McKenzie Wark troubles the term “capitalism” on Public Seminar this week:
One thing that the left and right now seem to agree on is that the society in which we live is called capitalism. And strangely enough, both now seem to agree that it is eternal. Even the left seems to think there is an eternal essence to capitalism, and only its appearances change. The parade of changing appearances yields a series of modifiers: this could be late capitalism or communicate capitalism or cognitive capitalism or neoliberal capitalism. But short of an increasingly allegorical or messianic leap into something other — it is as if this self-same thing just went on forever.