| This paper argues that Marx's analysis of political economy in Capital and the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 implies both a conception of the subject as desiring and a concern for the worker's enjoyment. Because psychoanalysis conceives the subject as desiring in an explicit way and since "enjoyment is the only substance acknowledged by psychoanalysis", I utilize Slavoj Zizek's interpretation of Lacanian psychoanalysis as the framework within which a concept of communist labor can be "reinvented" with the worker's enjoyment explicitly in mind. To do this, I distinguish between three forms of enjoyment ("pleasure", 'desire-enjoyment', and 'drive-enjoyment'), arguing that capitalism promotes 'desire-enjoyment', which leads to the alienation Marx finds in capitalism. I then argue that the third form of enjoyment, 'drive-enjoyment', can serve as a basis for a concept of the labor relation that is more conducive to the worker than the capitalist relation; a relation that I therefore call 'work proper'. |
