Pure Excess
Capitalism and the Commodity
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Pure Excess
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Narrated by:
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Scot Wilcox
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By:
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Todd McGowan
About this listen
Todd McGowan forges a new theory of capitalism as a system based on the production of more than what we need: pure excess. He argues that the promise of more wealth, more enjoyment, more opportunity, without requiring any sacrifice is the essence of capitalism. Previous socioeconomic systems set up some form of the social good as their focus. Capitalism, however, represents a revolutionary turn away from the good and the useful toward excessive growth, which now threatens the habitability of the planet.
Drawing on psychoanalytic theory, McGowan shows how the production of commodities explains the role of excess in the workings of capitalism. Capitalism and the commodity ensnare us with the image of the constant fulfillment of our desiresthe seductive but unattainable promise of satisfying a longing that has no end. To challenge this system, McGowan turns to art, arguing that it can expose the psychological mechanisms that perpetuate capitalist society and reveal the need for limits. Featuring lively writing and engaging examples from film, literature, and popular culture, Pure Excess uncovers the hidden logic of capitalismand helps us envision a noncapitalist life in a noncapitalist society.
The book is published by Columbia University Press. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks.
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Critic reviews
"This book is obligatory reading for everyone who wants to understand the global crisis we are in." (Slavoj Žižek)
"Groundbreaking work...this book also reveals the anticapitalist potential of art and the aesthetic form." (Alenka Zupančič, author of What Is Sex?)
"This crystalline study perfects the psychoanalytic critique of contemporary omnicrisis." (Anna Kornbluh, author of Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late Capitalism)