Mark Fisher – Capitalist Realism: Is There No alternative?
It is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. After 1989, capitalism has successfully presented itself as the only realistic political-economic system – a situation that the bank crisis of 2008, far from ending, actually compounded. The book analyses the development and principal features of this capitalist realism as a lived ideological framework. Using examples from politics, films, fiction, work and education, it argues that capitalist realism colours all areas of contemporary experience. But it also shows that, because of a number of inconsistencies and glitches internal to the capitalist reality program – endemic mental health problems, the proliferation of new forms of bureaucracy – capitalism in fact is anything but realistic. How can capitalist realism be challenged, and can we begin to imagine the unimaginable: an alternative to capitalism that is not some throwback to discredited models of state control?
Capitalist Realism includes striking new readings of Children Of Men, the Jason Bourne films, Supernanny and the fiction of Le Guin and Kafka.
This book is a part of ‘Zero Books’, which means that it’s 92 pages long.
See also:
Authors’ Blog
Books Endorsed by Žižek
