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Palgrave Macmillan

The Psychopathology of American Capitalism

  • Book
  • © 2017

Overview

Authors:
  1. Thomas Paul Bonfiglio

    1. Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, University of Richmond, Richmond, USA

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  • Features a unique combination of Marxism and psychoanalysis to explain the anomalous condition of American capitalism
  • Employs psychoanalysis to account for identity politics and the resistance to alternative political parties
  • Illuminates a political vocabulary that restricts the possibilities of discourse outside of the system
  • Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

Part of the book series: Critical Political Theory and Radical Practice (CPTRP)

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Table of contents (13 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-viii
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  2. Introduction

    • Thomas Paul Bonfiglio
    Pages 1-23

  3. Marx, Freud, and Capital

    • Thomas Paul Bonfiglio
    Pages 25-42

  4. Immanent Injustice: Race and Gender

    • Thomas Paul Bonfiglio
    Pages 43-63

  5. Misrepresentations: Deleuze and Guattari

    • Thomas Paul Bonfiglio
    Pages 65-75

  6. Žižek’s Hysterical Commodities

    • Thomas Paul Bonfiglio
    Pages 77-89

  7. Marketed Fetishism

    • Thomas Paul Bonfiglio
    Pages 91-114

  8. Language, Thought, and Economy

    • Thomas Paul Bonfiglio
    Pages 115-145

  9. Cold War Cognition

    • Thomas Paul Bonfiglio
    Pages 147-191

  10. Anticommunism and Academia

    • Thomas Paul Bonfiglio
    Pages 193-205

  11. Anglocentrism in the American Century

    • Thomas Paul Bonfiglio
    Pages 207-224

  12. From Economy to Identity: How Many Ends Does It Take to Make a Middle?

    • Thomas Paul Bonfiglio
    Pages 225-253

  13. Conclusion

    • Thomas Paul Bonfiglio
    Pages 255-272

  14. Afterword: Sanders, Clinton, and Trump

    • Thomas Paul Bonfiglio
    Pages 273-285

  15. Back Matter

    Pages 287-296
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Keywords

About this book

This book synthesizes psychoanalytic and Marxist techniques in order to illuminate the resistance to a socialization of the American economy, the protectionist discourses of anomalous American capitalism, and the suppression of the capitalist welfare state. After the Second World War, Democrats and Republicans effectively eliminated the communist and socialist parties from the American political spectrum and suppressed their allied labor movements. The right-wing shift of both parties fabricated a false opposition of left and right that does not correspond to political oppositions in the industrialized democracies. Marxist perspectives can account for the massive inequality of the political economy, but they are insufficient for illuminating its preservation. Psychoanalysis is necessary in order to explain why Americans continue to vote within a two-party system that neglects the lower classes, and why the working class tendsto vote against its own interests. The psychoanalytic techniques employed include doubling, repetition, displacement, condensation, inversion, denial, fetishizing, and cognitive repression. In examining the fixation upon the proxy binary of Democrat vs. Republican, which suppresses the true opposition of left vs. right and neutralizes alternatives, the work analyses numerous contemporary political issues through applications of Marxist psychoanalytic theory.

Authors and Affiliations

  • Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, University of Richmond, Richmond, USA

    Thomas Paul Bonfiglio

About the author

Thomas Paul Bonfiglio is Gaines Professor of Literature and Linguistics at the University of Richmond, USA. His publications include Why Is English Literature? Language and Letters for the Twenty-First Century (2013); Mother Tongues and Nations: The Invention of the Native Speaker (2010); and Race and the Rise of Standard American (2002).

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