Mini-Theory Blog: The End of the Line

NinaIllingworth November 30, 2022November 30, 2022 accumulation of capital, anticapitalism, anticapitalist theory, blog, CA4, capitalism, capitalism as religion, capitalism doesn't create wealth, capitalism versus climate, CC3, class war, Climate Crisis, climate genocide, colonialism, commons, contradictions of capitalism, crisis of capitalism, ecofascism, ecological collapse, extractivism, extractivism will kill us all, fascism, forced labor, free market fundamentalism, genocide, looting of the commons, Mini Theory Blog, Nina Illingworth, organized looting, pig empire, rentier class, slavery, Socialism, ST2, stealing, The End of the Line, Theory

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Ultimately, any sufficiently rigorous study of the history of capitalism in the Pig Empire reveals a tale of organized looting, extraction, and enslavement for the enrichment of a politically influential rentier class. Capitalism itself has never created an ounce of value or for that matter wealth, but rather serves to concentrate power and resources in the hands of the ruling few; who in turn, use the wealth extracted to generate more power, to create more wealth, and so on. Although this feat does not always require violence, the methods by which this transfer occurs are always installed and protected through the ultimate threat of force; whether that force comes in the form of the policeman, the soldier, or colonial overseer is typically a question of geography, not purpose.

This process however contains its own fatal contradiction; the resources being extracted under the threat of force, are after all finite for the most part. Eventually you run out of captured commons to pillage, and marginalized people to steal from at gunpoint. History tells us that capitalism’s strategy to manage this problem is to expand the sphere of extraction; colonize more land, squeeze more value from the labor force, enclose more shared public resources and set them on the “free market” for profit, and so forth. I say manage of course because there is one obvious problem that keeps this strategy from being a solution, and it’s a problem that will be very familiar to folks living in the early stages of climate collapse; eventually, you run out of planet to pillage.

To you and I, the obsolescence of capitalism due to climate collapse is unlikely to be a major concern; after all, it was capitalism that got us into this boiling planet mess in the first place. For the Pig Empire rentier class, living in the holiest cathedral of the free market fundamentalist religion however, this represents an existential crisis that calls for a very extreme response indeed; the installation of fascism, to ensure the continuation of capital accumulation, even if it will undoubtedly kill billions of innocent people and end in a mass grave for the human species.