William S. Burroughs - The Algebra of Need (audi0)

Charles Gatewood by Sean Hartgrove

JM: In the Introduction, you say that Naked Lunch deals with the “algebra of need” and that junk is “the mold of monopoly and possession,” by which you seem to imply that the junkie is representative of everybody else in an economy where power is centralized and monopolized. Is that correct?

WB: Well, by the “algebra of need” I simply meant that, given certain known factors in an equation and the equation comprising a situation of absolute need — any form of need — you can predict the results. Leave a sick junkie in the back room of a drugstore and only one result is possible. The same is true of anyone in a state of absolute hunger, absolute fear, etc. The more absolute the need, the more predictable the behavior becomes until it is mathematically certain.

- interview with William S. Burroughs, which originally appeared in Jaguar Magazine, 1966 

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