Capitalist Realism

Fifteen years ago Mark Fisher laid out why life was so grim, and specifically how normal people experience the contradictions of capitalism. Whilst he was obviously well-read and familiar with political theory and philosophy, the book doesn't assume its audience knows or even needs to know these old arguments. Indeed what I find refreshing about Capitalist Realism is how closely it adheres to an idea of the Real: the Actually Existing Capitalism that Fisher and everyone he was writing to lived within. Fisher uses films many people have seen, songs and musical styles we're familiar with, and a few contemporary political activities that his expected UK audience certainly would have known of. Whilst there are enough references to Žižek to get Fisher cancelled if he'd written it today, this is a not a book filled with jargon and unexplained French philosophy.

The impressive and rather depressing thing about Capitalist Realism is that Fisher's analysis has only become more clearly correct in the years following its publication. His exploration of "neo-noir" exemplified by gangster rap and Frank Miller's comic books could easily be a description of the grimdark series produced by HBO and Netflix in later years. His description of university quality assurance processes sounds positively effective and painless looking back after fifteen years of more of the same. An almost throwaway comment regarding what stockmarket prices are actually based on made me immediately think of the complete disconnect between the stock price of companies like Tesla and Uber, and their balance sheets. The fact that some of the analysis feels a bit stale or obvious is — as Alex Niven points out in the introduction to the zer0 classics edition — simply a sign of the impact Capitalist Realism has had on broader discussion of life under capitalism.

Surprisingly, and initially to me somewhat disappointingly, explicit discussion of "what is to be done" — arguments that there is an alternative to Capitalist Realism — is restricted to barely a page at the end of this short book. But thinking about it more, Fisher seeds this all through the book (or really, extended essay). Whilst his analysis feels familiar by now, it's slightly shocking how little his prescription has been followed up:

As any number of philosophers from Brecht through to Foucault have maintained, emancipatory politics must always destroy the appearance of a 'natural order', must reveal waht is presented as necessary and inevitable to be a mere contingency, just as it must make what was previously deemed to be impossible seem attainable.

Fisher goes on to briefly mention climate change, noting that it had become very political indeed, before naming two areas he deems appropriate and ripe as causes for effective leftist politics: mental health, and bureaucracy. He makes it clear that the goal is not to lobby governments or make "demands", but rather to build a collective public power. What I find curious about these two areas is that almost nothing has happened to take up Fisher's suggestion in the subsequent 15 years. The fact that there is certainly much more "awareness" of mental ill-health, a great deal of charity activity to "stop the stigma", corporate HR mobile apps to help staff to be "mindful" and an entire industry around "wellbeing" is all evidence that the problem — and opportunity for a radical political movement — has increased enormously. Fisher saw widespread mental ill-health not as an "epidemic" but as an obvious consequence of Capital blowing its exhaust in our faces. There are some movements hoping to radicalise ideas about mental health, its treatment and its causes, but these are generally operating as "single issue" politics rather than being picked up by a broader leftist movement.

The second, and in some ways more likely candidate for a politics that "destroys the appearance of a 'natural order'" is bureaucracy. I found this fascinating for two reasons. The first is the there has been a successful politic move from the right to activate citizens against what they describe as bureaucracy ("red tape", "green tape", the "deep state" etc). But what Fisher means is something else altogether. And my second reason for interest in this is that the bureaucracy Fisher means is so much worse in 2025 than it was in 2009. Fisher's examples are centred around the frustration of the "call centre". He was writing a mere two years after the launch of the iPhone. But we now live in a kafkaesque nightmare of needing a mobile app for everything, having so many passwords and logins that it's impossible to remember them all, and Net Promoter Score surveys from everyone from the dry cleaner to the postal service. Fisher was frustrated because in 2009 nobody at the call centre could do anything to help. In 2024 we're frustrated because we've already been in a virtual queue for an hour before we even get to talk to anyone, enduring a message every 30 seconds asking us if we've tried checking the company website. And this bureaucracy — as the late David Graeber explored in The Utopia of Rules — is entirely for the benefit of the corporations and corporatised public services we interact with. Cookie consent pop-ups are bureaucracy. Having the "complete control over your Instagram expience" via 47 different settings is bureaucracy. Terms of Service;Didn't Read is bureaucracy. The café not being able to take your order because their EFTPOS machine is offline and they don't take cash is bureaucracy. Americans having to check their extraordinarily expensive insurance policy before deciding whether treating their cancer will bankrupt their family is bureaucracy. It's astounding that the political left — rather than taking up Mark Fisher's invitation to power a resurgence by declaring war on all this anti-human activity in favour of living more fulfilling and relaxed lives — instead has willingly positioned itself as the champion of more bureaucracy. Clearly I'm not the only one who waited too long before reading Capitalist Realism.