Capitalism offers no Cause worth dying for
Evidence
In conditions where capitalism dominates without opposition, the very idea of a Cause has disappeared. Who fights and dies for capitalism? Whose life is made meaningful by the struggle for a capitalist society? (Perhaps it is this devotion to the Cause that gives the Soviet characters in The Americans their glamour.) It was none other than Francis Fukuyama who warned that a triumphal capitalism would be haunted by hankerings after existential purpose that consumer goods and parliamentary democracy could not assuage. Much of the appeal of The Americans depends upon the fact that it is set before this period. Our knowledge that the collapse of the Soviet experiment was less than a decade away from the period when the series is set lends all of the discourse about the communist Cause in The Americans a melancholy quality. In 1980, the Cold War felt as if it would last forever. In reality, within a mere nine years, everything that Elizabeth and Philip stood for would collapse, and the end of history would be upon us. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 726
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to capitalized-realist themes throughout this collection (ch25 fantasy sustains capitalism; ch28 capitalist realism restricts possibility). — connects to: Capitalist realism makes alternatives to capitalism unthinkable — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No…, 8; Contemporary capitalist nihilism is a boring existential poverty — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 2017; Capitalism functions without anyone believing in it, unlike fascism — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No…, 29 (+1 more)
- DEEPTHINKING: The hankering-after-existential-purpose claim is a genuine conceptual anchor, though it summarises Fukuyama rather than extending him.
Broader Connections
- Capitalism functions without anyone believing in it, unlike fascism
#expands(0.85) — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 29 - Contemporary capitalist nihilism is a boring existential poverty
#corroborates(0.80) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 2017 - Moral critiques of capitalism only strengthen its realism
#qualifies(0.75) — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 36 - Capitalist realism makes alternatives to capitalism unthinkable
#responds-to(0.70) — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 8