View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Middlesex University Research Repository TOWARDS A PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY OF FINANCIAL CORRUPTION Stella N. Orakwue A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for a Phd in Psychoanalysis awarded by Middlesex University TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface 5 Abstract 6 Introduction 8 Chapter one: Psychoanalysis, ‘Money’ and Corruption: A Survey 15 Part one: Psychoanalysis and its Applications 1. Psychoanalysis as Methodology 2. On Being ‘Wealthy’ and Having ‘Money’ 3. Using Freudian Theories: The Example of Keynes Part two: Classical Psychoanalysis and ‘Money’ 4. The ‘Anal Theory of Money’: Freud, Ferenczi, Abraham and Jones 5. Otto Fenichel’s Drive to Amass Wealth 6. Classical Psychoanalysis: Historical Contexts 7. The Critique of Classical Psychoanalytic Texts 8. Jacques Derrida and the Return to the Past Part three: Contemporary Psychoanalytic Texts 9. The Post-Classical Psychoanalysis of ‘Money’ 10. The Encounter in the Consulting Room Part four: Psychoanalysis, ‘Money’ and Corruption 11. Towards of Psychoanalytic Theory of Financial Corruption 12. Indicative Writings from the 1960s 13. A Particular Type of Greed? 14. Preliminary Conclusions Chapter two: On the Delineation of the Anal Theory of Money 56 1. Forming Symbols 2 2. Embarking on the Road Towards a Psychoanalytic Theory of ‘Money’ 3. Symbolising the Desired Object or Idea 4. On Symbolism in General 5. Symbolising ‘Money’ 6. Conclusion: Failing the Requirements to Symbolise Money in the Unconscious Chapter three: The Complexities of ‘Money’ in the Consulting Room 79 1. Is ‘Money’ Nodal? 2. Theoretical Epistles on ‘Money’ 3. Reading the Clinical Diary of Sandor Ferenczi 4. The Subject of Money Rears its Head with R.N. 5. The ‘Money’ Problems of Ferenczi’s Patients 6. Concluding Remarks Chapter four: Orality: An Alternative Hypothesis for the Meaning of ‘Money’ in the Unconscious 108 1. On Formulating an Oral Hypothesis: Equating Anus and Mouth 2. Freud, Anality and the Promise of an Oral Discourse Pertaining to Attitudes towards ‘Money’ 3. Freud’s Theory of Orality 4. Karl Abraham and the Oral Development Phase 5. Abraham’s ‘Oral Erotism and Character’ and ‘Money’ 6. A Hypothesis on Orality and ‘Money’ 7. Displeasure and Dissatisfaction 8. From Coprophilic to Gastronomic Objects Chapter five: Orality and the Psychoanalytic Positioning of Financial Corruption 131 Part One: Corruption and its Contexts 1. Introduction 2. Repressions and the Ego 3 3. Redefining ‘Money’ and ‘Food’ 4. Man Corrupt or Corrupted? 5. Starving the Ego, Feeding the Ego 6. Feeding the Ego with Narcissism 7. The Subject Castrated Part Two: A Particular Kind of Poverty 8. A Particular Kind of Poverty 9. The Social and the Individual 10. Corruption in a New State: Colin Leys and David Bayley 11. Imposing a ‘National’ Superego 12. Defending Corruption as ‘Positive’ 13. A Particular Kind of Greed 14. The Psychoanalytic Positioning of Financial Corruption Chapter six: Concluding Reflexions 206 1. The ‘Office’ and Financially Corrupt Practices 2. The Oral Drive and Wealth Accumulation 3. Money as an Object of Perversion 4. Retaining Anality Alongside Orality: ‘Potty’ Deposits and Food Containers 5. The ‘Interest in Money’ versus the ‘Spending of Money’ 6. Dirt, Shit, Poverty and Cleanliness 7. Conclusion: Why did Freud Leave out Money? Bibliography: 238 4 Preface It is unusual for a Phd Dissertation to include a preface from the student’s Director of Studies, but this is an unusual situation. Stella Orakwue did not live to be able to be able to submit a fully revised version of the thesis on which she had laboured with such serious dedication. Therefore this document must stand as final, but it is necessarily incomplete as she was unable to input the changes she had been considering in order to further strengthen the work. The project is also both final and incomplete in the sense that the author cannot now develop and disseminate her ideas in future publications. But in these pages, her distinct voice comes through clearly, as does her closely argued passion and idiosyncratic intelligence. Dr Julia Borossa 5 ABSTRACT Freud maintained that psychoanalysis was not only to be a clinical discourse of the interpersonal and the subjective, however dynamic and necessary therapeutically, but that its principles could be taken from those contexts and applied to wider global, societal, and cultural issues. Since the 1960s, financial corruption has grown into what has become a serious and entrenched problem, albeit this is seldom addressed in psychoanalytic terms. The ultimate aim of this research study is to enquire into the psychoanalytic roots of financial corruption and to ask whether it is possible to attempt a psychoanalytic investigation and explanation of acts of financial corruption committed in particular given circumstances, such as those existing in a developing, emerging, or transitional society, more precisely in the historical period of 1960s Africa. To address this, particular attention will be paid to writings pertaining to Nigeria in its period of decolonisation, when the issue of financial corruption began gain international attention. However, a series of initial steps are necessary in order to approach these issues. In the line of argumentation that this thesis will follow, two main aspects of financial corruption will be examined in depth: firstly, ‘money’, in its multi- layered significance and secondly, the internal desires of the individual with respect to ‘money’ and the external social environment within which this individual is located. Thus, first of all this dissertation will begin by asking two interrelated questions. What has been a psychoanalytic theory on ‘money’? And how did psychoanalysis determine the role that ‘money’ played in the unconscious? The first three chapters of the thesis are devoted to answering these and following a survey of the field, return to pre-World War Two classical psychoanalytic theoretical writings, the correspondence of pioneering psychoanalysts and Ferenczi’s Clinical Diary, in order to arrive at a starting point for a further examination of psychoanalysis and financial corruption. Centrally, the status of the ‘anal theory of money’, derived from Freud’s indicative papers on anal erotism and elaborated by Ferenczi and others, will be put to the test. Close readings of classical psychoanalytic writings led to the central argument of this thesis: that there arises the possibility of contesting the enshrined status of the relation of faeces to ‘money’ on the grounds of this not being a truly unconscious symbolic relation, as ‘money’ is a construct that has to be taught. It is argued that the theorists of the classical period did not do justice to the possible connections between orality and ‘money’ – despite strong pointers within their writings to the oral developmental stage. The final chapters attempt to close a gap by setting out an alternative hypothesis to anality based on the unconscious and orality. Karl Abraham’s work provides a key theoretical scaffolding in this respect. An oral hypothesis, taking seriously the actual and fantasmatic aspects of hunger and greed, is argued to be important for the psychoanalytic understanding of the unconscious motivations and impulses that could underlie financial corruption. With recourse to both the 6 anal theory and the alternative oral hypothesis, which taken together enable a deeper analysis, a reading is undertaken of selected texts on 1960s’ corruption in order to explore the question of what could have been taking place psychoanalytically and to lay the building blocks towards a psychoanalytic theory of financial corruption. 7 INTRODUCTION Today, as more and more people become very rich, whilst more and more people remain in or sink into poverty; as the rigidities of the systems enabling wealth to be acquired become even more economically and culturally entrenched whilst at the same time enabling flexibilities and opportunities for the ever greater enrichment for the few, it is timely to attempt a renewed theoretical modelling of the basic psychoanalytic frameworks that are likely to be useful to examine the psychoanalytic relationship between ‘money’ and the unconscious. More precisely, the contention here is that psychoanalysis can provide useful perspectives and enlighten the probable psychic reasons for the underlying motivations behind decisions to carry out acts of financial corruption. This research study hopes to make a serious contribution to the growing body of work concerned with psychoanalysis and ‘money’, ‘wealth’, and ‘finance’. That psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic concepts and tenets could be used outside of the clinical encounter as a method of analysis which is also applicable to problematic areas of social, economic, and cultural concerns follows on the tradition established by Sigmund Freud in works such as Totem and Taboo (1912 – 1913), Civilization and its Discontents (1930), and The Future of an Illusion (1927). His dictum on the necessary application of psychoanalysis to global concerns has been supported and adhered to down the decades by many of those who write about and, or, practice psychoanalysis (Roudinesco, 2001; Marcus, 1984; Kurzweil, 1998; Kernberg, 2004). Indeed, in The Future of an Illusion Freud appears to be prescient when viewed from the perspective of contemporary events, as he states that the distribution of wealth is important and that “civilization” has to be wary of and guard against the selfish, “hostile impulses” of “the individual” (Freud, 1927, p.6). Thus Freud used psychoanalysis as a general method of investigation, he felt that it was important that psychoanalysis be employed as an exploratory and explanatory methodology and undoubtedly, 8 psychoanalysis brings forward important insights into the functioning of the individual in society, especially when one takes fully into account Freud’s structural theory of the unconscious mental agencies, which he defined as the ego, the id, and the superego (Freud, 1923); his theory on narcissism (Freud, 1914), his work on infantile sexuality (Freud, 1905), and the instincts (e.g.