Capital is abstract yet depends entirely on our voluntary cooperation.

Evidence

What is being disavowed in the abjection of evil and ignorance onto fantasmatic Others is our own complicity in planetary networks of oppression. What needs to be kept in mind is both that capitalism is a hyper-abstract impersonal structure and that it would be nothing without our co-operation. The most Gothic description of Capital is also the most accurate. Capital is an abstract parasite, an insatiable vampire and zombie-maker; but the living flesh it converts into dead labor is ours, and the zombies it makes are us. There is a sense in which it simply is the case that the political elite are our servants; the miserable service they provide from us is to launder our libidos, to obligingly re-present for us our disavowed desires as if they had nothing to do with us. — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 33

Categorization

• XREF: The vampire/zombie depiction of capital will resonate with the reader’s trees-and-living-infrastructure essay interests — capital as parasitic growth feeding on human labor. — connects to: Capital is a hyper-abstract structure that runs on our voluntary cooperation — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No…, 33; Capital is a hyper-abstract structure that still depends wholly on human cooperation.; Capital depends on our cooperation even as it zombifies us — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No…, 33 (+6 more)
• QUESTION: The claim ‘political elites are our servants laundering our desires’ is provocative but the causal direction feels contestable — worth chasing how Fisher squares it with elite initiative elsewhere.

Related

• Capital depends on our cooperation even as it zombifies us (similarity 0.96)
• Capital is a hyper-abstract structure that runs on our voluntary cooperation (similarity 0.95)
• Capital depends on us more than we depend on it (similarity 0.94)
• Capital is an abstract parasite that converts our living cooperation into dead labor (similarity 0.93)
• Capital is a hyper-abstract structure that still depends wholly on human cooperation. (similarity 0.91)
• Capital operates as a collective dream sustained by our own desires and energy (similarity 0.82)
• Capital cannot survive without humans even though humans could survive without it. (similarity 0.81)

Broader Connections

• Capital is a hyper-abstract structure that runs on our voluntary cooperation #corroborates (1.00) — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 33
• Capital is a hyper-abstract structure that still depends wholly on human cooperation. #corroborates (1.00)
• Capital depends on our cooperation even as it zombifies us #qualifies (0.85) — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 33
• Capital cannot survive without humans even though humans could survive without it. #qualifies (0.85) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1419
• Capital operates as a collective dream sustained by our own desires and energy #expands (0.80)
• Capital depends on us more than we depend on it #qualifies (0.80)
• Capital is an abstract parasite that converts our living cooperation into dead labor #qualifies (0.80) — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 33
• Capital is a social relation conferring extractive power, not just machinery #expands (0.75) — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 792
• Coercive government power depends on voluntary cooperation from many #exemplifies (0.70)