Capitalism is a symptom of something deeper and unnameable in Western civilization

Evidence

There was the sense that something of a more profound nature than the obsession with property was askew in a civilization that could organize and celebrate—on a scale beyond previous human experience—the brutal degradations of life and the most acute violations of human destiny. It seemed a certainty that the system of capitalism was part of it, but as well symptomatic of it. It needed a name as the philosopher Hobbes might say. It was not simply a question of outrage or concern for Black survival. It was a matter of comprehension. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1427

Categorization

• SEED: Angle: an essay on why left theory has declined to name what lies beneath capitalism — the ‘flight from recognition’ within Western radicalism itself.
• XREF: connects to: Modernity is best understood as the civilization produced by global capitalism — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism: A Marxist…, 162; The commodity is not the origin from which capitalism truly unfolds back. — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1163; Capitalism operates as opportunistic parasitism, not optimal allocation — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 180 (+2 more)