Cold critique, faint passion, bleak future: Post-Development’s surrender to global capitalism

Abstract

This article carries out a psychoanalytic critique of Post-Development, arguing that the latter’s inattention to the unconscious underpinnings of power not only leaves it unable to explain why development discourse persists, but also deprives it of a radical politics, resulting in a surrender to global capitalism. Drawing on the work of Escobar, Ferguson and Esteva, the article valorises Post-Development’s important insights on the production of development discourse and its attendant power mechanisms. But using a Lacanian lens, it also probes Post-Development’s failure to address how power is mediated at the level of the subject: in maintaining that (capitalist) development is produced discursively in a cold, impersonal way (like an ‘anti-politics machine’), Post-Development ignores the fact that such power is only able to take hold, expand and, crucially, persist through unconscious libidinal attachments (e.g. desires, enjoyment). This failure leaves Post-Development with few resources – beyond localised resistance (Escobar, Esteva) or the call for a universal basic income (Ferguson) – to address the structural challenges of global capitalism. Psychoanalytically speaking, such a (Left) position appears to manifest a secret desire that nothing too much must change: Post-Development may well criticise the disciplinary mechanisms of neoliberal development, but ultimately it engages in an unconscious acceptance of capitalism.