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Theories of Contemporary Culture
Libidinal Economy
Lyotard is considered one of the most brilliant and influential of French post-structuralist thinkers. Published in 1974 by Minuit, Économie libidinale is, of all his work to date, the most creative in its mode of writing and in its theorizing: a stunning, dense, brilliant piece in which Lyotard, ranging from Marxist and Freudian theory to contemporary arts, argues that political economy is charged with passions and, reciprocally, that passions are infused with the political.
304 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 1974
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About the author
Jean-François Lyotard
124 books345 followersJean-François Lyotard (DrE, Literature, University of Paris X, 1971) was a French philosopher and literary theorist. He is well-known for his articulation of postmodernism after the late 1970s and for his analysis of the impact of postmodernity on the human condition.
He went to primary school at the Paris Lycées Buffon and Louis-le-Grand and later began studying philosophy at the Sorbonne. After graduation, in 1950, he took a position teaching philosophy in Constantine in French East Algeria. He married twice: in 1948 to Andrée May, with whom he had two daughters, and for a second time in 1993 to the mother of his son, who was born in 1986.
He went to primary school at the Paris Lycées Buffon and Louis-le-Grand and later began studying philosophy at the Sorbonne. After graduation, in 1950, he took a position teaching philosophy in Constantine in French East Algeria. He married twice: in 1948 to Andrée May, with whom he had two daughters, and for a second time in 1993 to the mother of his son, who was born in 1986.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 40 reviews
August 7, 2021
Let’s be clear. This isn’t an evil book, despite what Lyotard said. Evil is out of the question—beyond the disgusting imagery of the libidinal skin, beyond the searing hatred of criticism and truth-seeking, beyond Lyotard’s constant anti-humanist provocations, beyond of course the notorious claim that the English workers of the industrial revolution loved their miserable lives, lies a restless assault on the very logic of representation, the theatre wherein evil can even have a “meaning”. Paradoxes of representing the inanity of representation aside (and in this book there will be no arguing with, only ever setting aside), it’s clear that this book is not evil, except under the eyes of some terrorist zero, which is—of course—no argument against it.
In an earlier version of this review, I noted Lyotard “operates by a sort of hideous seduction”. Disallowing himself the use of critique except when heavily parenthesised and ironised, Lyotard almost seems to be apologising for speaking even as he speaks, aware both of his sacrilege against the libidinal band (a theoretical fiction serving to illustrate the primacy of non-representational desire and the pathetic irrelevance of the world of signs which we feel ourselves to inhabit) and aware that his own stance cannot condemn sacrilege, error, critique, except as exasperating distractions from the business of losing ourselves, of leaving “the power and the squalid justification of the dialectic of redemption”. Lyotard, burned out from a career of revolutionary theory and practice, turns away in disgust. No more religious fantasies, no more egalitarian eschatologies, no more commiseration with the proletariat (“In commiseration for what? I realise that a proletarian would hate you...”), no more self-sacrifice except as a means to a higher enjoyment. But first, there are bridges to burn.
Libidinal Economy abounds with dialetheia. To accept its premise—that by the time “you” are in representation, in a world model, in a discourse, you are already in error, already religious—is to undermine the medium by which Lyotard (or any of us) can communicate. Hence why one will be convinced, or not, libidinally. The idea that desire precedes even representation strips desire of any coherent meaning (this is no obstacle to Lyotard, of course), and on the political level, anyone who has read their Marx (which Lyotard has, far better than most leftists) will know that the English proletariat certainly did not enjoy “the mad destruction of their organic body which was indeed imposed upon them”.
Right?
The instrumental value of Lyotard’s strategic embrace of irrationalism as a tool of argument in this text is in the way it forces otherwise closed questions. Mark Fisher once pointed out that it’s only very few of us who would choose to retreat from the city and its pleasures, return to the pettiness of claustrophobic village life (which is of course only a projection we make of it). Those of us who long for a more “traditional”, slow-paced world have no idea what we’re talking about, and it takes only a short while and an honest eye to disabuse ourselves of the bourgeois fantasy of the bucolic, peaceful life. Proletarianisation, alienation, expropriation are brutal, murderous processes, and forced upon a populace—it was so then and is still so now—but Lyotard insists it was not “accepted” solely, merely, because the workers cling to life. Rather endurance in the noble sense. “Death is not an alternative to it, it is part of it, it attests to the fact that there is jouissance in it...”
Libidinal Economy makes one core claim: capital (our labour) is the investment in quantity as such, the instantiation of erogenous zone numbers in production, the economic face of the fusion of desire and industry. Capital is natural; not only that, it can (and will) outlast us: it “requires, like every other complex natural system, only an irreversible superiority in its metabolic relation with the bio-physical-chemical context from which it draws its energy. Hence its exteriority, which is not at all transcendent, but simply natural.” What capital “is”, in truth, is an informational entity, a logic of organisation materialising itself, and—much like the libidinal band, which (of course) is all capital really “is”—is not something that can be schematised, worked out for all time, by theoreticians who have already decided in advance that it all ends with our salvation.
From this, all else flows. The restless provocations of his former comrades, the bare-faced lies, the strange posturing. But behind the absurdity and behind even the deliberate lack of rigour, lie devastating fragments of thought, mortifying refrains, and an inexorable sense—originating somewhere beyond representation—that Lyotard, or what runs him, knows what he’s talking about.
I’ll end this review with the same observation that rounded off my original version: capital, as a natural system, is subject to limits. All natural things are. Capital dreams of a world which is one big factory churning out cheap bullshit forever. It is certainly making progress. But capital holds a fantastic, and not a real, image of the body of the Earth. Capital’s Earth is an abstract and infinite plane, populated with endless resources, obedient workers, ravenous consumers. That is all. No climate comes to disturb capital’s dream; no conflict between anthroposphere and biosphere. As the Earth—the real Earth—starts to burn away to the substrate, capital will find itself shutting down, and not understand why, as a new irreversible superiority establishes itself, if only in the form of an empty and polluted world blanketed with a rotten, delibidinalised skin.
In an earlier version of this review, I noted Lyotard “operates by a sort of hideous seduction”. Disallowing himself the use of critique except when heavily parenthesised and ironised, Lyotard almost seems to be apologising for speaking even as he speaks, aware both of his sacrilege against the libidinal band (a theoretical fiction serving to illustrate the primacy of non-representational desire and the pathetic irrelevance of the world of signs which we feel ourselves to inhabit) and aware that his own stance cannot condemn sacrilege, error, critique, except as exasperating distractions from the business of losing ourselves, of leaving “the power and the squalid justification of the dialectic of redemption”. Lyotard, burned out from a career of revolutionary theory and practice, turns away in disgust. No more religious fantasies, no more egalitarian eschatologies, no more commiseration with the proletariat (“In commiseration for what? I realise that a proletarian would hate you...”), no more self-sacrifice except as a means to a higher enjoyment. But first, there are bridges to burn.
Libidinal Economy abounds with dialetheia. To accept its premise—that by the time “you” are in representation, in a world model, in a discourse, you are already in error, already religious—is to undermine the medium by which Lyotard (or any of us) can communicate. Hence why one will be convinced, or not, libidinally. The idea that desire precedes even representation strips desire of any coherent meaning (this is no obstacle to Lyotard, of course), and on the political level, anyone who has read their Marx (which Lyotard has, far better than most leftists) will know that the English proletariat certainly did not enjoy “the mad destruction of their organic body which was indeed imposed upon them”.
Right?
The instrumental value of Lyotard’s strategic embrace of irrationalism as a tool of argument in this text is in the way it forces otherwise closed questions. Mark Fisher once pointed out that it’s only very few of us who would choose to retreat from the city and its pleasures, return to the pettiness of claustrophobic village life (which is of course only a projection we make of it). Those of us who long for a more “traditional”, slow-paced world have no idea what we’re talking about, and it takes only a short while and an honest eye to disabuse ourselves of the bourgeois fantasy of the bucolic, peaceful life. Proletarianisation, alienation, expropriation are brutal, murderous processes, and forced upon a populace—it was so then and is still so now—but Lyotard insists it was not “accepted” solely, merely, because the workers cling to life. Rather endurance in the noble sense. “Death is not an alternative to it, it is part of it, it attests to the fact that there is jouissance in it...”
Libidinal Economy makes one core claim: capital (our labour) is the investment in quantity as such, the instantiation of erogenous zone numbers in production, the economic face of the fusion of desire and industry. Capital is natural; not only that, it can (and will) outlast us: it “requires, like every other complex natural system, only an irreversible superiority in its metabolic relation with the bio-physical-chemical context from which it draws its energy. Hence its exteriority, which is not at all transcendent, but simply natural.” What capital “is”, in truth, is an informational entity, a logic of organisation materialising itself, and—much like the libidinal band, which (of course) is all capital really “is”—is not something that can be schematised, worked out for all time, by theoreticians who have already decided in advance that it all ends with our salvation.
From this, all else flows. The restless provocations of his former comrades, the bare-faced lies, the strange posturing. But behind the absurdity and behind even the deliberate lack of rigour, lie devastating fragments of thought, mortifying refrains, and an inexorable sense—originating somewhere beyond representation—that Lyotard, or what runs him, knows what he’s talking about.
I’ll end this review with the same observation that rounded off my original version: capital, as a natural system, is subject to limits. All natural things are. Capital dreams of a world which is one big factory churning out cheap bullshit forever. It is certainly making progress. But capital holds a fantastic, and not a real, image of the body of the Earth. Capital’s Earth is an abstract and infinite plane, populated with endless resources, obedient workers, ravenous consumers. That is all. No climate comes to disturb capital’s dream; no conflict between anthroposphere and biosphere. As the Earth—the real Earth—starts to burn away to the substrate, capital will find itself shutting down, and not understand why, as a new irreversible superiority establishes itself, if only in the form of an empty and polluted world blanketed with a rotten, delibidinalised skin.
February 27, 2019
Libidinal Economy was characterized by its repentant author as an "evil" book. Why? Like Deleuze & Guattari's Anti-Oedipus, Libidinal Economy can be seen partially as a response to the question: why do the masses desire their own oppression? Lyotard's response is as unequivocal as it is infamous: "the English unemployed did not become workers to survive, they - hang on tight and spit on me - enjoyed the hysterical, masochistic, whatever exhaustion it was of hanging on in the mines, in the foundries, in the factories, in hell, they enjoyed it, enjoyed the mad destruction of their organic body which was indeed imposed upon them..." According to Lyotard, capital neither alienates (as in Marx) nor represses (as in Freudo-Marxists) desire but on the contrary generates innumerable new modes of jouissance. Accordingly, there can be no recourse to unalienated labour on which to found an emancipatory politics, but rather the anarchic jouissance of capital must be taken to its own conclusion.
Like Deleuze & Guattari, Lyotard is heavily influenced by Nietzsche. Like Nietzsche, Lyotard sees in communist politics nothing but a secularized version of Christian morality, a politics based on ressentiment. He skewers middle class French communist intellectuals as being patronizing moralists and calls for an end to "commiseration" with the proletariat. Now certainly one can level a critique against middle class French communist intellectuals without much of a problem. But it's ironic coming from Lyotard, who was precisely a middle class French (ex-)communist intellectual. When Lyotard asserts that "we prefer to burst under the quantitative excesses that you judge the most stupid," one has to question who exactly the "we" in this sentence is (surely not the proletariat...)
In true Nietzschean fashion, Libidinal Economy is a polemic against the perceived nihilism of Marxism and psychoanalysis. And yet the book seems curiously nihilistic itself. Deleuze won't do, Baudrillard won't do, and Marx and Freud are right out. At its worst, Libidinal Economy is pure accelerationism, advocating for the worst excesses of capital in the name of jouissance. It's frustrating because the themes Lyotard teases us with (especially the deconstruction of the concept of "primitive societies" found in Marx and Lévi-Strauss) are so interesting. As someone who has read Nietzsche, Marx, Lacan, etc., as someone who's interested in the politics of desire, I'm at least potentially interested in the politics Lyotard is putting forward here. But he really was right, this is an "evil" book.
Like Deleuze & Guattari, Lyotard is heavily influenced by Nietzsche. Like Nietzsche, Lyotard sees in communist politics nothing but a secularized version of Christian morality, a politics based on ressentiment. He skewers middle class French communist intellectuals as being patronizing moralists and calls for an end to "commiseration" with the proletariat. Now certainly one can level a critique against middle class French communist intellectuals without much of a problem. But it's ironic coming from Lyotard, who was precisely a middle class French (ex-)communist intellectual. When Lyotard asserts that "we prefer to burst under the quantitative excesses that you judge the most stupid," one has to question who exactly the "we" in this sentence is (surely not the proletariat...)
In true Nietzschean fashion, Libidinal Economy is a polemic against the perceived nihilism of Marxism and psychoanalysis. And yet the book seems curiously nihilistic itself. Deleuze won't do, Baudrillard won't do, and Marx and Freud are right out. At its worst, Libidinal Economy is pure accelerationism, advocating for the worst excesses of capital in the name of jouissance. It's frustrating because the themes Lyotard teases us with (especially the deconstruction of the concept of "primitive societies" found in Marx and Lévi-Strauss) are so interesting. As someone who has read Nietzsche, Marx, Lacan, etc., as someone who's interested in the politics of desire, I'm at least potentially interested in the politics Lyotard is putting forward here. But he really was right, this is an "evil" book.
April 2, 2023
The so-called "evil book." Most of it is word salad, but the stuff on tensors is both correct and essential. Who knew that bundles of vectors were the solution to the enigmas about names raised by Russell? Fancy that.
***
Adding a star. One more thing. The guy pretending to be Schreber's analyst, the one that famously insisted Schreber didn't deserve to live, was in fact simply a pimp doubling Schreber's impressive mind. It would have been ok had he been a smart pimp. Unfortunately, he was a misogynistic, transphobic, small-minded, pathetic man. Schreber did nothing wrong. Daniel Paul Schreber was a beautiful woman.
***
Adding a star. One more thing. The guy pretending to be Schreber's analyst, the one that famously insisted Schreber didn't deserve to live, was in fact simply a pimp doubling Schreber's impressive mind. It would have been ok had he been a smart pimp. Unfortunately, he was a misogynistic, transphobic, small-minded, pathetic man. Schreber did nothing wrong. Daniel Paul Schreber was a beautiful woman.
April 29, 2020
Insane...very visceral. Difficult text
March 2, 2010
Fascinating, but definitely not known for clarity, or 'verifiable' notions of truth. Truth results from imagination, expressivity, and there is a certain naive aesthetic exploration that makes this a surrealistic text. Probably Lyotard's most creative "Middle Finger" to the Western Philosophical establishment. Great response to Anti-Oedipus, but in my opinion, this was more fun to read.
The sections on Marx are beautifully written, and are among my favorite philosophical jewels - of all time. This is epic.
One could get lost in the thoughtfully constructed labyrinths.... and that is precisely the point! Lyotard said that this book was largely misunderstood, or completely neglected (poor him because it is magical) and it required a total upheaval of his entire being to see its completion. If you like avant-garde or surrealistic philosophy it is definitely worth the effort - but not because it makes sense but because it opens up the imagination.
The sections on Marx are beautifully written, and are among my favorite philosophical jewels - of all time. This is epic.
One could get lost in the thoughtfully constructed labyrinths.... and that is precisely the point! Lyotard said that this book was largely misunderstood, or completely neglected (poor him because it is magical) and it required a total upheaval of his entire being to see its completion. If you like avant-garde or surrealistic philosophy it is definitely worth the effort - but not because it makes sense but because it opens up the imagination.
June 25, 2018
The butler did it.
First, here is the Cliff's Notes version of this book, as written by LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka) in 1961: http://www.autodidactproject.org/othe...
Here's what I mean. Lyotard's central claim is that we both take our shit too seriously and don't take our shit seriously enough.
We take it too seriously when we re- or deify it. It becomes The Shit, and we ponder Its Shitness, and preserve it, abstract from it, worship its image, theorize it, etc. But in so doing, we forget that it's just our shit, not The Shit, and become obsessed with gaining from it.
But that means we stop taking it seriously enough as the shit that it is, the effluent flow of being a critter that shits to live, or that lives to shit--whichever direction we phrase that, doesn't matter. That is, we forget to enjoy the shittiness of shit, and even forget to enjoy shitting.
Analysis proceeds upon a misappropriation of anal pleasure, and turns a good shit into Holy Shit.
Yeah, okay, and maybe that was really cool in 1974, but Lyotard has to admit that he can't say why we should only prefer to enjoy shitty shit to Holy Shit, other than to associate Holy Shit with accumulations of all sorts. Seems to me that, one way or another, shit accumulates on its own.
I vastly prefer the cold, arid Postmodern Condition.
First, here is the Cliff's Notes version of this book, as written by LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka) in 1961: http://www.autodidactproject.org/othe...
Here's what I mean. Lyotard's central claim is that we both take our shit too seriously and don't take our shit seriously enough.
We take it too seriously when we re- or deify it. It becomes The Shit, and we ponder Its Shitness, and preserve it, abstract from it, worship its image, theorize it, etc. But in so doing, we forget that it's just our shit, not The Shit, and become obsessed with gaining from it.
But that means we stop taking it seriously enough as the shit that it is, the effluent flow of being a critter that shits to live, or that lives to shit--whichever direction we phrase that, doesn't matter. That is, we forget to enjoy the shittiness of shit, and even forget to enjoy shitting.
Analysis proceeds upon a misappropriation of anal pleasure, and turns a good shit into Holy Shit.
Yeah, okay, and maybe that was really cool in 1974, but Lyotard has to admit that he can't say why we should only prefer to enjoy shitty shit to Holy Shit, other than to associate Holy Shit with accumulations of all sorts. Seems to me that, one way or another, shit accumulates on its own.
I vastly prefer the cold, arid Postmodern Condition.
March 17, 2017
lyotard's criticisms of marx are horseshit
November 28, 2021
Incoherent schizo ramblings, desperately trying to imitate Anti-Oedipus, interrupted by only a few interesting passages
May 15, 2012
Required reading for Content & Form, taught by Charles Gaines.
Incredibly difficult reading. One of those books that you re-read parts or sections, take notes in the margins, etc -- Essentially a complex metaphor for the "Human Condition" through the French father of Post Modernism. The translation I have is the somewhat "poetic" one, which makes for an even more difficult read and comprehension.
Considering the book has its own glossary for the terminology used to breakdown the human condition, it's more of a puzzle to put together. It's filled with references to philosophers (so if philosophy ain't your thing, I don't recommend it).
If I had to make a comparison - I'd day it resembles the complexities of Marcel Duchamp's Large Glass ... Which is by many standards the most peculiar and complex work of 'Fine 'Art ever attempted.
I should add that if you are easily offended by concepts like: Jesus is the whore and God is his pimp - then just don't even try. Lol.
Incredibly difficult reading. One of those books that you re-read parts or sections, take notes in the margins, etc -- Essentially a complex metaphor for the "Human Condition" through the French father of Post Modernism. The translation I have is the somewhat "poetic" one, which makes for an even more difficult read and comprehension.
Considering the book has its own glossary for the terminology used to breakdown the human condition, it's more of a puzzle to put together. It's filled with references to philosophers (so if philosophy ain't your thing, I don't recommend it).
If I had to make a comparison - I'd day it resembles the complexities of Marcel Duchamp's Large Glass ... Which is by many standards the most peculiar and complex work of 'Fine 'Art ever attempted.
I should add that if you are easily offended by concepts like: Jesus is the whore and God is his pimp - then just don't even try. Lol.
October 18, 2007
always trust a book disavowed by its author - this is both crazy and respectable
Read
July 17, 2022defeated me. Gave up
November 12, 2012
This book always seems to get overlooked in favour of other texts from the period (like Anti-Oedipus, Of Grammatology, Writing and Difference) which is a shame because it launches pretty convincing critiques of both Derrida's deconstruction and Deleuze and Guattari's project. It's also beautifully written.The use of economics made by Lyotard is more in depth and helpful than that made by Deleuze and Guattari (Lyotard seems to have a pretty good working knowledge of economics), but ultimately Lyotard's criticism of Deleuze and Guattari is that their analysis that the capturing of the libido of the pure production of the desiring machines for the production of surfaces of inscription as the basis for the functioning of the machines of social production can't be sustained because there are no illegitimate uses for desire. Deleuze and Guattari demarcate the difference between desire's legitimate and illegitimate uses as the basis for the possiblity of schizo-analysis, schizo-analysis being a way of liberating desire from its illegitimate uses. Lyotard will argue that desire can't be understood via such a distinction, that libido indiscriminately adds parts to the libidinal band, such that there is no alienated desire as such. Anyways, totally recommend it.
May 3, 2021
This is perhaps the nastiest book I’ve ever read.
Oscillating between brilliance and babble, Lyotard’s work is perhaps best read back to front. The clearest enunciation of his ideas arrives only in the last 5-10 pages. While claiming his ‘theoretical structure’ is evident at the end is far from correct - he writes explicitly against theoreticians of all stripes - it is true that a variety of lenses present themselves only at the last minute.
One of those lenses is speed. Lyotard explicitly addresses both the speed of idea, and the speed of his writing the book, in that aforementioned concluding nub. Through this, the garbled parts are smoothed out. As a reader, this means those parts that seem nonsense, but risk enveloping me in the pursuit of some meaning to be found, may be skimmed over.
Rather, I can keep going, page after page, in pursuit of finding a thread of sense again. This will vary for each reader - if someone is, for an inexplicable reason, well versed in the Marquis de Sade (for example) they will experience the book’s potholes in a fundamentally different way to an Aristotelean - yet the hunting-hound analogy stands true.
There is perhaps more to come in this.
Oscillating between brilliance and babble, Lyotard’s work is perhaps best read back to front. The clearest enunciation of his ideas arrives only in the last 5-10 pages. While claiming his ‘theoretical structure’ is evident at the end is far from correct - he writes explicitly against theoreticians of all stripes - it is true that a variety of lenses present themselves only at the last minute.
One of those lenses is speed. Lyotard explicitly addresses both the speed of idea, and the speed of his writing the book, in that aforementioned concluding nub. Through this, the garbled parts are smoothed out. As a reader, this means those parts that seem nonsense, but risk enveloping me in the pursuit of some meaning to be found, may be skimmed over.
Rather, I can keep going, page after page, in pursuit of finding a thread of sense again. This will vary for each reader - if someone is, for an inexplicable reason, well versed in the Marquis de Sade (for example) they will experience the book’s potholes in a fundamentally different way to an Aristotelean - yet the hunting-hound analogy stands true.
There is perhaps more to come in this.
October 26, 2018
злая и веселая книжка
November 23, 2018
I liked is amazing and enteresting
September 22, 2019
« GUhh fffft Djfngmektnfnq —-3;! Gs’apgx’ ]+<¥¥\$$$$$dnandbfttt ttt nsmqmdn eeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeee 8===D » -God (yes)
“
Did you come yet?”
********liar*************mdrrfdns..., Do it
“
Did you come yet?”
********liar*************mdrrfdns..., Do it
December 25, 2019
Extraordinary book. Translation failed in mediating the lingual grandeur though.
November 16, 2021
wow what
January 23, 2021
For a philosophical text translated from French to English, reading Lyotard's Libidinal Economy (1970) wasn't too difficult, albeit requiring, of course, ample time and concentration. And for the book having been published a little over fifty years ago, the text remains significant today as a commentary on those forces that drive us, either towards death or into life, passionately, lovingly, flailingly, pathetically, skillfully, terribly, hatefully, so on and so forth... enmeshing us within Lyotard 's concept of the libidinal band - that kind of mobius strip exemplifying the only kind of economy we'd want to be a part of - one that knows no difference between the revealing physical exteriors and the inner, innate, structures that define what lies within.
Much of the fascinating aspects of this text ride on the socio-cultural manifestations concerning how the libidinal economy flourishes (as opposed to an economy purely political or purely religious). Sexuality, Marxism, the cultivation of land and/or objects (of art or of consumable goods), the distinction of use-value and intrinsic value alone - all these are deconstructed, reconstructed, and finally constructed again through Lyotard's dialectic of the libidinal economy's pulsional band of intensities; emotional, physical, mental, and organizational, making for a quite exciting philosophical read; a page-turner, if you will.
It is crucial, at least to my understanding, that the underlying and no less subjective element of the Libidinal Economy is a metaphysics of language that carries theoretical transmutation by means of reasonable, completely honest/truthful, completely non-schematic, and anti-power hungry (for lack of a better phrase) creative formations whether textual and/or material. Representational magnitude is consistently denied throughout, and in its place a movement of understanding that goes above and beyond typical machinations of knowledgeable bodies and more and more a bringing out of bodies capable of making their own reality, as subject as they are to all that is not libidinal, all that can only pretend to make sense.
To read my series of chapter by chapter notes, please see my thread on Twitter: https://twitter.com/felicia_v_edens/s...
Much of the fascinating aspects of this text ride on the socio-cultural manifestations concerning how the libidinal economy flourishes (as opposed to an economy purely political or purely religious). Sexuality, Marxism, the cultivation of land and/or objects (of art or of consumable goods), the distinction of use-value and intrinsic value alone - all these are deconstructed, reconstructed, and finally constructed again through Lyotard's dialectic of the libidinal economy's pulsional band of intensities; emotional, physical, mental, and organizational, making for a quite exciting philosophical read; a page-turner, if you will.
It is crucial, at least to my understanding, that the underlying and no less subjective element of the Libidinal Economy is a metaphysics of language that carries theoretical transmutation by means of reasonable, completely honest/truthful, completely non-schematic, and anti-power hungry (for lack of a better phrase) creative formations whether textual and/or material. Representational magnitude is consistently denied throughout, and in its place a movement of understanding that goes above and beyond typical machinations of knowledgeable bodies and more and more a bringing out of bodies capable of making their own reality, as subject as they are to all that is not libidinal, all that can only pretend to make sense.
To read my series of chapter by chapter notes, please see my thread on Twitter: https://twitter.com/felicia_v_edens/s...
February 5, 2024
An insane read if you want to indulge in a soup of poststructuralist French philosophy, economics, eroticism and affective poetry, Lyotard presents a book that is running in all directions at once, like bloodstreams. This is highly recommended for those interested in economics from the side of philosophy as it is not necessarily mathematical but very literary. Nonetheless, the economic issues are discussed at length, along with an investigation of language itself.
The main issue Lyotard attempts to stab at is the remnants of Marx and his thought amid the 68' Uprising in Paris. Rather than hold onto dear life to Marx's body with dear life, Lyotard decides to criticize him to the point of it not being a critique, as contradictory as that sounds it was the accelerationist position I had discovered upon reading it. Armed with Nietzsche, Freud and other periphery figures, the author dismantles Marx's ideas primarily through the idea of the ''organic-body''. This was the former Marxist's disgruntlement of Marxism through a very linguistic idea, the concept that a pure, organic and untouched body (literally and metaphorically) can exist. He believed it could not, a very poststructuralist claim indeed. Oddly enough after reading it, the conclusions drawn out felt like they coincidentally lead to liberalism...
The only drawback of this book is also its strength. Its extremity and excessiveness can oftentimes seem extreme, almost too avant-garde to be academic. An example of this is an investigation into other cultures' philosophy and mysticism. The line between creativity and orientalist tropes became all too blurred in this aspect, yet it was still an applaudable attempt by a European philosopher that still brought up interesting points.
The main issue Lyotard attempts to stab at is the remnants of Marx and his thought amid the 68' Uprising in Paris. Rather than hold onto dear life to Marx's body with dear life, Lyotard decides to criticize him to the point of it not being a critique, as contradictory as that sounds it was the accelerationist position I had discovered upon reading it. Armed with Nietzsche, Freud and other periphery figures, the author dismantles Marx's ideas primarily through the idea of the ''organic-body''. This was the former Marxist's disgruntlement of Marxism through a very linguistic idea, the concept that a pure, organic and untouched body (literally and metaphorically) can exist. He believed it could not, a very poststructuralist claim indeed. Oddly enough after reading it, the conclusions drawn out felt like they coincidentally lead to liberalism...
The only drawback of this book is also its strength. Its extremity and excessiveness can oftentimes seem extreme, almost too avant-garde to be academic. An example of this is an investigation into other cultures' philosophy and mysticism. The line between creativity and orientalist tropes became all too blurred in this aspect, yet it was still an applaudable attempt by a European philosopher that still brought up interesting points.
April 15, 2025
Jean-François Lyotard’s Libidinal Economy (1974) is a wild, intense work that defies easy classification. Though he later distanced himself from it, the book remains a significant — and controversial — contribution to post-’68 French theory. Taking cues from Deleuze and Guattari’s Anti-Oedipus, Lyotard reimagines desire not as a personal or repressed force, but as the primary engine behind all political, social, and economic structures.
Drawing on Nietzsche and Freud, he argues that there is no knowledge untouched by desire — no scientific or political discourse that isn’t already shaped by libidinal investments. Extending Freud’s idea of libido to the social level, Lyotard sees all institutions — language, economics, architecture — as temporary condensations of desire, always at risk of unraveling under the pressure of intensities and drives.
Unlike Deleuze and Guattari, who distinguish between fascist and liberating desires, Lyotard refuses such moral distinctions - there are “not good or bad intensities, then, but intensity or its decompression” (Libidinal, 42). Capitalism, for instance, is viewed not as alienating but as a system that unleashes the death drive, dissolving traditional values in pursuit of pure accumulation. This provocative stance leads to one of the book’s most unsettling questions: if desire has no inherent direction or ethics, how can we evaluate its effects?
Libidinal Economy is not an easy read — deliberately so. It resists clear structure, representation, and moral clarity, mirroring the chaotic forces it tries to describe. Still, it remains a fascinating document of its time: a libidinal explosion that continues to haunt political and philosophical thought.
Drawing on Nietzsche and Freud, he argues that there is no knowledge untouched by desire — no scientific or political discourse that isn’t already shaped by libidinal investments. Extending Freud’s idea of libido to the social level, Lyotard sees all institutions — language, economics, architecture — as temporary condensations of desire, always at risk of unraveling under the pressure of intensities and drives.
Unlike Deleuze and Guattari, who distinguish between fascist and liberating desires, Lyotard refuses such moral distinctions - there are “not good or bad intensities, then, but intensity or its decompression” (Libidinal, 42). Capitalism, for instance, is viewed not as alienating but as a system that unleashes the death drive, dissolving traditional values in pursuit of pure accumulation. This provocative stance leads to one of the book’s most unsettling questions: if desire has no inherent direction or ethics, how can we evaluate its effects?
Libidinal Economy is not an easy read — deliberately so. It resists clear structure, representation, and moral clarity, mirroring the chaotic forces it tries to describe. Still, it remains a fascinating document of its time: a libidinal explosion that continues to haunt political and philosophical thought.
March 7, 2022
Metin çok savruk; ya da "zor bir metin," demek yanlış olmaz. Okurken, çok fazla imgeyi anında ve oracıkta kaybediyorum. Bir süre ara vereceğim ya da yarıda bırakacağım:(((
"Ölüm dürtüleri, Eros uğultusu içerisinde sessizce çalışır."
"Biz asla yeterince incelmiş olmayacağız, (libidinal) dünya her zaman çok güzel olacak, en sıradan safsatada ya da moral bozukluğunda sessizce titreşen büyük bir sarsıntı aşırılığı olacak; biz duygulanımların çıraklığını yapmayı bırakmayacağız; duygulanım yolları, temsil göstergelerini dolaşmayla ve yeniden dolaşmayla ve en beklenmedik, en gözü pek, en şaşırtıcı güzergahların izini sürmekle tükenmeyecek..."
Düşüncenin ve onun bütün tasarımlarının temelde libidinal bir sürükleniş olduğuna ilişkin yüzeysel ve anlamsal yapısının derme çatma durduğu bir çıkarımla karşılaşıyorsunuz. Post-modern düşünceye bunca katkısı olan birinden post-modern bir tavır...
"Ölüm dürtüleri, Eros uğultusu içerisinde sessizce çalışır."
"Biz asla yeterince incelmiş olmayacağız, (libidinal) dünya her zaman çok güzel olacak, en sıradan safsatada ya da moral bozukluğunda sessizce titreşen büyük bir sarsıntı aşırılığı olacak; biz duygulanımların çıraklığını yapmayı bırakmayacağız; duygulanım yolları, temsil göstergelerini dolaşmayla ve yeniden dolaşmayla ve en beklenmedik, en gözü pek, en şaşırtıcı güzergahların izini sürmekle tükenmeyecek..."
Düşüncenin ve onun bütün tasarımlarının temelde libidinal bir sürükleniş olduğuna ilişkin yüzeysel ve anlamsal yapısının derme çatma durduğu bir çıkarımla karşılaşıyorsunuz. Post-modern düşünceye bunca katkısı olan birinden post-modern bir tavır...
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December 22, 2020I didn’t feel right to review the book yet. I vehemently oppose the book used in itself apart from with supplementary materials (like in politics, philosophy, literature), but I also truly believe this book can be levied as a tool against a rigid rationalism without any inclusion of a logic of extremes, for me this book is not necessarily holistically “evil” as it implied in the beginning of the book, or how Mark Fisher quoted it (which I love his interpretation also), and as a major fan of Deleuze and Guattari I can see why they would think it lacks aim, but I think the time for an amoral politics, or even analysis is necessary right now, so I am not against this book, however I am not endorsing it until I make my decision on it after 2 more reads.
April 27, 2022
People be like: With Freud everything is about sex.
Lyotard: Hold my beer...
Couple this with Lyotard being the closest thing I know of to Peterson's perception of postmodernists and this book can be pretty obnoxious at times.
However, the vulgar descriptions can bring forth interesting implications, there is an analysis in here that I can smell even if I can't quite reach and have to rely on other authors to understand it and the style can be mesmerizing as much as it can be revolting.
So the good and the bad kind of even out. Honestly the biggest reason I would recommend this would be the style although I'm not sure how to describe it. Maybe "Hey, do you want to read some batshit crazy postmodernism that influenced accelerationists? Check this out."
Lyotard: Hold my beer...
Couple this with Lyotard being the closest thing I know of to Peterson's perception of postmodernists and this book can be pretty obnoxious at times.
However, the vulgar descriptions can bring forth interesting implications, there is an analysis in here that I can smell even if I can't quite reach and have to rely on other authors to understand it and the style can be mesmerizing as much as it can be revolting.
So the good and the bad kind of even out. Honestly the biggest reason I would recommend this would be the style although I'm not sure how to describe it. Maybe "Hey, do you want to read some batshit crazy postmodernism that influenced accelerationists? Check this out."
October 29, 2021
A glorious orgy of thought, that challenges not just our beliefs, but also the dogmas of economics and politics we accept with a passivity devoid of life. Despite its age, and the vitriol it attracted when first penned, this text speaks to our times. A challenge for us to rethink some of the most basic political dogmas we hold onto. And leads us to that moment of release, which can only be expressed as….. yes, yes, YES!!!
December 6, 2021
"Invulnerable conspiracy, headless, homeless, with neither programme nor project, deploying a thousand cancerous tensors in the bodies of signs. We invent nothing, that's it, yes, yes, yes, yes."
I believe this book can be best understood when compared with antiodipus, the writing style and the logic is similar in these french authors. But it reveals something interesting, unlike that book this one is unmotivated as a blank canvas. It is a sophisticated book -from its sophistry- but it says nothing. This makes you wonder if such argumentation techniques are simply used to overpower you. "It sounds fancy and complicated so it must be true".
I believe this book can be best understood when compared with antiodipus, the writing style and the logic is similar in these french authors. But it reveals something interesting, unlike that book this one is unmotivated as a blank canvas. It is a sophisticated book -from its sophistry- but it says nothing. This makes you wonder if such argumentation techniques are simply used to overpower you. "It sounds fancy and complicated so it must be true".
September 18, 2023
Fantastical, psychoanalytic word wankery. Criticisms of Marx are dog shit. Idealist nonsense, most of this sounds like projection. How can one argue that workers have a lust for exploitation? Like mf, if you're a petty-bourgeois masochist, that's okay, but don't write on the behalf of the rest of us workers. Thanks.
February 16, 2021
I really tried to read this, but the imagery is just too convoluted and the language too esoteric. In the end, I understood where he was going, but I think you'd get a lot more from just reading propaganda with a critical eye.
March 31, 2021
A fun and at times complicated reading that could be seen as a provocation. Lyotard himself called it his 'evil book.' Drawing on perverse readings of Bataille and de Sade, to name a few, he talks about capitalism and its libidinal intensities in our society.
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