Don't Make Me Wait

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 will also show that, because of a number of inconsistencies and glitches internal to the capitalist reality program capitalism in fact is anything but realistic. 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, film (Children Of Men, Jason Bourne, Supernanny), fiction (Le Guin and Kafka), work and education, it argues that capitalist realism colours all areas of contemporary experience, is anything but realistic and asks how capitalism and its inconsistencies can be challenged. It is a sharp analysis of the post-ideological malaise that suggests that the economics and politics of free market neo-liberalism are givens rather than constructions. 1 It’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism 2 What if you held a protest and everyone came? 3 Capitalism and the Real 4 Reflexive impotence, immobilization and liberal communism 5 October 6, 1979: ‘Don’t let yourself get attached to anything’ 6 All that is solid melts into PR: Market Stalinism and bureaucratic anti-production 7 ‘...if you can watch the overlap of one reality with another’: capitalist realism as dreamwork and memory disorder 8 ‘There’s no central exchange’ 9 Marxist Supernanny