Symptom Invented: Lacan and the History of Marxism

This book is about Jacques Lacan’s place in the history of Marxist thought. It argues that psychoanalysis, as understood by Lacan, represents a radical departure from the Marxist tradition and its politics—but also that the political value of psychoanalysis can only be properly understood in this context.
Lacan’s psychoanalytic theories are an increasingly popular resource for intellectuals on the left, who use them to critique the psychic conditions for the functioning of capitalism, and its impact on unconscious mental life. In doing so, however, they tend to make Lacan’s position with respect to Marx seem obvious, and to overstate the potential for an alliance between the two.