How Can the Freudian Slip Save Nepali Garments Industry Analysts?

Industrial analysts are alienated from the powerful giants on the top of a certain industry. Our main driving example is the garment industry of Nepal, where we do not hear of the professional industry analysts, but only know of the powerful giants, the factories that produce the garments, the international sellers etc. The first problem is the hierarchization of the industry, a hierarchy which was established because to accommodate the over-exuberant individuals and organizations who wanted to participate in the successful industry, there needed to be positions which were not only symbolic but also productive/functional. Secondly, it is precisely as each of the positions became too functional and therefore independent of other positions in the hierarchy that there developed a communication gap. All indications of sophistication when a financial organization defines itself and defines its work are signs that that particular organization suffers from a communication gap with other organizations in the hierarchy of its industry. Such “sophisticated organizations” believe themselves to be independent of giants but are in fact isolated/alienated due to over-specialization. Industry analysts have neither the power nor the will to shape the industry through their organizations.

In a Lacanian sense, the lowly analyst first occupies the position of the symbol (such as the intelligible and therefore productive word) but then becomes the impotent 'sign' at the margins, where the sign is an economic organization/company which, despite its sophistication, does not have much of an agency in determining the actions that take place in the wider economy, for the sign is like a discarded made-up word in the universe of legitimate language. Given this problem, the analyst's goal should be to articulate a sign which can function as a Freudian slip of the giant, or, to move one's analysis company to that place where the giant's system of expert production can be broken up into parts by the intervention of one's doing. The giant must be confronted, at its height/stature and during its most productive moments, by the lowly analyst displaying to it the mystery of the meaning/function of a made-up symbol, which is the Freudian slip, and this act of display will inspire in the giant productive curiosity about the workings of the lower places in the industrial hierarchy. As the unsettled giant then formulates knowledge on the lower placed companies in the industry in its attempt to understand the meaning of made-up "Freudian slip" positions, it becomes more familiar with the analysts and hence a communicative relationship can be developed for further work. 

The fortunes of the lower organizations, of which the analyst is an example here, rely on the unknown whims of the giant. The bottom makes gains and losses in its field because it does not know how the top will operate in its respective field, but these gains and losses are attributed to “complex markets” and “unpredictability” without asking if major changes in the communications between the different parts of the hierarchy could have made the industrial gains and losses more systematic. No actor directly involved in the industry seems to be ready to address the administrative difficulties of a communication gap, and the system seems to be left as it is. Of course, mathematical data on the performance of the giant is published, and so are media reports of the giant's announcements, but, the performance of the giant itself is not dependent on a communicative relationship with the organizations in the middle and the bottom, in other words, the productivity of the communications between the top and the bottom is too low. Communication is a side-effect of success rather than something leading to it. 

With the media in crisis, the communication problems between an industry giant and an industry analyst are aggravated. The media and the giant are unable to work together to deliver the right statement that answers the queries of all actors involved; the media does not ask the right questions and the giant does not reach a level of disclosure or generalization in its statement to be understood by all industry actors. In a Lacanian sense, the more shortened, prepared and performed a media statement by the giant's leader or board, the more likely that there will be no place for the Freudian slip to occur from the giant's side, which is a problematic development. The Freudian slip, if the giant allows to occur among its own human actors, would bring forth an informality in relations between the giant and the analyst, thereby allowing collective interests of both parties to overcome individual selfish interests.