Seminar XVII. It runs as folIows:
thus valorizes itself independently. For the movement in the course of which it adds
- Lacan distinguishes four different discourses which implicate the
surplus value is its own movement, its valorization is therefore self-valorization. By
virtue of being value, it has acquired the occult ability to add value to itself" (Capital,
speaking being; together, they structure the social field and deter­
255)·
mine everything that can be said, practiced, and instituted. Lacan
II Brian Massumi, "Navigating Movements," in Hope, ed. M. Zournazi (New York: claims that they form the arches of reality.l
Routledge, 2003), 224· - These discourses are said to consist of the relationships between
12 Dennis Prager, Happiness 1s a 5erious Problem (New York: HarperCollins, 199 8 ), 3· four terms-the split subject $, the master signifier 51, the trea­
sury of other signifiers 52, and enjoyment a, which occupy four
distinct places- "agent," "other," "production," and "truth."
- These discourses, although they may coexist, are said to emerge
at different points throughout history.

The first question raised by this conceptual construction is, quite sim­
ply, What determines the emergence of these discourses, given that they
can each be analyzed as constituted from the same combinatory of terms
in the same order? That is, the formal restraint on Lacan's structural
analysis is double: not only must the same four terms occur, but also in
thc same order. Without the latter restraint one can generate twenty-four
comhinations with four variahles and four places. What then determines
thc cmcrgcnce of these ordercd discourses such that there are four of
tht'1l1 and four alone?l

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