ABSTRACT
The representation of capitalism as a system of abstraction gams a widespread reception in contemporary analyses of social relations. The introduction of the dimensions of the unconscious and affects enables us to provide an explanation of the resilience and solidity of capitalist abstraction by accounting for its libidinal sources which is absent in the real abstraction literature. The discourse of capitalist abstraction, through erecting ideals that argue for the malleability and perfectibility of the individual producer and consumer, binds us to attain goals that can never be attainable. The authors' reading of capitalist abstraction has identified an articulation of the Master's discourse with that of the University, mobilizing affects that range from the generation of anxiety to the transformation of it into guilt potentially operating simultaneously. Yet the discussion so far has described an affective economy which appears all too subservient to the expanded reproduction of the political economy of capitalist abstraction.
