A video essay on the political philosopher Mark Fisher. Subscribe to the channel for more video essays.
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Description:
It’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. This is the opening statement of Mark Fisher’s book, Capitalist Realism. It’s a phrase often attributed to the philosophers Slavoj Zizek and Fredric Jameson.
In Capitalist Realism, Mark Fisher presents the reasons why we feel this way: how the old arguments for systematic change have given way to a kind of surface cynicism, a passive acceptance of the negatives of our current world, and the death of grand narratives. This is the world according to Mark Fisher.
The second part of the video considers the author Peter Frase. In his book Four Futures, he imagines four different alternatives that might come after capitalism: communism, rentism, socialism and exterminism.
In Frase’s view, capitalism will end, due to a combination of automation and climate change: the twin crises of having too much and having too little. Automation will lead to us having too much: “a fully robotized economy that produces so much, with so little human labor, that there is no longer any need for workers.” Climate change will lead to us having too little: “it anticipates a scarcity of natural resources, the loss of agricultural land and habitable environments.” In both cases, the threats will end our current way of life.
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