Sustained capitalist mutation requires new institutional forms, not merely destruction

Evidence

If a mutation is to be reliably sustained, its new aims and practices must be translated into new institutional forms: “The fundamental impulse that sets and keeps the capitalist engine in motion comes from the new consumers’ goods, the new methods of production or transportation, the new markets, the new forms of industrial organization that capitalist enterprise creates.” Note that Schumpeter says “creates,” not “destroys.” As an example of mutation, Schumpeter cites “the stages of organizational development from the craft shop to the factory to a complex corporation like U.S. Steel.…” — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 156

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies the institutional criterion that separates genuine mutation from mere disruption — key for assessing whether surveillance capitalism qualifies.
• XREF: Ties to the book’s later argument that surveillance capitalism’s institutional displacement (no double movement) means it is not yet a true mutation. — connects to: Capitalism perpetually seeks new privatization frontiers like water and seeds — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 81; Creative destruction, not peace, causes capitalism’s endemic crises — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 428; Capitalism’s resilience comes from its plasticity in adopting new social forms — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1647 (+12 more)

Broader Connections

• Capitalism is a singular economic-institutional ensemble that can be reinvented #corroborates (0.90) — Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics, 904