Risks, totems, and fetishes in Marx and Freud

• Autores: Geoffrey R. Skoll, Maximiliano Emanuel Korstanje
• Localización: Sincronía, ISSN-e 1562-384X, Nº. 62 (Julio-Diciembre 2012), 2012, 27 págs.
• Idioma: inglés
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• Dialnet Métricas: 4 Citas
• Resumen

  • This essay was inspired by and elaborates on several ideas in Maximiliano Korstanje�s (2011; 2012) contribution on a model of risk. Korstanje points out that risks are not probabilities of hazards, dangers, or losses, but narratives serving to modify human behavior. He raises several areas of behavior as illustrations: terrorism, automobiles, and local, interpersonal crime. Finally, his paper cites the contributions of Sigmund Freud and other theorists on totems, taboos, and by extension fetishes. Also following Korstanje (2011; 2012), risks were primarily understood in economic terms, especially in a capitalist political economy. My elaboration seizes on these ideas as they were addressed by Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud. Risk, as a discourse, not only paves the ways for circulating some goods in some directions, but also prevents the circulation of others. As a result of this, it allows the monopolization of power in aristocracies