Lyotard argued exploited workers experienced exploitation as erotic enjoyment

Evidence

No critique of Marx, by such naïfs as Castoriadis or Baudrillard, in the name of a pious cult of creativity or nostalgic myth of symbolic exchange, was of any avail. To unmask ‘the desire named Marx’, a complete transcription was needed of political into libidinal economy, that would not shrink from the truth that exploitation itself was typically lived — even by the early industrial workers — as erotic enjoyment: masochistic or hysterical delectation in the destruction of physical health in mines and factories, or disintegration of personal identity in anonymous slums. Capital was desired by those it dominated, then as now. — Perry Anderson, The Origins of Postmodernity, 69

Categorization

• QUESTION: This is striking enough to warrant checking Lyotard’s own text — is Anderson fairly characterizing Economie Libidinale or caricaturing it?
• XREF: connects to: Lyotard grounded capitalism’s force in neguentropy, not human desire — Perry Anderson, The Origins of Postmodernity, 79

Broader Connections

• Lyotard grounded capitalism’s force in neguentropy, not human desire #complicates (0.75) — Perry Anderson, The Origins of Postmodernity, 79