The theories of Deleuze and Guattari reveal a restrictive view of the Oedipus complex, as well as the role of the family in the psychoanalytic understanding of human culture. Their separation of Marxism and psychoanalysis into production and representation, respectively, needs to be reexamined, as does their bracketing of defense mechanisms—especially displacement, condensation, and sublimation—from the Marxist perspective, a bracketing that suppresses an understanding of the symbolic function of commodities and fetishes. Multiple defense mechanisms serve to support exceptional American capitalism, and dreamwork provides the best techniques for understanding the production of the American political system.