Abstract
The capitalist mode of production has fulfilled a most astonishing “historical mission” for the human species. It enabled an explosion of labor productivity gains and the discovery of new utility dimensions. But this progress came at the price of an accompanying explosion of contradictions, of unequal benefits and burdens across global and local classes of humans. This article sets out to explore what will happen if capitalism is finally ending, if its mission collapses. Following the tradition of Hegel and Marx, it can be assumed that a large part of the capitalist algorithm simply will have to vanish. But as history shows there also always is a remainder of a mode of production that in an inverted form becomes part of the next progressive mode of production. To identify what “Capital after Capitalism” could be, what has to be abolished and what might survive in which form is a central prerequisite for a proper understanding of the coming revolution of the current mode of production. Since each step on the ladder of global social evolution is also a step in social human consciousness, this step in understanding implies a direct impact in guiding the actions to accomplish this turnover.
Highlights
In a world in turmoil, ever larger parts of the population are experiencing that political leaders have no answers to their vital questions, conventional knowledge in economics and political science does not explain what happensWorld Review of Political Economy Vol 9 No 1 Spring 2018in the world economy, and living conditions have started to deteriorate
The second type of reproductive innovations will be traditional technical innovations that adjust living circumstances in different parts of the world and take care of environmental limits. It is this type of reproductive innovations carried out by global governance institutions that might be inheriting the historical mission of capital, that—in a new form—is “capital” after capitalism
As a matter of fact, it necessarily must remain a highly speculative enterprise to formulate ideas on what happens after capitalism
Summary
In a world in turmoil, ever larger parts of the population are experiencing that political leaders have no answers to their vital questions, conventional knowledge in economics and political science does not explain what happens. Prophets of prosperity, promising dream worlds based on their own distorted perceptions, are successfully winning elections in an age of alienation that allows to streamline political attitudes of an electorate that receives all perceptions of the outside world on its smartphones In this cacophony, the notion that we live in a capitalist mode of production that can be understood has been lost, at least by the general public. The fourth part emphasizes what is thought to be the main characteristic of the mode of production: the return of time and space This easiest can be understood as an inversion of the limits that capitalism hits in time and space. The conclusion draws together the different topics touched in the preceding parts and expresses the hope that Thomas More’s utopia, after 500 years and in modern form, will materialize
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