The Breakdown of Capitalist Realism (original) (raw)
Related papers
Capitalist realism and its psycho-social dimensions
Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society, 2020
This brief piece looks at the work of Mark Fisher-especially his book Capitalist Realism (Zero Books, 2009a) and his blog K-Punk-and tries to show how his analysis of what has been called 'the slow cancellation of the future' might contribute something significant to the psycho-social project.
Mark Fisher in Memoriam, Part 1: Capitalist Realism and Beyond
Modernism Unbound, 2018
In this first part of a series of essays on the work of the critical theorist Mark Fisher, who passed away on January 13th 2017 at the age of 48, Jon Lindblom outlines the basic premises of his ambitious project against the backdrop of a lifelong struggle with depression.
2010
Purpose – This paper aims to link the process of “transition”, which started in the former Soviet system about 20 years ago, to the recent global financial and economic crisis. The paper considers “transition” as a shift from one socio-economic “dreamworld” to another, rather than as a real change towards freedom and democracy, as most mainstream commentators would have it. The argument is that this “transition” to a capitalist, free market society was bound up with a host of dream-like imaginations of social and economic progress, which were also found on the imaginary horizon of the Soviet system. It is argued that the two systems, and hence also the recent global capitalist crisis, can be understood as being determined by complementary economies of desires, which, however, cannot be fulfilled. Design/methodology/approach – The paper combines a critical theory perspective, influenced by Buck-Morss and Benjamin, with a Lacanian analysis of subjectivity to critically analyze collective fantasies as the key organizational principle behind the workings and eventual demise of the socialist utopia as well as the more recent downfall of the neoliberal discourse. Findings – The paper demonstrates why both socialism and capitalism can be understood as “real existing” systems where social processes, institutions, ideologies and identities are organized at the interface of political-agonistic and symbolic-imaginary dimensions. Social implications – The paper calls for assuming responsibility for our work as public intellectuals and academics, aiming at the continuous unmasking of illusions, fantasies and ideologies at work in society, which we see as politics proper. Originality/value – The paper uses critical-theoretic, psychoanalytic and post-structuralist frames in order to unravel the fantasmatic kernel at work of both socialist and capitalist utopias. These fantasies do not only struggle to uphold their hegemonic grip on the economy but on the very production of subjectivity.
Living in the Post-capitalist Age: a kaleidoscopic look towards the future
This essay is an attempt to explore what it might be like to live in a post-capitalist age. Much as men like Seneca in his time agreed that 'things must change' if society is to renew itself, we are faced with the same question today. The essay looks at ways to deal with the socio-economic impasse that now predominates, and how a re-examination of ideas such as 'transhumanism' and 'inhumanism,' as expressed by poets such as Robinson Jeffers, might help us to come to terms with new thought constructs to deal with a post-capitalist condition. Hopefully the essay will stimulate readers into a response that accepts the need to see capitalism itself as a historical moment in the life of peoples.
"Secular" Stagnation: Literary Realism, Proletarian Narrative, and Capital's Everyday Violence
Historical Materialism Conference, 2023
This paper analyzes capitalist crisis, and capital’s tendency toward crisis, by constructing a comparative reading of what might at first seem unlikely sources, two twentieth-century proletarian realist novels, Leslie Feinberg’s *Stone Butch Blues* (1993) and Connie Porter’s *All-Bright Court* (1987). Feinberg’s queer proletarian fictional autobiography follows Jess Goldberg, a gender non-conforming butch lesbian, as ze navigates the co-constitutive forces of capitalist exploitation and anti-queer violence in and around Buffalo, New York; Porter’s multi-protagonist novel chronicles the lives of the residents of a predominately Black housing project near a steel mill in Lackawanna, NewYork. These novels figure capitalist crises as secular, not in the sense of terminal, but rather in the sense that the tendency toward breakdown is inherent in capital’s rules of reproduction and also in the sense of that, for many, capital’s crises are unexceptional, are the very stuff of everyday life. In making this reality of crisis known through their narratives, Feinberg and Porter point beyond the reformation of capital and insist on the necessity of class struggle. Feinberg and Porter disrupt the mainstream capitalist narrative that figures economic crises as exogenous aberrations and the ‘Left’-reformist narrative that figures the pre-crisis boom period a desired point of return for the working class. While Feinberg and Porter articulate the economic crises as moments of intensified depredation, exploitation, and precariousness for their queer and Black working-class characters, they refuse to whitewash periods of boom and recovery. By realistically depicting everyday crises of systemic racism and gendered violence that predate the neoliberal turn and form constitutive parts of capitalist social relations during times of supposed functionality, Feinberg and Porter reveal capitalism itself to be a crisis for working people, especially those who have been racialized and gendered to legitimize its quotidian structural violence. As an antidote to this racialized and gendered violence, both novels insist on a conception of class struggle that places anti-racism and gender at its core.
Introducing Capitalism: Current Crisis and Cultural Critique
Culture Unbound: Journal of Current Cultural Research, 2014
Capitalism is today again the focus of critical discourse. The virally spreading waves of financial crisis have lent renewed urgency to the critique of capitalism's specific historical way of organising modern societies. New movements and leading economists share a growing doubt about the sustainability of the capitalist mode of production. This has simultaneously given rise to a wider interest in Karl Marx's economy critique as a major inspiration. One key theme of this current critical discourse of capitalism concerns the interface between economy and culture: how economy critique may inform cultural studies and other branches of cultural research, but also how cultural perspectives may qualify the understanding of contemporary capitalism. Under the heading 'Capitalism: Current Crisis and Cultural Critique', this theme section of Culture Unbound: Journal of Current Cultural Research presents a set of articles that in various ways approach this discussion from a cultural perspective. The revitalised economy critique of today has a strong cultural component acknowledging symbolic and communicative aspects on several levels. Since the publication of Marx's Capital, capitalism has grown and expanded, but also developed facets that were not equally visible at that time. In the last century, there has been a series of cultural turns in many research fields reacting to a corresponding culturalisation of social life, politics and the economy itself. Serious efforts have therefore been made to develop the cultural dimensions of economy critique, including the 1930s Frankfurt school of critical theory, the 1960s and 1970s central and east European reconstruction movement of 'capital logic' (Kapitallogik) and the contemporary new wave of literature in the wake of financial and ecological crises. 1 There are lots of good reasons to read Marx today. In a sharp and oftenentertaining style of writing, his work offers uniquely influential political critique, social commentary and economic theory that resonate with the frustrated reactions to the recent series of financial crises. His philosophical argumentation is equally influential, with important concepts such as fetishism, ideology, real abstractions and the dialectical method of immanent critique, all of which point to the key role of symbolic meaning-making, i.e. of culture, to the reproduction of capitalism. Many of those who today eagerly return to Marx seem to look for solutions to the present day's deep economic and political crisis, asking what can be done to create a better society. For this purpose, Marx will not suffice in spite of his insightful ideas about post-capitalist potentials. I will return to this towards the end.
Libidinal Economies of Crisis Times: The Psychic Life of Contemporary Capitalism
2024
What is a libidinal economy? How are we psychically hooked into the circuits of the capitalist economy? The contributors to this book question the relevance of a concept that began reappearing in critiques and analyses of capitalist societies since the financial crisis of 2007. The chapters stretch from its philosophical pre-history - including Marx, Spinoza, Cavendish and Ibn Sina - to the term's introduction with Freud and on, via Lyotard, to how online platforms put our psyches to work. Libidinal Economies of Crisis Times is a collection of essays by leading scholars about the connections among economies, pleasures, and desires. "The term ›libidinal economy‹ has increasingly become a prominent catchphrase in psychoanalytic approaches to society, reflecting a rising interest in political economy and its critique within political theory. But what exactly does it mean, and how are these two concepts related? What is the scandal of the concept of libidinal economy, and why is it often overlooked? How does it help us see the economy as irreducible to ›something natural‹? These urgent and pressing questions, along with many others, are explored from various perspectives in this fresh, outstanding, and extremely insightful collection of essays, which could not be more timely." (Alenka Zupancic, Professor of Philosophy and Psychoanalysis at The European Graduate School) "The philosophical heavyweight in a string of recent books devoted to libidinal economy. Each of the chapters collected here opens up exciting new ways for thinking the confluence of capitalism and desire today. Judging by this volume, the desire called libidinal economy is not done with us yet!" (Amin Samman, Reader in International Political Economy at City, University of London) "A crucial companion of our contemporary resurgence of psychoanalysis, this strong volume convokes sharp thinkers to careful close readings and illuminating critiques. Why does the omnicrisis - economic, environmental, epistemological, existential - so consistently provoke reference to enigmas of desire and deadlocks of drive? Is necrotic capitalism the best the psyche has to offer? At the end of the world, whither the desire called utopia and the solidarity movement for freedom? These excellent and pithy essays provide rich answers, and will be of lasting vvalue in classrooms, clinics, and social struggles." (Anna Kornbluh, Professor of English at University of Illinois, Chicago) "How do you calculate the enjoyments and attachments foisted upon us by capitalism's new economies that invade our unconscious life? We are dragged into its unending crises, feel culpability for the ways we are stuck and unstuck, and barely catch up to the redistributions of pleasure in the onslaught of technology. We need a better language for this social dimension beyond an ethics of personal responsibility. Ideas of freedom and agency have never felt more bankrupt and yet more necessary. This collection of essays brings us closer to this possibility of rethinking this fraught terrain, giving a glimmer of where we might recover ourselves, our bodies, indeed an enjoyment we could call our own." (Jamieson Webster, PhD, Psychoanalyst and Assistant Professor, New School for Social Research)