Breaking the Curse of Capitalist Realism: Art and the Quest for Alternative Perspectives

In his NY Times Op-ed, Martin Scorsese referred to Marvel movies as “theme parks,” highlighting the inherent tension between art and profit under capitalism. He criticized franchise films as mere financial investments rather than true art. Scorsese suggested that consumers should use their power to choose arthouse films over blockbusters to support the survival of genuine art. However, I argue that we are beyond defeating capitalism with capitalism.

Marvel, a Disney-owned corporation, thrives on monopolizing the entertainment industry and relies heavily on capitalism’s continued flourishing. Many corporations depend on the military-industrial complex as their main funding and production structure, which in turn feeds back into the propagandizing influence of cultural attitudes the state has towards war. Such companies must present an image of a happy and successful life under capitalism and keep their audience from realizing that the goals presented by their movies are unattainable and unsustainable. This trend implies that there are values that are not profitable, and the accumulation of money under capitalism is eroding humanity in a very immediate way.

We have become the product, as our attention is sold to advertisers and our souls are streamlined into profitable groups. Individuals cannot be expected to win this psychological battle against history’s most powerful institutions. Most people are pushed through systems that are too large and complex for them to face alone.

Media does not exist in a vacuum, and neither does our media consumption. Under a capitalist system, art is filtered through the lens of capitalism. Much of the media that we consume reinforces the perspectives and limitations that we are presented with. While art can criticize capitalism, it has been absorbed into capitalism in our modern society, appearing to reflect the commodification of society. How can something be examined objectively when it becomes a part of the system under scrutiny? Is it possible to sever capitalism from art?

Marx and Engels believed that art should represent the average consumer by presenting humans as both the subjects and objects of history. Art should expose the structures of reality that shape our daily lives through a surface-level plot for communal consumption, with a greater emphasis on the story of societies rather than individuals. They believed that art should tell us about the world and provide us with the tools to interact with it while representing the tendencies of progress. As a reaction to capitalism, an aesthetic movement known as socialist realism arose in the early Soviet Union. Socialist realism is concerned with how art, which pervades class consciousness, adds value to humanity. In theory, it raises the question, “Isn’t this world also for us?”

The ideology of socialist realism was feverishly utopian. In theory, it was intended to create psychologically realistic characters, educate the reader on socialism, describe how the world ought to be while depicting the world as it is, and leave the reader optimistic about change. While idealistic, their heroes were predictable and hollow, existing only to build Communism in a quasi-real setting. Socialist Realism was mandated in the Soviet Union in 1932 so that every work of art would be created in accordance with Marxist-Leninist ideals. At its peak, it was the only official and acceptable style of art in which the protagonists were supposed to be working-class people. At the time, all work was based on hypothetical situations, explicitly advocating for Communism, appealing to the common worker, and having its heroes defeat oppressive capitalists. The “realism” that made up Socialist Realism was not intended to be precise. Rather, it sought a straightforward, unambiguous message promoting Communism devoid of subtext. Today, when we look at Socialist Realism, it is clear that it is propaganda.

However, looking at current society, it could be argued that our art is just as bureaucratic: advertising serves as our high art. In the current landscape, capitalism has co-opted every aspect of our lives, including our art. It is nearly impossible to separate art from its capitalist context. Capitalism has filtered and defined our culture and artistic values. We are always reminded that capitalism is the “lesser evil” when pointing at the past failings of socialism. That democracy is not perfect, but it’s better than dictatorships like those under Communism like in the Soviet Union. Any challenge to the status quo is unrealistic and one step closer to the gulag.

In Mark Fisher’s “Capitalist Realism,” he uncovers that the government under Stalin and ours aren’t so different. He says, “Initially, it might appear to be a mystery that bureaucratic measures should have intensified under neoliberal governments that have presented themselves as anti-bureaucratic and anti-Stalinist…It might seem that bureaucracy is a kind of return of the repressed, ironically re-emerging at the heart of a system which has professed to destroy it.” Today’s capitalism involves the normalization of bureaucracy and the creation of the kind of extra and unnecessary labor characteristics we associate with a Stalin-like dictatorship. People surveil each other due to the increase and establishment of constant communication through technology. The dominant emotions in society have become stress and fear, resulting in an increase in self-monitoring, subservience, and conformity where art becomes replication rather than the individualistic creative innovation that capitalism purports to encourage.

In today’s society, the dominant emotions have become stress and fear, resulting in an increase in self-monitoring, subservience, and conformity. This has led to a culture in which art becomes replication rather than the individualistic creative innovation that capitalism purports to foster. Fisher develops his theory of capitalist realism, stating, “The role of capitalist ideology is not to make an explicit case for something in the way that propaganda does, but to conceal the fact that the operations of capital do not depend on any sort of subjectively assumed belief.” While anti capitalism does not harm capitalism, ambiguous anti-capitalism frequently feeds and sustains it. Fisher coined the phrase “capitalist realism” to describe the current geopolitical condition in which alternatives to the capitalist system are completely undetectable to the mainstream, and people are unable to envision a coherent alternative.

Fisher’s definition of capitalist realism is “an acute fragmentation of reality” and “an unwillingness and inability to act.” Capitalism has co-opted the performative nature of criticism so that the public can continue to consume with reckless abandon while maintaining a clear conscience. It has rendered the concept of systemic change obsolete by focusing solely on individual action. It is now anticipating and shaping people’s desires, destroying and undermining the political system to the point where people seek solutions in products rather than democratic or subversive action.

According to Fredric Jameson, as capitalism has become universalized, the distinction between culture and economics has vanished. This fusion of art and commerce results in a culture devoid of depth and value. Fisher mirrors this argument when he states, “Aesthetic production today has become integrated into commodity production.” Capitalist realism is more than just an art movement; it is a complete way of life. As a result, it is normalized and mostly invisible to us, like the air we both breathe, which also weighs us down.

Criticism isn’t enough — capitalism criticizes itself and still goes on. Even in a supposedly anti-capitalist film like Disney-Pixar’s WALL-E, the message is not “Down with capitalism” but “you, the individual, are to blame.” The film depicts the worst excesses of corporate malpractice and automated dystopia, but it fails to truly point to capitalism’s foundational flaws as the source of Earth’s demise. The multi-trillionaire conglomerate Disney may have made you cry over robots and reconsider your plastic straw purchases, but they’re perfectly content to destroy the Earth for profit. Capitalists will sell you anti-capitalism if there is a market for it, leaving you feeling like you’ve performed anti-capitalism while contributing nothing.

Media consumption is not the same as activism. Fisher adds, that “Alternative” and “independent” don’t designate something outside mainstream culture; rather, they are styles, in fact, the dominant styles, within the mainstream. Is socialist realism, however flawed it may be, still an option now that even “anti-capitalism” is capitalist? It is argued in the Locust Review that “all realism is, in its basic form, undialectical and therefore not socialist, trapped in empirical moments, drawing limited conclusions from the most partial of information…It does not see his biography. It does not see his dreams. It does not see his victories, his defeats…The realist lens, in this sense, sees almost nothing.” Particularly, capitalist realism offers an even more limiting framework than realism in general, infecting every aspect of social being. It spares nothing that does not, in some way, fit into the “logic” of economic growth.

The curse of capitalist realism can lead to fascism more quickly than the liberal bourgeois would have us believe. Despite the fact that capitalism is killing the planet, causing undeniably high inequality, fueling racism, sexism, and homophobia, and even failing to provide the economic growth and financial stability it promises, we can’t seem to imagine an alternative. Rather, it’s as if acknowledging the problems gives us permission to ignore them and keep consuming.

So, what can we do? In his work, “Valences of the Dialectic,” Jameson concludes, “one cannot change anything without changing everything.” While art and literature alone cannot cure fascism, they possess the power to envision working-class life in its most authentic form — a life that transcends the superficial observations provided by capital. This imaginative portrayal of the working class can serve as a tool to dismantle oppressive traditional structures and challenge false assumptions. It can free us from the perspectives and barriers that capitalism has conditioned us to accept without question. Instead of relying on realist placeholders such as reality TV, performative social media interactions, conventional formal narratives, and hollow concepts, art that depicts the working-class subject perceives the rational and real as the chaotic insanity they truly are.

Paradoxically, it is only through the absurd that the proletariat can begin to reimagine real life. There is no “normal” working class, as there is no norm to which we can conform. Even the most demographically average worker is only “normal” when their biography and inner narrative are overlooked, and their subjectivity is denied. In this way, socialist realism perpetrates the same assault as capitalist realism. Therefore, it is crucial that we create a positive alternative to capitalist realism, one that provides a vision for what the world could become without sacrificing our individuality, much like socialist realism did.

By harnessing the power of art and literature to challenge and dismantle capitalist realism, we can ignite a transformation in our society. We must aspire to a future where alternative perspectives and ways of life are not only possible but also celebrated. Only then can we liberate ourselves from the clutches of capitalist realism and create a world that genuinely values creativity, individuality, and authentic human connection.

Works Cited:

1. Scorsese, Martin. “Op-ed.” The New York Times. 2022.
2. Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. The Communist Manifesto. 1848.
3. Fisher, Mark. Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? Zero Books, 2009.
4. Jameson, Fredric. Valences of the Dialectic. Verso, 2010.
5. “Locust Review.” 2022.