Veblen’s critique of Capitalism, part 2
Have you stopped to think about how much the Nazis must have hated Freud? Not only because he was an Austrian Jew, but also because he pointed out how Christianity was making everyone completely neurotic. Thorstein Veblen (discussed in part 1 here) and Sigmund Freud were contemporaries, born about a year apart. Though from different continents, both theorists had an outsider perspective on the Christian hegemony of their societies, and also on the absurdity of its economic system. This is where their works intersect and complement each other – capitalism is cuckoo.
Of course, all due respect to the bird behind the name and to all of us neurotics out there, who have plenty to benefit from being psychoanalyzed. But there is a lot of madness to be unpacked from economics, and, luckily, these guys have given us a bit of a headstart on the work. Veblen’s theory of conspicuous consumption connects directly with Freud’s ideas on “how people establish relationships among private proprieties.”
For one, if we are consuming to satisfy a frivolous desire for status, as opposed to satisfy basic human needs, you’d better believe Freud has some ideas on how this desire comes to be. To acquire objects to achieve status (Veblen’s theory) is a psycho-analyzable phenomenon for the simple fact that status stems from how human relationships are established (Freudian theory).
For two, according to both theorists, religion, the proverbial enemy of science, operates in the same way as economics in our psyche. Both Catholicism and Capitalism appease the anguish in every single human being, which is caused by the absurdity of being alive and never knowing the truth about the world. One promises salvation, and becoming one with the Lord. The other promises happiness, fulfillment, realization through endless consumption. The madness of it is that both of them manufacture the feeling that each of us lack something, so that they can provide this something for a price.
“The idea of sin only comes with the emergence of the Law, just as, for advertising, it is with the offering that the notion of lack is created.” (source)
To be born in sin, in transgression of a made up code, or to be without a completely useless possession becomes the root of our suffering, and also our main reason for living. We need the progressively more absurd social regulations so we can always work towards not going astray, and when we inevitably do, we suffer with guilt.
Capitalist consumption, then, temporarily appeases the Christian guilt linked to inescapable sinful desire. But it creates another guilt, that of never having, doing, and being enough. Which, in turn, causes the anguish of lack, and the guilt of debt. It’s an endless loop which keeps the wheels of western society turning.
“Science seems to be aware of this war operation, this fight for survival, this fight not to be crushed by guilt, which is why it produces these objects that promise to appease the hole, the lack-of-being of the subject. However, the voracity of capitalist production also overwhelmingly surpasses the subject's purchasing power. This [loop] between supply and consumption sets the tone between what the subject is and what he supposes he would be if he had access to everything. This "everything" is exactly what techno-scientific production promises that the subject can achieve: well-being. And thus be happier. This living wheel, this circular, entropic movement, is the cause of the subject’s mortification.” (source)
Science (Veblen’s field of interest) and Psychoanalysis (obviously Freud’s area) distinguish themselves from Religion and Capitalism exactly because they “don’t promise anything”. If we were to approach economics as a science, there is just no way to promise the current system of production, consumption and labor is bringing us closer to any truth about the human condition. If Veblen was alive today to see TikTok dances becoming a market, I’d like to believe that he would feel vindicated. The tragedy is that what science is capable of appeasing is no match for the extreme immediacy of capitalism.
“Anxiety is often caused by the destabilization that the subject suffers when he or she can no longer absorb the avalanche of objects that science produces”. (source)
Meanwhile, Freud knew psychoanalysis could not promise the end of suffering either, much less the kind of relief from existential dread which stems from blind faith. In fact, his fascination with getting to know the weirdest and freakiest corners of the human mind couldn’t have had anything to do with achieving bliss on this planet. (No one I know finds great joy in hearing they subconsciously sexualize their parents.) I’m not even convinced he was that interested in truth or whether ideas had any connection to reality, because, in the end, all we really know is our own subjectivity.
“Capitalist discourse wants to foster illusions of completeness in its target audience.” (source)
This thing, the idea that we are limited, causes a lot of angst in people, the kind of unease which drives them towards Christianity and consumption. If only we could pray and shop our way into feeling complete.
I would like to believe neither Freud nor Veblen looked down on spirituality and material comforts. They just sought to expose some curious things about the human unconscious. But, then again, both of them stood out as ethnic ‘minorities’ in their circles and were prosecuted for it. That would be enough to make them even more outspoken about their beliefs, and criticism of the status quo.
To Veblen, “Western civilization is both Christian and competitive”. They are moral codes of conduct not superior to any other code or lack thereof, simply because they are not an evolutionary science. Freud can take this a step further, in an attempt to show how these codes are there to be transgressed, they lead to guilt and suffering, and lay the foundations for a human experience.
It is worth remembering that numbers and development reports do not make of modern economics a step forward in human evolution. It’s just one step in some uneasy direction, on a path lacking in contentment.
Mirna Wabi-Sabi
Mirna is a Brazilian writer, site editor at Gods and Radicals and founder of Plataforma9. She is the author of the book Anarcho-transcreation and producer of several other titles under the P9 press.