Subject, capitalist discourse, and neoliberalism

The globalization of the economy, its attempt at worldwide uniformity, under the mandates of capitalist discourse, brings with it effects of social inequality, as the gap between those who own capital and those who work for it, helping it grow and receiving wages, while the others reap large profits, becomes more pronounced. From this, it is clear that individuals construct a particular reality, with which they relate uniquely. If psychoanalysis proposes that the so-called capitalist discourse fractures the social bond, as it promotes a consumerist logic in pursuit of supposed happiness, neoliberalism, as an effect of capitalist discourse, favors a horizontal system in which workers can be managers of their own well-being, like all entrepreneurs. This, in turn, makes the creation and maintenance of bonds of solidarity impossible, since greater consumption does not necessarily mean less lack, or the possibility of obstructing it, since it is constitutive. The contemporary subject, faced with capitalism and neoliberalism and traversed by them, emerges around a void that can be perceived as increasingly larger and that simultaneously maximizes discomfort with the differences of the other. These ideas will be the path taken by the chapter, with references from authors in the disciplines of psychoanalysis, economics, and philosophy, places from which the subject is the guiding concern that directs every point of departure.