#capitalist realism

[s0uvlakii]

´Capitalist Realism’ by Mark Fisher

[jareckiworld]

Gerhard Richter — Untitled (Park) [oil on colour photograph, 1990]

[stair-by-idle-stair]

Landscape Shift corporate electronic motivational synergized noise album, 7-8-26

available now digitally, on CDs in like a month or so

[savechangesto-untitled]

Here’s all the books I read and/or listened to in 2025

Capitalist Realism, Mark Fisher

Kind of a general lament about The Man. Not untrue, but also sort of felt like a conversation 2 disgruntled line cooks would have over cigarettes behind the restaurant.

Feelings, Manjit Thapp

A graphic novel that follows a woman’s emotional rhythm alongside the seasons. Just picked this one up on a whim because I liked the art style. Worth the read if you’re into softer stuff.

Catching the Big Fish, David Lynch

Read shortly after the death of the legend. More memoir than instruction manual but contains many nuggets of wisdom.

Society of the Spectacle, Guy Debord

Didn’t understand a damn word of this one. Need to reread when I fully develop brain.

The Myth of Sisyphus, Albert Camus

This one really shook me up for a while. Really powerful book, a great life philosophy, makes sense intellectually but hard to live by. A good perspective to keep in mind.

On The Genealogy Of Morals, Friedrich Nietzsche

A wacky book by a wacky guy, but much to think about. Some parts felt intuitively true, other parts felt like a blueprint for fascism. I did enjoy how Nietzsche writes like he’s shaking his fist at you personally.

Discipline and Punish, Michel Foucault

Historically fascinating and philosophically terrifying. Proof positive of your most paranoid social fears.

Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace

Aww yeah baybee. This shit took up every spare brain cell for like 3 months this year. A new all time favorite. Tennis, drugs, and videotape. And but like so anyway.

Beloved, Toni Morrison

Actually haven’t finished this one yet, Libby ran out when I was halfway through. but it’s really good and so I put it on the list. Kind of terrifying, in multiple ways, also spicier than I expected. Intending to finish as soon as I get my copy back but that may be in ‘26.

Honorable mentions

A Little Life, Hanya Yanagihara

Heard the controversy and read all the spoilers before reading. Enjoyed the first 1/3 or so but DNF’d about 60% through when I realized the story wasn’t getting any more profound as it piled on soap opera theatrics. Glad I at least tried to read it because it led me to discover Infinite Jest and DFW.

A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again, David Foster Wallace

Consider The Lobster, David Foster Wallace

Listened to a few essays from each. Both ASFTINDA and Lobster were my constant companions when I was working long ass shifts at the arcade I worked at as a second job this summer. I did a lot of my listening at work with a secret earbud under my hair.

Oblivion, David Foster Wallace

Haven’t read every story yet but thoroughly enjoyed Mister Squishy (one of my favorite DFW stories) and Good Old Neon. If nothing else 2025 was far and away my year of DFW.

Every Love Story is a Ghost Story, D.T. Max

An official biography of David Foster Wallace. Haven’t finished but wanted to know the context in which his works were written.

A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess

An old favorite from high school. Listened to it as a bit of a break from Infinite Jest and it’s better than I remembered. If it hadn’t come out before Discipline and Punish I would have assumed that was a huge influence.

Megg, Mogg and Owl (assorted comics), Simon Hanselmann

My favorite comic of all time. Read mostly on Simon’s Instagram page. Hilarious, filthy, and often poignantly sad.

If anyone would like to engage in unrestrained yapping about any of the books listed above, or send me recommendations for books to read in 2026, drop me a line in the DM’s.

[frassino]

Capitalist realism, Mark Fisher

[tabithasholloweyes]

[sylvanus-cypher]

I see a lot of people asking why the Third Committee in Lancer is unambiguously the utopian good guy. In most other settings and worlds, the Third Committee would be the secretly corrupt allegory for postwar Europe, full of dirty secrets and colonial exploitation under its otherwise pristine exterior.

However, by my estimate, it's not an allegory at all; it's a counter to Capitalist Realism. A major problem with most media is that it takes the premises of modern capitalism as a given, that humans are self-interested to a fault and any system or structures that exist are built first and foremost to enrich the people at the top of the pyramid. Even most openly anti-capitalist fantasy and sci-fi settings seem to accept this premise.

Lancer rejects this framing, and I think that's what makes the RPG special. The Third Committee exists under the premise that non-authoritarian democratic systems can exist for the explicit and unambiguous welfare and self-actualization of the people who live in them. The foundation of the Third Committee is not greed or consolidation of power through wealth; in fact, they use a sort of mock currency to engage with diaspora worlds that still use money in order to smoothly transition them into post-monetary societies.

If we had more media like this, more media that acknowledges that humans can build societies not based on the accumulation of power, then maybe it would be easier to imagine a life without capital.

[probablyasocialecologist]

That ontological dimension is what is missing from the progressive populist model, in which the masses cannot but appear as a dupes, fooled by the lies of the elite but ready to effectuate change the moment they are made aware of the truth. The reality, of course, is that the “masses” are under few illusions about the ruling elite (if anyone is credulous about politicians and “capitalist parliamentarianism”, it is the middle classes). The Subject Supposed Not To Know is a figure of populist fantasies — more than that: the duped subject awaiting factual enlightenment is the presupposition on which progressive populism rests. If the most crucial political task is to enlighten the masses about the venality of the ruling class, then the preferred mode of discourse will be denunciation. Yet, this repeats rather than challenges the logic of the liberal order; it is no accident that the Mail and the Express favour the same denunciatory mode. Attacks on politicians tend to reinforce the atmosphere of diffuse cynicism upon which capitalist realism feeds. What is needed is not more empirical evidence of the evils of the ruling class but a belief on the part of the subordinate class that what they think or say matters; that they are the only effective agents of change.

k-punk: The Collected and Unpublished Writings of Mark Fisher (2004-2016)