Capitalist Interstructure Defined
The interconnected elements that lead to the poly/metacrisis
Capitalist Interstructure is a phrase that helps us refer to the dynamic process of interaction between all the systems that make up complex societies.
In this post we’ll briefly outline — at a very high level — the systems making up our existing (complex) societies. In a future post, we’ll provide a comparison table between today’s interstructure and the weak signals emerging that point towards a Post Capitalist Interstructure.
“The world we see that seems so insane is the result of a belief system that is not working. To perceive the world differently, we must be willing to change our belief system, let the past slip away, expand our sense of now, and dissolve the fear in our minds.” — William James
The Elements of Capitalist Interstructure
- A debt-based expansionist monetary system with a baked-in growth imperative, despite very obvious finite limits of the ecosystem. It consists of a single type of money (albeit represented by different currencies) all issued by a Central Bank.
- A system of government that facilitates exploitation of public resources for private gain, rather than wisely stewarding the commons. It is centralized, bureaucratic, and kleptocratic, with human-defined boundaries. A hunger for war keeps the system going.
- A medical system based on germ theory, which supports a for-profit disease-machine and excludes unpatentable natural ways of maintaining health and resilience. It treats social, behavioral, and bodily conditions with profit, rather than health, as its priority.
- A globalized, corporatized food system that undermines individual health and personal sovereignty in favor of profit.
- A legal system that underpins property ownership rather than stewardship. It views human nature as inherently “bad.”
- A compulsory, conformist, competitive education system that promotes individualism, competition and inequality.
- A worldview, religions and origin stories that are hierarchical and obsessed with control and separatism. This belief system underpins the entire interstructure and is enforced by violence at all levels of society, from the family level to the nation state level.
We use the phrase capitalist interstructure to encapsulate the interconnectedness of all of these systems.
“The range of what we think and do is limited by what we fail to notice. And because we fail to notice there is little we can do to change, until we notice how failing to notice shapes our thoughts & deeds.” Ronald D. Laing
With a helicopter view of what we’re dealing with, we can now consider the weak signals pointing towards a Post Capitalist Interstructure.
