Adrian Johnston 1 convincingly rejects this view: while he agrees that Marxism needs psychoanalysis, he convincingly argues that these unconscious libidinal mechanisms are at work already in the very heart of the “economic base”: we just have to read Marx closely to see that the individuals caught in the capitalist reproduction do not really follow their egotist interests - they act as the instruments of the capital’s drive to ever-expanding reproduction, ready to renounce to many life pleasures: “Maybe Marx ought to be credited not only with inventing the psychoanalytic concept of the symptom avant la lettre, as Lacan proposes, but also with inventing the analytic idea of the drive prior to Freud.” Johnston, of course, does not ignore the complexity of the interaction between the reproduction of capital and the subjective life of capital’s agents who are also “psychical subjects of enjoyments having to do with socio-symbolic secondary gains exuded from the pure accumulation of capital” - just think about the esteem gained by the charities of today’s ultra-wealthy neo-feudal masters. The standard Freudo-Marxist idea that the explanation of the subjective features of individuals living in today’s capitalism (why do millions act and vote against their obvious interests? why can they be mobilized for nationalist, religious and military struggles which pose a threat to their very lives?) in the terms of the determination by economic base is insufficient - to explain such phenomena, Marxist economic analysis has to be supplemented by a psychoanalytic research into collective libidinal investments. This is what Marx is doing in his “critique of political economy”: he is bringing out its unconscious - which is why he calls the object of his critique “political economy.” But as Ockham entered its initial phase of product development, pressure began mounting for the team to discuss and finalize a founding agreement.The libidinal tensions described by Freud are not simply internal to the subject but are part of the interpersonal (family) politics, power struggle - this is why Etienne Balibar (2016), points out that, in his description of the formation of a crowd and the genesis of the superego, Freud doesn’t provide a “psychoanalysis of politics” (an explanation of the political dynamic of crowds through libidinal processes which are in themselves apolitical) but rather its opposite, the politics of psychoanalysis (the explanation of the rise of the triadic structure of Ego-Id-Superego through the familial “political” power struggles). The trio had provided the seed capital of $150,000, contracted a development team to build their product, garnered serious interest from a potential investor, and readily agreed on their roles within the company (Jim was CEO, Ken was COO, and Mike was Head of Product Management). Each founder had contributed significantly to bringing the Ockham concept to life. Soon they recruited a third member, Mike Meisenheimer, to lead product development. Uncertainty lingers over each member's future contributions, though-how is the team to devise a durable and effective split? Jim Triandiflou and Ken Burows worked resolutely to plan for the launch of their sales management software company. Ockham Technologies' three founders are about to craft their founding agreement and split the equity among themselves.
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