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I think capitalism falls neatly into the concept of Moloch.
A lot of the commentators say Moloch represents capitalism. This is definitely a piece of it, even a big piece. But it doesn’t quite fit. Capitalism, whose fate is a cloud of sexless hydrogen? Capitalism in whom I am a consciousness without a body? Capitalism, therefore granite cocks?
I love SSC.
Oh i know so many people who are into vanity. Everything goes as long as there’s no point in it.
This ties into the notion of interpassivity. This is when a piece of media perform an action for you (think interactivity, but exactly the opposite). An example is the laugh track on sitcoms. Another is the series or film performing your environmental or anti-capital activism for you. Frequently the bad guy is some big polluting corp, or some evil rich guy who wants to bulldoze the community center to put his Luxury Resort there. You watch the movie, feel all rebellious and sympathetic with the main characters, and go home feeling like you’ve done something, when in fact all you’ve done is feed Disney some more money. See also movies like triangle of sadness and the glass onion or whatever.
Mark Fischer’s capitalist realism explores this and similar ideas in a much more comprehensive and eloquent manner than I ever could. Give it a read, it’s quite short!
Thanks, I’ve been trying to remember this term and where I saw this concept for like 2 weeks!
Also, a related concept is recuperation:
The process by which ideas and actions deemed ‘radical’ or oppositional become commodified or absorbed into mainstream society and culture.
Think of the sterile critique of capitalism from the Fallout series (produced by Amazon).
I’ve always believed that capitalism is the default state of human exchange and the opposite of capitalism which I define tersely as empathy at scale takes effort.
Capitalism is only a few hundred years old. Trade predates Capitalism. It doesn’t have an “opposite,” rather it’s just another Mode of Production, of which there have been many and there will be more to supercede it.
Capitalism ≠ commerce
But capitalism is basically greed refined by scientific logic.
Even Adam “the Father of Capitalism,” Smith said in The Theory of Moral Sentiments that once capital has ammased enough wealth to be thinking about buying the courts and the governments, it would be time to transition away from capitalism to a more natural and equitable system, whatever that may be.
I’m reasonably certain he would have been screaming for a socialist if not communist revolution back in the gilded age.
Do you take capitalism as being where all values are considered as fungible capital, or where the goal is the pursuit of maximum capital? I was taking the second, but IMO the first is idiocy and the second is greed, and in ‘capitalism’ form I think both are refined versions of what humanity’s had for a long time.
I can understand Adam Smith imagining a bounded degree of this, with a change to a different system/ideology later. And experience shows it can kind of work, and facilitate a lot of development and growth. But I stand by a basic caricature that capitalism is scientifically refined greed.
When you commodify all the people’s wants and needs, you commodify the people.
Or, to look at it the other way round:
When you commodify people, you will commodify all their wants and needs.
What are we to them capitalists but (wage) slaves?
If we are being technical, people were already commodified with the origin of Capitalism. Capitalism requires Labor-Power to be bought and sold as a commodity on the open market, that’s where surplus value extraction comes from.
Create a problem then sell the solution. Simple as
Sell the revolution.
How much would people pay for communism, how much for other forms of government?
The Black Mirror episode “Fifteen Million Merits” makes this point in a (typically) very chilling way.
Imagine watching that episode then going to a desk/office/cubicle job 5 days a week without going insane. Must take a shit ton of cognitive dissonance and shamelessness to voluntarily work for capitalists.
I’ve been really interested in learning how to grow vegetables in my back garden. Somehow I just have this feeling that learning how to care about plants to make food (and not just because it flowers and looks pretty) will open my eyes to thinking about nature and the environment
At the moment, climate collapse is a conceptual issue to me in that “sure the days get warmer every year but it’s actually quite nice for me right now”, but I’m not as in tune with my environment to really notice how it’s impacting us.
Growing veg also feels like it has a higher pay off than just the cost price of a single unit of veg. There’s probably some nutritional benefit to it, knowledge etc that does beyond the price of buying an onion from the shop. I think getting in touch with this principle is the key to getting out of the ruthless capitalism structure
Basically, if we all just stopped buying shit and learnt how to fix and make shit ourselves our experiences of the things we attach ourselves to would be so much more authentic
You don’t have to buy doc martens because you feel like a rebel.
Well, things would exist whether you’re in a capitalist economic system or not. People would make music and label their genre. People would write books and want to sell them. The real difference is who gets the profits.
It’s also how driven the profits are. All the choices on the way, are they directed for maximum profit or for good. And many things that are made didn’t need to be made, and wouldn’t if people didn’t care to buy them. The effort instead could have gone into good things.
Sure, sort of. Commodity production, ie the production of goods purely in order to sell and make a profit, likely won’t last forever, especially as the rate of profit trends towards 0.
We can clearly observe the shift from genuine productivity to increasingly financialized Capital, which is an inherently unsustainable model.
You say that likes it’s a bug, not a feature.
I say it like it’s a symptom of the unsustainability of it all.
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I mean without capitalism they wouldn’t have the concept of selling, so probably not.
I love how you take the definition of relationship to labour, and make it about market places that have existed long before capitalism has.
minimalism is so funny to me.
Like you’re buying shit so you can not buy things? Yeah ok buddy.
That is fake minimalism. Minimalism in practice is donating stuff you don’t need and not buying stuff unless you truly need it and will use it.
yeah but people still call it minimalism, so is it minimalism, or is it minimalism. who fucking knows.
That is one side of it that people fall into. But another side is sometimes buying something additional will simplify your life then it makes sense. Not everyone is one pair clothing and everything fits in a bag. Something as simple as you and your SO deciding on the same shampoo to only have one bottle in the bathroom. This allows you to buy in bulk the ONE shampoo you need. Also one less item to keep track of, need shampoo? which kind?
Same with food storage containers. Might be best to throw away all the different kinds you have and buy ones where all the tops are the same. Yeah, I bought something additional it now takes “minimal” effort to find something to store food it. It’s more of an overall mindset to most people. It’s the constant asking yourself “Do I need this in my life?” as you start to figure out all your shit starts to own you. Organization (a lot of money spent here) is key to this as if you can’t find something in your home…do you really have it? Minimalists want streamlined processes or “OCD with purpose” as I like to call it. lol
at what point do you start hyper optimizing, and instead of buying normal shampoo, you buy in bulk, for like salons or something, but for your own personal use, or would that count as something other than minimalism?
Organization (a lot of money spent here) is key to this as if you can’t find something in your home…do you really have it? Minimalists want streamlined processes or “OCD with purpose” as I like to call it. lol
personally i’m not a minimalist, but i’m super big into effective organization and optimizing your workflow around yourself, a bit ADHD pilled perhaps, but i don’t necessarily think it’s minimalist, just optimalist i guess.
IDK the line of minimalism i think is heavily blurred these days, it’s not really clear where it begins, and where it ends.
When capitalism has commodified everything, then all ingrediences for a revolution can be bought.
This is why I became comfort not owning things
Jokes on you, capitalism made you not want things!
If only I could sell this idea of not owning things.
(Enter overpriced minimalist products)
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“But capitalism is so efficient at growing!”
Yeah, but now capitalism has grown out of control:
Capitalism is the most efficient way to push wealth and power to the top
don’t buy into the illusion that capitalism is so self-organizing and organic. it requires the direct protection and supervision of a nationwide military and a police force -multiple police forces actually - to protect capital.
I guess I tend to think that police, and power structures in general, are organic and will pop into existence spontaneously.
(I actually think power structures are going to be important to maintain a socialist society too, just not ones that serve the few at the cost of the many.)
Well it can’t commodify me! Oh wait.
Sorry, I got myself worked up.
do you sell your labor on the job market?
Grr
