Jouir à l’heure capitaliste. Lacan, pas sans Kojève

The aim of this paper is to argue that the lacanian interpretation of capitalism is strictly related to the concept of «giving capitalism», developed by Kojève during a famous conference in Düsseldorf, at the invitation of Carl Schmitt in 1957. Lacan’s point is that capitalism has established itself as the empire of standardised enjoyment, where consumers of gadgets become gadgets. This reification process is hidden behind the friendly face of «giving capitalism», but ends up to manifest itself as a mechanism of aggressive control of life. In a letter to Leo Strauss (1950), Kojève foreshadowed this outcome, which Lacan clearly saw in the sixties. The paper will be structured in three main parts. I. In the first part, the focus will be on the lacanian idea of capitalism as a system which collapses desire into production; II. The second part briefly sketches the dialogue between Kojève and Schmitt on the concept of «giving capitalism»; III. Finally, the paper examines two similar solutions, one from Kojève and one from Lacan, to escape the reification process of capitalism.