Economics

Publish this as a wiki TERM (not a queued paper). Use this copy, do not rewrite

Publish this as a wiki TERM (not a queued paper).

Curated by Enzo Simier.

Why it matters

Submitted through the ingestion workflow. Review and refine the category and supporting notes before treating it as a settled entry.

Notes

Publish this as a wiki TERM (not a queued paper). Use this copy, do not rewrite the definition. title: libidinal economy slug: libidinal-economy category: Economics subthemes: Political economy, Desire, Critical theory summary: A reading of social life in which desire is treated as a scarce, investable force — circulated, hoarded, and spent the way capital is. whyItMatters: It names why attention, status, and sexual energy show up in markets and politics as if they were prices, not leftovers. Useful when a ‘rational’ model keeps missing what people are actually allocating. notes: The phrase is locked to Lyotard’s Économie libidinale (1974), though the move is older: Freud already talked about psychic ‘economics.’ A sharp lens; easy to over-apply as a just-so story about every institution. keywords: libidinal economy, desire, lyotard, political economy, attention source: Curated note addedVia: antoine

See also

  • libidinal economyA reading of social life in which desire is treated as a scarce, investable force, circulated, hoarded, and spent the way capital is.
  • Publish this as a wiki TERM (not a queued paper). Use this copy, do not rewritePublish this as a wiki TERM (not a queued paper).
  • Jean-François LyotardFrench philosopher (1924-1998) who treated desire as an economy and later named the postmodern as incredulity toward grand narratives.
  • ceteris paribusLatin for "all other things being equal"; used in economics to isolate the effect of a single variable by holding all other factors constant.
  • ceteris paribusLatin for "all other things being equal"; used in economics to isolate the effect of a single variable by holding all other factors constant.
  • Mackinder's Heartland theoryA geopolitical concept proposing that control over Central Asia (the 'Heartland') allows for dominance over the 'World Island' (Eurasia and Africa), and thus the entire world.
  • Nicholas Spykman's Rimland theoryA geopolitical theory stating that control over the coastal fringes of Eurasia (the Rimland) is the key to global power, as it contains the majority of the world's population and resources.
  • SVAR (Structural Vector Autoregression)SVAR (Structural Vector Autoregression): SVAR is an econometric tool that separates tangled economic data into the underlying independent surprises, or shocks, that drove it, so you can simulate what happens if one of those shocks hits again.