Financial capitalism destroys real value and exploits the psyche

Evidence

But what I fear these perspectives often lose sight of is the way the economic, or the capitalist economic system as a whole, is not merely the product of human activity: it also helps shape human activity, and, as its power grows in an era of neoliberal, corporate-led, financialized globalization, it starts to run societies around the world in ways that are outside the control of any human agency, at least as we imagine that agency today. — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 340 (#expands, via linked claim)

But neoliberalism, a further development – indeed, a mutated form – of capitalism, is not primarily concerned with ‘the biological, the somatic, the corporal’. It has discovered the psyche as a productive force. This psychic turn – that is, the turn to psychopolitics – also connects with the mode of operation of contemporary capitalism. Now, immaterial and non-physical forms of production are what determine the course of capitalism. What gets produced are not material objects, but immaterial ones – for instance, information and programs. The body no longer represents a central force of production, as it formerly did in biopolitical, disciplinary society. Now, productivity is not to be enhanced by overcoming physical resistance so much as by optimizing psychic or mental processes. Physical discipline has given way to mental optimization. — Byung-Chul Han, Psychopolitics, 63 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Once we admit this possibility, then, ‘with this one about-turn’, everything changes: we see both sides of Marx’s perspective on capitalism — not simply the destruction it wreaks, but the potential expansion of human capacities it involves. — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism, 639 (#qualifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Capitalism simultaneously destroys and expands human potential — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism: A Marxist…, 639; The economics profession and the Neoliberal Thought Collective symbiotically keep the financial system unaltered — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 674; Financialized capitalism shapes human activity and escapes human control — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 340 (+6 more)

Related

• Financial capitalism extracts value by exhausting the psyche itself (similarity 0.90)
• Neoliberal capitalism exploits the psyche rather than the body as its central productive force (similarity 0.86)
• Financialized capitalism shapes human activity and escapes human control (similarity 0.82)
• Financialization turns Enlightenment rationality against human interests, like nuclear weapons did (similarity 0.81)
• Financialization functions as a disciplinary mechanism to exploit labor and displace capitalist contradictions (similarity 0.81)
• Emotional capitalism exploits emotions’ fleeting performativity, which feelings lack (similarity 0.79)
• Financialization is integral to capitalism, not a product of deregulatory excess (similarity 0.79)
• Culture is not superstructural but is where financialized capitalism subjugates social values (similarity 0.79)
• Financialization is a contested terrain of conflicting reproduction cycles, not a top-down imposition (similarity 0.78)
• Neoliberalism exploits the total person, not merely working time (similarity 0.78)
• Finance operates as a disciplinary mechanism that mobilizes debt to exploit labor. (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Financialized capitalism shapes human activity and escapes human control #expands (0.90) — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 340
• Capitalism simultaneously destroys and expands human potential #qualifies (0.85) — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism, 639
• Neoliberal capitalism exploits the psyche rather than the body as its central productive force #corroborates (0.85) — Byung-Chul Han, Psychopolitics, 63
• Profitable capitalism must forever discover new uncommodified emotions to exploit #expands (0.82) — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 129
• Inherent dissatisfaction is endlessly sellable to capitalism #corroborates (0.80) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 2250
• Solutions to financialization require abolishing capitalism, not just re-regulating finance #expands (0.78) — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 34
• The economics profession and the Neoliberal Thought Collective symbiotically keep the financial system unaltered #complicates (0.72) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 674