Concluding Words

Abstract

A raft of apocalyptic appellations for the current economic state—gore, carceral, authoritarian, and cancer capitalism—have been recently proffered. It is argued that the pathologies these works emphasize point not to a form of capitalism but the extinction of the capitalist species. However, technocratic management by neoliberal states of capitalist decay mean that in lieu of a concatenation of unforeseen events there will be no final great meltdown to bring the masses onto the streets demanding change akin to Marx’s envisioned heroic class struggles. Rather the extinction of capitalism will unfold as a slow and agonizing death as dystopian scenarios of starvation, disease, and urban violence break down the last fabrics of social control sending the über wealthy with their private contracted security forces scurrying for “safe zones” either on earth or other planets.