ABSTRACT
The nature of capitalism, as S. Ferenczi expressed, is not purely utilitarian, but irrational and libidinal, too. Its thrust comes not just from practical matters, from the “reality principle”, but integrates as well an irrational dimension that follows the primitive “pleasure principle”. The perverse love of money is no longer a matter of “owning something”, but of “owning self”, with markedly centripetal dynamics. The centripetal, retentive, hoarding dynamics of anal-eroticism and monetary possession have all the force of narcissism and infantile self-assertion. The collection of useless objects, the inability to get rid of obviously unusable junk, the conversion of time into “gold” maintaining the same hoarding attitude, are relatively frequent occurrences that express a kind of “perverse love” which can, of course, be disguised with the most colourful rationalisations. Regarding the unhealthy ways of feeling ownership, clinical psychology could contribute countless cases.
