This article examines how the capitalist “ideological unconscious” shapes the curriculum in Spanish as a Foreign Language Teaching (SFLT). Starting from the notion of the “free subject” as a historical construct, the study critiques the mercantile logic underlying the communicative approach, which naturalizes the individual-society relationship as a dynamic of “merit” and negotiated “freedom”. It argues that this model reproduces exploitative relations by presupposing communication as a neutral act, merely mediated (transitively) by instances of “power”, thus concealing the unconscious value of this presupposition produced by the very capitalist mode of production that discourse analysis aims to combat. Through examples from teaching materials and pedagogical theories, the work demonstrates how dominant ideology acts (intransitively) in the idealization of communicative competence and scientific objectivity. The conclusion advocates for a critical pedagogy that denaturalizes the curriculum and acknowledges its radical historicity.