The real strength of Mark Fisher’s Capitalist Realism lies in its diagnoses of the cultural conditions in contemporary capitalism. The reportage on Fisher’s students’ lack of concentration is frightening. His insistence on seeing mental health as a function of socio-economic conditions as well as chemical and biological circumstances is excellent, as are his suggestions about strikes on bureaucracy rather than general strikes. Yet I think it falls prey to a common mistake of leftist writing, a mistake that is perfectly understandable. At the end of the book there are no suggestions for institutional change, there is no statement about how markets could be made moral or otherwise transformed. Instead there is the usual refrain about remembering that anything is possible and trying to help others see this. Now critical theory is a lot more interesting to me than economics, or empirical and statistical studies of populations or markets, so I can understand why so many books from the left end up like this. Fisher’s book does an excellent job of showing the cultural costs of capitalism, but without some credible economic alternatives this reader was left feeling that there is no alternative on the horizon.
Recent Comments