The market can only work if the intrinsic value of the past is eliminated. The past must be killed, to make room for new objects. Today, there is an imperative to value the new over everything else.

Even the problems that have social and political causes, such as the mental health epidemic. We, the consumers, are in turn taught to never stand still, to be agile, and to take personal responsibility for the problems of our society. Historical and religious objects become dead objects under capitalism, to be exchanged for money rather than valued for their intrinsic worth. Every movement that tries to oppose it, gets absorbed into it and gets turned into new products. If there is an overall thesis in Fisher’s book it’s this:Ĭapitalism as a system absorbs all resistance against it. This is the world according to Mark Fisher. 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. There is a widespread sense that capitalism is the only viable political and economic system, and that alternatives are not feasible or even possible. But where, he asks, are the movies showing the end of the market, the end of the profit motive and the end of capitalism? These films are few and far between.

Zizek points to the various apocalyptic movies that show the end of the world in vivid detail: the alien invasions, the zombie outbreaks, the epidemics, wars, famines, and solar flares. It’s a phrase often attributed to the philosophers Slavoj Zizek and Fredric Jameson. This is the opening statement of Mark Fisher’s book, Capitalist Realism. It’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.

Mark fisher zizek