“It is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism”. This remark, credited to both Fredric Jameson and Slavoj Zizek, is the title of the first chapter in Mark Fisher’s acclaimed book, Capitalism Realism: Is There No Real Alternative?, and it defines capitalist realism perfectly. Capitalist realism refers to the common belief that not only is capitalism the only viable and realistic political and economic system, but that it is now nearly impossible to envisage any meaningful alternative to it, or a future beyond it. “It is like a pervasive atmosphere, conditioning not only the production of culture but also the regulation of work and education, and acting as a kind of invisible barrier constraining thought and action,” In a lecture, Fisher says, “when after 1989, capitalism lost its visible antagonists, in the soviet empire, capitalism didn't have to defend itself as such, it doesn’t have to be named anymore, it’s all the more powerful because it’s not named,” What Fisher is saying here is that capitalism has become this sort of ‘natural order”, it appears as a natural, necessary, and inevitable, rather than being based on mere contingency. What this creates is the feeling that there is nothing other than capitalism, no alternative. Essentially, capitalism has conditioned us that it’s the only “realistic” political-economic order. “Needless to say,” Fisher argues, “what counts as ‘realistic’, what seems possible at any point in the social field, is defined by a series of political determinations. An ideological position can never be really successful until it is naturalized, and it cannot be naturalized while it is still thought of as a value rather than a fact. Accordingly, neoliberalism has sought to eliminate the very category of value in the ethical sense. Over the past thirty years, capitalist realism has successfully installed a ‘business ontology’ in which it is simply obvious that everything in society including healthcare and education, should be run as a business.” We’ve been persuaded that capitalism is the only “realistic” system because it has compelled this ritualistic obedience, where there is no alternative vocabulary or mental model for how we comprehend any aspect of our lives, including job and education, except capitalism. This is what Fisher refers to as ‘business ontology,’ the notion that capitalism realism propagates, implying that everything should be run as a company.
Furthermore, capitalism is no longer merely an economic-political system; it has become an imposed ‘natural’ condition or reality — in the psychoanalytic sense — that structures how all things are and how we imagine what can be, obliterating the ability to imagine anything other than the capitalist system of business ontology. In Freudian psychoanalysis, however, the formulation of a reality principle — simply described as, “the ability of the mind to assess the reality of the external world, and to act upon it accordingly” — invites us to be suspicious of any reality that presents itself as ‘natural’. “The reality principle,” Zupanic writes, “is not some kind of natural way associated with how things are… the reality principle itself is ideologically mediated; one could even claim that it constitutes the highest form of ideology. The ideology presents itself as an empirical fact or necessity. It is precisely here what we should be most alert to the functioning of ideology.” Fisher continues by saying, “For Lacan, the Real is what any ‘reality’ must suppress; indeed, reality constitutes itself through just this repression. The real is an unrepresentable X, a traumatic void that can only be glimpsed in the fractures and inconsistencies in the field of apparent reality. So one strategy against capitalist realism could involve invoking the Real underlying the reality that capitalism presents to us” One such Real is the environmental catastrophe brought on by capitalism’s insatiable character, which we are witnessing now with record temperatures and more severe natural calamities. Understanding this, former President Donald Trump can be used to represent capitalism realism, seeking to privatize healthcare and govern our lives like a business (propagating business ontology), all while disregarding climate change (reinforcing the fictitious capitalist reality suppressing the Real). Promoting the structural myth that underpins capitalism realism: “a presumption that resources are infinite, that the earth itself is merely a husk which capital at a certain point slough off like a used skin, and that any problem can be solved by the market.” Then there’s Trump’s opponent, current President Joe Biden, who, on the surface, seeks social democratic ‘progress’ and pines for the days of ‘popular modernism,’ but ultimately serves the interests of capital, as evidenced by his failure to keep many of his campaign pledges. He is capitalism with a face, presenting himself as the only “alternative” when he isn’t, thereby becoming a part of and strengthening capitalist realism’s worldview.
Furthermore, the Althusserian definition of ideology has an influence on capitalist realism as a philosophical term. As previously indicated, Fisher contends that there is no room for other forms of social structures inside a capitalist framework and that younger generations are unconcerned with recognizing them. Since Fisher was a teacher, Capitalist Realism has placed a strong emphasis on younger generations and pupils. He detected something he called “reflexive impotence” in students, which he attributed to the larger ideological context of capitalist realism. He writes, “British students today appear to be politically disengaged… but this, I want to argue, is a matter not of apathy, nor of cynicism, but of reflexive impotence. They know things are bad, but more than that, they know they can't do anything about it. But that ‘knowledge’, that reflexivity, is not a passive observation of an already existing state of affairs. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy.” Reflexive impotence is a phenomenon in which people understand the flaws in a system such as capitalism but believe there is no way to change it; it is a requirement of capitalist realism, the belief that there is no other option. Fisher adds that this condition of reflexive impotence “amounts to an unstated worldview amongst the British young, and it has its correlation in widespread pathologies,” which include depression or other mental health problems. However, he concentrates on what he believes to be a hedonic depression, in which the only answer to hopelessness is constant diversion and simulation. When there is a sense of melancholy pessimism, a longing for an alternative that cannot be conceived, adults find consolation in materialism or the micro-stimulation of their phones.
Overall, if the left is to make headway, capitalist realism — the general belief that capitalism is the only ‘realistic’ system and that there is no alternative — must be overcome. Neoliberalism has taken away our ability to conceive a world without capitalism. A viable alternative to the current situation. Margaret Thatcher’s TINA (“There is no alternative”) appears to have had a far greater impact than one might expect, because today there is truly no alternative, nor is it possible to imagine one. It is the function of the Left today to invoke the Real beneath the fictitious reality which capitalist realism serves to reinforce, and to assume any coherent alternative to contemporary capitalism. As Fisher writes at the end of the book, “The long, dark night of the end of history has to be grasped as an enormous opportunity. The very oppressive pervasiveness of capitalist realism that even glimmers of alternative political and economic possibilities can have a disproportionately have a great effect. The tiniest event can tear a hole in the grey curtain of reaction which has marked the horizons of possibility under capitalist realism. From a situation in which nothing can happen, suddenly anything is possible again”.
