Perversions of the Market - Sadism, Masochism, and the Culture of Capitalism

An engaging analysis of the catastrophic ways capital perverts market dynamics by a leading scholar of Deleuze.
Perversions of the Market argues that capitalism fosters sadism and masochism-not as individual psychological proclivities but as widespread institutionalized patterns of behavior. The book is divided into two parts: one historical and the other theoretical. In the first, Eugene W. Holland shows how, as capital becomes global in scale and drives production and consumption farther and farther apart, it perverts otherwise free markets, transforming sadism and masochism into borderline conditions and various supremacisms. The second part then turns to Deleuze and Guattari's "schizoanalysis," explaining how it helpfully embeds Freud's analysis of the family and Lacan's analysis of language within an analysis of the capitalist market and its psycho-dynamics. Drawing on literature and film throughout to illuminate the discontents of modern culture, Holland maintains that the sadistic relations of production and masochistic relations of consumption must be eliminated to prevent capitalism from destroying life as we know it.

About the author

Eugene W. Holland is Professor Emeritus of Comparative Studies at the Ohio State University. He is the author of Deleuze and Guattari's A Thousand Plateaus: A Reader's Guide and Nomad Citizenship: Free-Market Communism and the Slow-Motion General Strike.

Product details

• Authors: Eugene W. Holland, Holland Eugene W.
• Publisher: State University of New York Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 09.05.2025
• EAN: 9798855800210
• ISBN: 9798855800210
• No. of pages: 168
• Series: SUNY series, Insinuations: Philosophy, Psychoanalysis, Literature
• Subjects: Fiction > Poetry, drama; Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative literary studies; Social Theory, PHILOSOPHY / Political, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Sociology / Social Theory, LITERARY CRITICISM / Comparative Literature, Comparative Literature, Social & political philosophy, social and political philosophy, Literature: history & criticism, Psychoanalytical and Freudian psychology, Psychoanalytical theory (Freudian psychology), PSYCHOLOGY / Psychotherapy / Psychoanalysis