.jpg) Cover of the first edition | |
| Author | Jean-François Lyotard |
|---|---|
| Original title | Économie Libidinale |
| Translator | Iain Hamilton Grant |
| Language | French |
| Subjects | |
| Publisher | Les Éditions de Minuit, Indiana University Press |
Publication date | 1974 |
| Publication place | France |
Published in English | 1993 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover and Paperback) |
| Pages | 275 (English edition) |
| ISBN | 978-0253207289 |
| Preceded by | Discourse, Figure |
| Followed by | Duchamp's TRANS/formers |
Libidinal Economy (French: Économie Libidinale) is a 1974 book by French philosopher Jean-François Lyotard. The book was composed following the ideological shift of the May 68 protests in France, whereupon Lyotard distanced himself from conventional critical theory and Marxism because he felt that they were still too structuralist and imposed a rigid "systematization of desires".[1] Drastically changing his writing style and turning his attention to semiotics, theories of libido, economic history and erotica, he repurposed Freud's idea of libidinal economy as a more complex and fluid concept that he linked to political economy, and proposed multiple ideas in conjunction with it. Alongside Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari's Anti-Oedipus, Libidinal Economy has been seen as an essential post-May 68 work in a time when theorists in France were radically reinterpreting psychoanalysis, and critics have argued that the book is free of moral or political orientation. Lyotard subsequently abandoned its ideas and views, later describing it as his "evil book" ("livre méchant", literally "nasty book").[2]