Modernity names real novelties of capitalism even though it cannot explain them

Evidence

The superiority of historical materialism as social theory does not imply that there is no place for the vocabulary of modernity. Terms such as ‘modernization’ may serve descriptively to characterize the changes involved in the development of industrial capitalism. Furth­ ermore,‘these changes do involve a radically novel mode of living by comparison with all precapitalist social formations, for example, with respect to the active and transformative relation between humanity and nature characteristic of capitalism, the development of qualita­ tively new forms of urban life, and the emergence of a homogeneous and linear conception of time. — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism, 162

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Postmodernism is capitalism’s recycling of readymade identities because it cannot innovate — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 2021; Neoliberalism claims modernization while actually arresting modernity — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 2240