This article aims to discuss the conception of desire contained in structuralist and post-structuralist approaches, putting the desire as fundamental object of contemporary analysis of power relations in the workplace, emphasizing the inability of the structuralist concept of desire in the construction process and to catalyze the expansion of life in workplace. This search was grounded on bibliography analysis of the literature about desire, based on Freud's and Lacan's structuralism and Deleuze's, Foucault's and Rolnik's post-structuralism. This article adopts a post-structuralist concept of desire. It concludes that modern psychoanalyze theory (Freud), structuralism (Lacan), as well the organizational work of Chanlat and Dejours that use psychoanalysis in their analysis to define what is desire contribute to create inhibiting factors and unpowerment the ethical-political-esthetic process of expansion of life in the workplace. In contrast, post-structuralism that defines desire as social and capable of constructing and deconstructing realities can empower and discuss the complexity that involved the expansion of life at work and in contemporary society.
desire; power; post-structuralism; expansion of life; work