Omnipotence, retreat from reality and finance: psychoanalytic reflections on the 2008 financial crisis

Abstract

A crisis of vast proportions struck the global fi nancial sector in 2008 and

“The Economy's Favored Children”: The Narcissistic Relation and the Financial Crisis

“…For American psychoanalytic theory, the crisis highlights a potential failure to notice the influence of social change processes on the structure of the psyche. Assumptions of “normative” superego functioning on the part of many analysts appear to be based more in earlier accounts and in wishes than in present facts (for two rare exceptions, see Lieberman () and, from the other side of the Atlantic, Morante ()). The pain of facing the actions of members of the moneyed class, on whom the financial well‐being of psychoanalysts historically is so often based, perhaps hits particularly close to home in the heart of American psychoanalysis, historically centered in New York.…”

“…Next, I consider specific narcissistic dynamics alive on the American political‐economic stage, in particular their consequences for the psychological relationship of citizens to financial leaders: “the economy's favored children” (Johnson, ). Finally, I attempt to demonstrate how a psychoanalytic account of the psychological underpinnings of the financial crisis in the narcissistic relation intersects other psychoanalytic or psychoanalytically‐influenced perspectives offered on the crisis (in particular, work by Figlio, ; Steinkoler, ; Colebrook, ; Goux, ; and Stiegler in Bennett, ; Morante, ; Tuckett, ) at points, yet is also substantially independent from them and has specific advantages I shall argue.…”

“… It is notable that practicing American psychoanalysts have addressed the financial crisis almost exclusively anecdotally, and published virtually nothing on the crisis (save papers by Fink () and by Lieberman ()). It is remarkable that the major works on the intersection of psychoanalysis and the financial crisis (a collection of essays edited by Bennett (), Tuckett's () monograph, and Morante ()) – a crisis whose underpinnings were laid by financial practices developed in the United States – collectively feature over four times the number of contributions of British and French authors compared to those of American authors. The only monographs on the subject were both published in the UK.…”

Rev Billy vs. the Market: a sane man in a world of omnipotent fantasies

“…The literature reviewed below suggests that as our power multiplied exponentially through the development of symbolic and physical tool systems, we increasingly lost touch with the reality of Earth, sun and cosmos, and retreated into cultural fantasies of omnipotence in which anything is possible (Becker, 1997;Lothane, 1997;Morante, 2010).…”

“…Diverse theorists explain the ecocidal trajectory of the globalised marketplace as the expression of a desire for omnipotence that emerges from irrational fears of powerlessness (Becker, 1997;Morante, 2010;Searles, 1972;Wink, 1986). Unconscious terror of impotence spurs a desire for (or will to) power, which no quantum of real power can satisfy.…”