Capitalist Realism by Mark Fischer
Jul. 5th, 2025 11:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dornishviperxI read this book for a book club and we finished it a bit ago - the book club was in Spanish, but since this book is originally in English, hi. We are doing this in this language.
This is kinda one of those books that you do end up eventually reading as a heterodox marxist, because the way in which it synthesizes and analyzes the current capitalist order is sharp and salient. In particular, I thought it shined when highlighting the effects of capitalist realism on the working class's mental health - Fischer is not the only nor the first person to point it out, but I think a lot of what I've read that was written after this book drew a lot from Fischer's observations, and quite rightly.
As a group, our primary critiques of Fischer's analysis is that it is very grounded in the reality of the first world, and in particular the UK, so it leads to very zany observations like "industries like mining are no longer viable" (Fischer, presumably you typed this on a computer, how do you think that got made without any mining exactly??) or this pervailing notion that work is now entirely post-fordist, which is transparently untrue for the majority of the world - I think he wanted to make a point of how precarious work is, and the effects that has, but that can happen (and does happen!) even with a fordist organization of work.
All that said, definitely a book worth reading, it's also mostly simple to understand (personally I got lost whenever he brougt up Deleuze and Guattari but was otherwise fine) and quick to read!
This is kinda one of those books that you do end up eventually reading as a heterodox marxist, because the way in which it synthesizes and analyzes the current capitalist order is sharp and salient. In particular, I thought it shined when highlighting the effects of capitalist realism on the working class's mental health - Fischer is not the only nor the first person to point it out, but I think a lot of what I've read that was written after this book drew a lot from Fischer's observations, and quite rightly.
As a group, our primary critiques of Fischer's analysis is that it is very grounded in the reality of the first world, and in particular the UK, so it leads to very zany observations like "industries like mining are no longer viable" (Fischer, presumably you typed this on a computer, how do you think that got made without any mining exactly??) or this pervailing notion that work is now entirely post-fordist, which is transparently untrue for the majority of the world - I think he wanted to make a point of how precarious work is, and the effects that has, but that can happen (and does happen!) even with a fordist organization of work.
All that said, definitely a book worth reading, it's also mostly simple to understand (personally I got lost whenever he brougt up Deleuze and Guattari but was otherwise fine) and quick to read!
no subject
Date: 2025-07-06 01:43 am (UTC)It's funny, I haven't read this since it first came out, but as soon as I saw the title, I flashed back to being in a group that was basically half Canadian and half Taiwanese that was having a field day with that exact bit.
no subject
Date: 2025-07-06 03:08 am (UTC)