Black hole capitalism

Abstract

The planetary urbanization of capital entails the collapse of all traditional morphological distinctions into a seething morass of implosion–explosion that recalls the creative–destructive fury of a black hole. As an invisible presence–absence only identifiable by its spatiotemporal effects, the black hole resembles both the Lacanian Real and Marx’s value-theoretical understanding of capital. Utopian fantasies of postmodern hyperspace and rational spatial order function to fill in the void of the Real of Capital, but are ultimately undermined by the chaotic forces that they conceal. At the event horizon of black hole capitalism, where the crushing agglomeration of capital threatens to obliterate all social life, the seemingly impossible construction of Real utopias becomes an urgent necessity. The dynamics of this process are illustrated by the case of the Manta–Manaus multimodal transport corridor, which reveals the possibilities, limitations and antagonisms of utopian urban projects under conditions of black hole capitalism.