critical theory with slavoj zizek: in Hegel’s philosophy, the fundamental stance of the subject towards objective reality is not that of practical engagement, of confrontation with the inertia of objectivity, but that of letting-it-be: purified of its pathological particularity, the universal subject is certain of itself, it knows that its thought already is the form of reality, so it can renounce enforcing its projects upon reality, it can let reality be the way it is. This is why my labor gets all the more close to its truth the less I work to satisfy my need, that is, to produce objects I will consume. This is why industry which produces for the market is spiritually “higher” than production for one’s own needs: in market-production, I manufacture objects with no relation to my needs. The highest form of social production is therefore that of a merchant : “the merchant is the only one who relates to the Good as a perfect universal subject, since the object in no way interests him on behalf of its aesthetic presence or its use value, but only insofar as it contains a desire of an other.”12 And this is also why, in order to arrive at the “truth” of labor, one should gradually abstract from the (external) goal it strives to realize. The parallel with war is appropriate here: in the same way that the “truth” of the military struggle is not the destruction of the enemy, but the sacrifice of the “pathological” content of the warrior’s particular Self, its purification into the universal Self, the “truth” of labor as the struggle with nature is also not victory over nature, compelling it to serve human goals, but the self-purification of the laborer itself. Labor is simultaneously the (trans)formation of external objects and the disciplinary self-formation/education ( Bildung ) of the subject itself. Hegel here celebrates precisely the alienated and alienating character of labor: far from being a direct expression of my creativity, labor forces me to submit to artificial discipline, to renounce my innermost immediate tendencies, to alienate myself from my natural Self