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Infinite Greed: The Inhuman Selfishness of Capital

By (author) Adrian Johnston

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Winner, 2025 Symposium Book Award, Canadian Society for Continental Philosophy Selfishness is essential to capitalismâ€”or so both advocates and opponents claim. In Infinite Greed, Adrian Johnston argues that this consensus is mistaken. Through a novel synthesis of Marxism and psychoanalysis, he reveals how the relentless pursuit of profits is not fundamentally animated by human acquisitiveness. Instead, capitalismâ€™s strange â€œinfinite greedâ€ demands that individuals sacrifice their pleasures, their well-being, and even themselves to serve inhuman capital. Johnston traces the mechanisms that compel capitalist subjects to obey the cold imperative to accumulate in perpetuity and without limitsâ€”and also without regard for the consequences for everyone and everything else. Facing crises such as spiraling wealth inequality and the profit-driven prospect of a looming ecological apocalypse, the rational self-interest of the majority would seem to dictate putting a stop to capitalist accumulation. By bringing together the Marxian critique of political economy with psychoanalytic metapsychology, Johnston shows why and how capitalism, rather than being responsive to peopleâ€™s rationally selfish interests, disregards and overrides them instead. Unlike previous syntheses of Marxism and psychoanalysis, Infinite Greed pairs Freudian and Lacanian concepts with the economic heart of Marxâ€™s historical materialism. In so doing, Johnston brings to light the complex intertwining of political and libidinal economies keeping us invested and complicit in perpetuating capitalism and its ills.