"Capitalist realism" (a play on the Soviet-enforced aesthetic of "socialist realism") is the term coined by the late cultural critic Mark Fisher to describe books/movies/TV/podcasts/songs in which no option to the the dreary pursuit of wealth and "success" is presented as something desired by sane people or as something even real. Capitalist realism refers to works of art or entertainment in which nobody dreams of anything other than making money, gaining more social status or getting famous. In capitalist realism, people who want other things do not exist or, when they do exist, they are portrayed as hopeless fools. "Everybody secretly wants to be rich," is a message in capitalist realist works. In works of capitalist realism, everything and everyone is and should be for sale, eventually.
Fortunately, actual humanity does not resemble the humanity depicted in works of capitalist realism. Hundreds of people I know online and hundreds of people I've known in my life have dreams, desires and ambitions that are not those depicted in capitalist realism. My friends dream of greater connection with nature and with other people. They dream of having more time to pursue creative work and work around social and environmental justice. They imagine and pursue lives not defined by a dog-eat-dog hierarchy of exploitation and a state of being cut off from Earth ecology.
The results are in. This thing has run its course. Hyper-individualism, wherein we each live trying f*ck over the other person, has run planetary ecology off of a cliff. All this time, all these years we were dreaming of something different, we were told: "No you're not." We were told that all we needed was a Jeep or a swimming pool. Well, that dog won't hunt. We are remembering ourselves.
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