Taking the Parallax View: Žižek, Karatani, Lacan, and the Plurality of Economic Thought

Abstract

What is seen when one’s gaze falls upon the plurality of thought within economics? If one gazes from the perspective of Slavoj Žižek, of Kojin Karatani, and of Jacques Lacan, one finds a pronounced parallax within the differing perspectives of economic reality. This essay explores the application of parallax ontology—primarily as discussed in Žižek’s The Parallax View—to economic pluralism. Parallax ontology acknowledges that our conception of reality, economic or otherwise, is riven with parallax gaps, to be thought of as irreducible gaps or minimal distances between perspectives. It argues that one should consider these parallax gaps to exist within economic pluralism and to be subjects in and of themselves, a perspective that ultimately rejects any form of monism within economic thought.