Capital’s subsumption will not collapse on its own through internal contradictions.

Evidence

Late capitalism is a period marked by a pessimism about the possibility of an alternative to capitalism. Yet finding new alternatives and new ways out of capitalism must first acknowledge how almost all facets of social existence have been subsumed by capital, a subsumption that does not—and, most likely, will never—lead to capitalism’s collapse through the intensification of internal contradictions. As we mentioned above, influencer culture demands the production of a product called “the self,” a product that attains value only through its distinction from others, in which one desires and aspires to become like the luxurious, corporate persons seen online, so there is little hope for unionization or organization—especially if the actual class differences of influencer culture remain unacknowledged. — Grant Bollmer, Katherine Guinness, The Influencer Factory, 54

Categorization

• XREF: The claim that influencer ‘self’ production precludes unionization bears on the reader’s question of who realizes the surplus in this labor. — connects to: Opposing capital on its own moral-rational terms serves it. — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 57; State-capital imbrication without compensation avoids the predicted legitimation crisis. — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s…, 125