The problem of climate catastrophe is one which goes straight to the heart of capitalist realism. Mark Fisher and Green Capitalism Factory Chimney Smoke, 07 January 2017, via Wikimedia Commons We’ve known about climate change at least since the early 60s, we know where we’re headed if we keep this up, yet this disaster seems impossible to stop. After taking a short break during the pandemic, CO2 emissions are on track to reach their record high levels again – a record that was previously set in 2019. No action seems to have been taken since then, at least nothing substantial. “Here is a hope that giving a life might bring some attention to the need for expanded action.” Anything else becomes simply unimaginable. It is with the start of neoliberal era where we see the emergence of what the late Mark Fisher calls “Capitalist realism”: the notion that capitalism is the only viable way of organizing a society. Any other alternative system was seen as either naïve, utopic or both. The Keynesian dream of a mixed economy had ended. How could this be justified? Simple: Free market capitalism was presented as having no alternatives.Ĭapitalism is here to stay, and any inequality and poverty that result are just the cost of doing business. Inequality soared, reaching levels unimaginable since after WW2. The largest miner strike was ruthlessly crushed. Union membership shrunk from 13.2 million people to 9.8 by the time Thatcher was out of office.

By 1990, that number would rise up to 22.2 %. In 1979, 13.6% of the British population lived with below 60% of median incomes.

In a 1980 speech, Margaret Thatcher would come up with a phrase which was to become the cornerstone of neoliberal ideology “There’s no such thing as society”.

Capitalist realism by mark fisher