Bernard Stiegler on the Libidinal Dis-Economy and Societal In-Stability

Discussion

Translation from a French-Language synthesis of Bernard Stiegler's philosophy, by Simon Licelles, called 'Project Delirium':

"The term libidinal economy will refer to the process by which an individual or a group of individuals derives a part of their drive energy (desires for sex, hunger, aggressiveness…)—that is to say, by which they delay the satisfaction of the drive and use this biological energy to perform non-sexual, non-aggressive tasks and socially acceptable activities.

Stiegler perhaps considered only sexual drives, which is why he spoke of a libidinal economy. If we include hunger and aggressiveness, it might be more accurate to speak of a drive economy (économie pulsionnelle) rather than only a "libidinal" one.

Freud designated this social valorization of the drive with the concept of: drive sublimation.

For Freud, a drive can meet different fates. One can satisfy it simply, by making love, masturbating, or having a good meal. One can repress the pressure of the drive into the unconscious, meaning, make an effort to forget it, which causes more problems, up to and including neuroses, psychoses, and self-destructive processes. Or, a third fate, one can sublimate the drive, harness its energy, and the individual will act for themselves or for the community: by working, articulating elements, developing knowledge, and producing works. And they will be able to share these works and practices with peers.

The drive would thus be the basic biological energy, and the drive economy the process of transforming the drive into socio-technical habits. Knowledge, and notably "savoir-vivre" (knowing how to live), could be said, according to this thesis, to be entirely the product of a certain form of drive economy. The manner in which we divert our drives towards shareable acts will characterize the quality of our individuation.

By definition, the drive economy is both individual and collective, because we economize our drives in order to socialize works. But this is learned and requires a socio-technical context, which provides the individual with an education, habits, and an environment that will constitute the possible channels for the production and publication of works. In other words, in the short term, the socio-technical milieu elicits and supports the individuals' libidinal economy.

It appears, therefore, that the way we know how to economize our libido depends entirely on the socio-technical milieu into which we are born. There is a social overdetermination, or even a social determination. Thus, for example, individuals from the lower classes cannot, in any way or only very marginally, adopt the behaviors and situations of individuals from the upper classes.

In return, the products [of sublimation] enrich this socio-technical milieu. (The milieu is enriched by the contributions that are everyone's attempts to sublimate their drives.) This is self-reinforcing; the contributions of some become examples or foundations for the contributions of others. This is what Bernard Stiegler called: circuits of transindividuation; the sharing of individual works that become social.

One could say that in the short term, on the scale of the individual, society allows them to economize their drives. But in the medium and long term, it is the economy of the drive that makes society; that is to say, it is the drive economy that brings a certain stability to social systems. In other words: Only social systems that allow for an economy of drives are durable and sustain themselves. The pre-Columbian empires, China, India, the great monotheistic religions—history undoubtedly offers many examples of societies that are also stable drive economy systems.

Conversely, there have also been eras or moments of drive disconnection, or of libidinal diseconomy. Stiegler cited at least: Nazi Germany, which he qualified as a drive-based regime (régime pulsionnel), and in this he opposed those who claimed this regime was desired by the population. Hitler, he argued, led the Germans to unleash their death drives.

Closer to us, the consumerism of the late 20th century can be characterized by a drive diseconomy: marketing, aided by centralized cultural industries such as radio and television channels, disconnected individuals' sexual drives to generate waves of compulsive buying, instituting, or celebrating, the consumer at the expense of the citizen. Capitalist enterprises indeed spent trillions to disconnect individuals' drives and direct them towards consumer goods, for example by eroticizing advertisements as much as possible. Marketing used television to transform individuals' existence, modify their "savoir-vivre," and orient their desires towards consumer goods and purchases.

But by exploiting the love, or the desire—normally infinite—that one bears for an object of worship, and directing it towards mediocre consumer objects, marketing certainly captured market share, but it also provoked immense disappointment and the mass disindividuation characterizing the end of the 20th century.

According to Stiegler, marketing ruined desire, provoking immense malaise and disindividuation, which has been extensively documented by the work of the association Ars Industrialis.

In these two cases, Nazi Germany and consumerist society, the resulting society is unstable. It self-destructed for Nazi Germany in total war, and consumerism is becoming psychologically untenable for the populations of industrialized societies; we indeed see a multiplication of behavioral addictions and collective killings. That is to say, in addition to depleting the Earth's resources, consumerist society destroys psychological resources, the capacities of the mind, and the possibility of forming a society.

On the other hand, by economizing their libido in social works, more than in consumption, individuals invest a feeling of love in the objects of their practices. They take care of these objects, of themselves, and of the world. The libidinal economy is at the origin of self-love and love for others. It allows for the pacification of manners and leads to peaceful and durable, or metastable, societies.

We are still within the consumerist capitalist system, but things may evolve. According to this thesis, we would need a new system of drive economy, which would on one hand allow us to form a society and enable bio-techno-sociological individuation, and on the other hand, also be in accord with the environmental challenges linked to the regeneration of biodiversity."

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