Capitalism as it Encounters the Real (Sweet)

Capitalism may die a 'natural' death, without external attacks on it. It may not be necessary for movements such as communism to attempt to end capitalism, which is the lesson of the post-Cold War days. What is known as late capitalism is the last of the types of capitalism inter-connected via common ideas and ideals: the pursuit of profit, the passionate individualism of the worker etc. But in the near future such signature capitalist ideals will not define capitalism at all. We are approaching the end of capitalism because at the moment we are at a vacuum, where late capitalism is slowly leading to what we can term 'ruined capitalism.' Ruined capitalism is radically different from the different capitalisms of before because of the attitude of the capitalist producers and the attitude of the consumers, and how both of them are constructing the Lacanian Real.

We are at a vacuum between late capitalism and ruined capitalism in the sense that we are facing problems with the capitalist system today but we don't have concrete solutions for them. Problems such as health concerns over products, environmental problems, and problems with the conditions of labor are all things big businesses are having to deal with today, but, one may ask, is there any realistic and applicable solutions to these problems today? If there were solutions, we wouldn't have violent anti-capitalist struggles and strikes to begin with. There is immense anxiety at the lack of solutions. Can't we look at the recent financial crisis of 2008 as an event which demonstrated the immense lack of confidence in the system? And some have suggested that the financial crisis was itself a crisis of confidence...In any case, the outcry over crises is more magnified these days and is more 'news worthy' than the crises themselves.

Capitalism, a very resourceful and enterprising system which produces solutions to its problems time and again, is now faced with problems it can no longer solve. In this sense, capitalism is face to face with a vacuum, caught in between the movement from late capitalism to capitalism in ruins. The capitalists know that if they 'solve' the problems then capitalism is over and if they don't solve the problems capitalism is over. What is argued in this post is that the capitalists will be passive in a sense, not because of their own will, but because the nature of capitalism will be such that it will be programmed to self-terminate. We are faced with problems, but we have no realistic solutions to move the system forward. These scenarios are ruinous to capitalism because capitalism is committed to finding solutions to problems even more than to the production of products.

Capitalism-in-ruins (a term used interchangeably with the term ruined capitalism in this post) is beyond this vacuum of indecisiveness. Ruined capitalism is the time when the capitalists realize and see the end approaching, and choose not to act. For a class of people known for their endeavor and energy, they will come face to face with the faults of their own energy and they will become passive. We predict: the main proletariats of the ruined capitalist age will be the chief capitalists themselves...it is they who utilize their brains to the extreme to come up with complex financial instruments and models, for instance. And we can already see these types of capitalists in the scene: highly knowledgeable and articulate (reports and other documents of faults in products and global warming are plenty, but resolute action is always quite limited) but seldom active and decisive. And who could take the necessary steps to stop global warming? If we ask ourselves truthfully about what is needed to end global warming, the answer is simple: we must end capitalism itself. But this is too vast a project for the capitalists of today, so nobody acts. This will be the trend of times to come: the identification of issues, the undesired experience of these issues and the lack of leadership to solve these issues.

We have looked at the indecisiveness of the capitalist producers, and what of the consumers? The consumers are, on the contrary, too resolute and too conscious of the problems of capitalism. Today, in late capitalism, they enjoy the fruits of capitalism with guilt and concern. However, in tomorrow's ruined capitalism, there is neither guilt nor concern, but a resigned acceptance of the impending collapse. Can we not therefore say that corporate social responsibility has been accepted and applied by big capitalists so enthusiastically because they realize that it is a temporary phenomenon? The activity and agency of the consumer of today will give way to the addicted and hooked consumer of tomorrow's ruins. It could be that big businesses are only appearing responsible in the short run.

The impending collapse of capitalism has a lot to do with the consumer's attitude today, as we will demonstrate with a semi-hypothetical example of Nepali sweets. Not long ago, Nepali mithais (sweets) were accused of being stored and produced unhygenically. The consumer, at this point, was perhaps confident, and wanted better hygiene and regulation. In late capitalism, the capitalists would have promised to deliver better products, subtracting the undesired ingredients from their sweets. However, capitalism was ruined when the capitalists, already hesitant and unprepared, did not promise better quality but instead closed their stores. We have here a complete subtraction of the product, even when the class known as 'capitalist' continues to exist. We have the existence of salesmen without products to sell. To go to the question of the Lacanian Real, the Real is arrived at here via a 'double subtraction': the subtraction of the undesired ingredients, and thereafter the subtraction of the mithai itself, leaving in the place of the product a void, an emptiness, nothing to sell. From material things which can be bought and sold, we arrive in ruined capitalism to the Real as an absence, as something which is arrived at after the product is completely destroyed. The Lacanian Real is often claimed to be unsymbolizable, and it is so precisely because it is arrived at after a dismantling of the product or object; it is the last step in a process of hesitancy and anxiety which makes the Real unsymbolizable. Both the capitalists and the consumer arrive at the Real via a disappearance of the sweet. An 'empty system' is left over, with producers and consumers but with nothing produced and nothing consumed. This 'empty system' is essentially the most defining element of ruined capitalism.