the discourse of the capitalist essentially starts from the experience of subjective division. In line with his earlier work, Lacan suggests that the subject is, on the one hand, a connotative effect of language use—“the signifier is what represents a subject for another signifier” (Lacan, 1972, p. 51, my translation). On the other hand, the subject is determined by the object a, which is the structural cause of desire—“The object a is the true support of what we have seen function, and it functions so in a more and more pure way to specify each in his desire” (Lacan, 1972, p. 52, my translation). Yet, most characteristically, man is marked by sexuality, which is not instinctively organized, and makes up “that in which man never feels at ease at all” (Lacan, 1972, p. 38, my translation). In the discourse of the hysteric the Unbehagen thus obtained results in an address to the other. Capitalist discourse, by contrast, does not capitalize on the social relation: “capitalism, that was its starting point: getting rid of sex” (Lacan, 1974, p. 34). Indeed, the capitalist discourse directly aims at the root of the problem, which is what the downward arrow on the left indicates. This discourse does not encapsulate the discomfort of subjective division as structural, but aims to recuperate discontent in its very system. It is a discourse in which there are answers for this discomfort: there exists an S1 that answers the $ and functions as a truth for the divided subject. For example, in our contemporary Western consumption culture, discontent is often deemed the upshot of having not yet obtained the right object and suggests that a state of subjective satisfaction will be reached once this object is obtained. In other words, the semblance of being dissatisfied can be answered with the S1 of a brand name or a product that offers the promise of satisfaction. Capitalist discourse actively cultivates the semblance of dissatisfaction, as well as a fantasy of self-sufficiency, completeness and vitality (Tomšič, 2015). The market tells us what we need: the merchandise it provides. These are all S1's: they are isolated signifiers that consumers take to be the truth of their discontent. Indeed, within the capitalist discourse, the products that make up the market constitute a despotic truth to which the subject is subjected.
