Capitalism’s supposed pragmatism masks credulous fantasies of its own exceptional survival

Evidence

Capitalist realism, like socialist realism, is about “putting a human face” on and naturalising a set of political determinations. The komissars of Kapital like to pose as tough-minded pragmatists who tell unpalatable truths and who alone are capable of facing up to the harsh “realities” of the world. Yet Kapitalism — no less in its its soon-to-take over Chinese State version than in its soon-to-collapse American model — is based upon a slew of fantasies so credulous that they are almost charming. In a powerful piece in the Independent today, Johann Hari parallels the militant complacency of the current ruling elite with the thinking of previous highly developed social groups, such as the Incas and the Mayans, which had “committed ecocide”. “What were Easter Islanders saying as they cut down the last tree on their island?,” Hari quotes geographer Jared Diamond asking in his book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive. It is grim to reflect that the answers — “jobs not trees!” or “technology will solve our problems; never fear, we’ll find a substitute for wood” — are precisely the rationalisations that a thanatropic drive would produce in order to do its work. In the unconscious, Freud says, no one really believes they will die, and this is no doubt also true of civilisations, which despite the melancholy monuments testifying to the demise of Maya and Easter Island, are convinced that they are the exceptions, they are the one which cannot perish. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1400

Categorization

• SEED: The ‘jobs not trees’ rationalisations of civilisational suicide is a strong essay angle on environmental inaction.
• CANDY: The line about Easter Islanders saying ‘jobs not trees’ and ‘technology will find a substitute for wood’ is memorable and tweetable.
• XREF: Connects to Fisher’s central capitalist-realism thesis elsewhere in K-Punk, and to the thanatropic drive idea in the book’s overall argument. — connects to: Capitalism transforms itself as a survival strategy yet can undergo epoch-changing change — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, 118; Capitalism remains imaginable even in imagined apocalypse. — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No…, 8; Capitalist realism is belief in capital’s invincibility, not belief in its merits — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 2219

Broader Connections

• Capitalist realism is belief in capital’s invincibility, not belief in its merits #expands (0.82) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 2219