The end of capitalism

In Capitalist Realism, Fisher famously quotes Jameson and Žižek as saying “it is easier to imagine an end to the world than an end to capitalism” - is this true because capitalism is an unstoppable force or because the statement itself is vacuous?

In this essay, we’ll examine the sentiment behind capitalism realism: the idea that capitalism is an ever growing entity that will take over the world and grind us all into mindless automatons in the name of profit.

The Quote

Let’s start by deconstructing the famous Žižek quote¹. At first glance, it is quite compelling: we have endless media and movies devoted to examining the end of the world as an apocalypse and so it seems to ring true - all too true. Yet, there are two flaws in the sentiment: 1) it is obviously easier to imagine the absence of something than to imagine its fully functioning replacement 2) we don’t live in only one system at a time.

Absence vs Replacement

The quote calls into question our ability to imagine a world without capitalism; or rather: that its easier to imagine the world ending than to imagine a world functioning without capitalism. And yet: humanity has functioned without Capitalism (or Capitalist Realism) for hundreds of years. And there’s plenty of speculative fiction that thinks about the world without Capitalism - a famous example is Star Trek: once replicators are created, we will live in a post scarcity world where humans are free to do whatever they want with their time instead of spending their time in the soul crushing drudgery that is our current existence.

But foregoing the above, there is a reason it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism: that is because its often easier to imagine the absence of something (the end of the world) than to imagine how to replace that system with a completely functioning system that fulfills the same purpose. We see this often in engineering projects: it is hard to completely re-design a system up-front in a way that replaces the functionality of another system. For example: which is easier to imagine: the absence of a river or a river made of another substance than water? Even if you can imagine the river made of another substance: can you describe how it will work - what physical laws will allow it? Likely not - this is similar to trying to imagine a world without capitalism. We have to both enumerate the purpose and function of this broad word as well as think of another system to replace it. Doing so is a lot of effort, especially since it is speculative and any number of arguments can be brought up for why the replacement will not work.

If we limit Capitalism to only one purpose at a time, we can think more clearly about the systems that can replace it. There are a few regions that we consider capitalism to have taken over: governance, commerce, our livelihoods, the distribution of resources, etc. We should individually consider each aspect and think about better ways to organize ourselves.

We live in a system of systems

The quote also pre-supposes that everything we do is governed by capitalism: governance, entertainment, spiritualism, etc. It’s tempting to claim we live in a capitalist society or an oligarchy or a bureaucracy, but it’s not true - or at least, it’s not the full picture.

It’s easy to claim we live inside one system and blame it for the positives and negatives around us, but that’s the lazy way out and doesn’t recognize the full picture. It’s much more likely that we live in a system of many competing forces: both at the individual level and at the organizational level.

Some systems that exist around us are: capitalism, bureaucracy, religion, authoritarianism, socialism, philanthropy, mercantilism, aristocracies, militarism, etc.

For example: at the local government level, we may have one form of governance, but as we zoom out, the type of governance may change: perhaps we live in a community and democracy at the town level, but a republic or union at the national level. Which one of these has more of an effect on our day to day lives? It’s hard to tell: these are the types of questions we avoid when we make large over-arching claims about the systems we live in. We forget the nuance and tend to focus on one system.

Instead of focusing on bringing one system down, perhaps it makes sense to think about the way these systems balance each other: capitalism can be tempered via government or via mercantile guilds. Each system may have its own goals and areas that it works best. Just like there may be many mental frameworks that are appropriate, there may be many systems that are appropriate from situation to situation. Instead of completely eliminating capitalism, we should think about when each system makes the most sense for the outcomes we want and try to make sure that no system grows too powerful.²

Notes