Structural deadlocks of capitalist nihilism: Marx, Nietzsche, and a Hegelian Lacan

Abstract

This paper seeks to foster an encounter between Marx and a “Slovenian” interpretation of Lacan in order to explore the possibility of reading Marx’s critical project as a theory of capitalist nihilism (in Nietzsche’s sense). It argues that the structural instability —the structural non-relation— that Lacan identifies in Marx and wields against the purportedly non-barred, consistent, and complete nature of the Saussurean structure provides a valuable foundation for examining the paradoxical contours of capitalist nihilism (as theorised in Marx’s texts) by shifting from Saussure to the Hegel-Lacan axis. Moreover, this exercise aims to shed new Lacanian light on key Marxian concepts, approached from a standpoint that attempts to enact a “Marxist” repetition of Nietzsche.