Prefigurative politics, anarchy, and hope are some of my favorite topics to read about. They invite me to question the growing doom the news gives me. To quote Mark Fisher from his book Capitalist Realism, many of us feel that “It’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.” While I often fall prey to the downward spiral in this type of thinking, I remind myself that it is possible to imagine the end of extractive capitalism as we know it, even if it’s hard to do so. The solutions to capitalism exist right now in tiny spaces, they are just not connected – this is realist hope.
Being able to imagine something different is a prerequisite for being able to create it – this is prefigurative politics. The first step towards creating a new reality is envisioning it in our mind while having a felt experience of it in our body.
There’s a joke that the most important part of a puzzle is the picture on the box, because without that picture all of the pieces are a jumble. With real life, things are more complicated. The puzzle pieces are not neatly collected in a single box and the picture we are moving towards is more hazy than clear. But let’s keep this clear: complicated does not mean impossible.
For most of us capitalism is such a part of our day to day that it can be difficult to even see what oppressive forces keep us rooted in it. All of this became clearer for me while taking Capitalism vs Love, a course taught through the School of Radical Imagination by independent scholar Dr. Laura Basu. Dr. Basu shares ways to see how the constructs of race, class, gender, and ableism are interlocked systems of oppression that keep us locked into capitalism.
One of my main critiques of capitalism is that it is exclusively intellectual and profit motivated. It lacks the heart to understand how it affects others and our one shared planet. In fact, I’ve heard private equity executives dismiss labor rights, environmental desecration, and racial gatekeeping as simply “externalities” – things that are not worth considering in the limited view of neoliberal capitalism. Anarchism can be part of our every day, all it takes is that we embody the social relations we want to create in the crux of the current system. In other words we act as if we were free today.
So let’s push back and dare to imagine a world after capitalism. Remember that we must imagine it with our body in addition to imagining it with our mind. Classical economics pretends humans are rational self-centered actors only looking out for themselves. We must tap into something larger than our individual self-interest to create a different world.
Below you’ll see a starter list of works of fiction that bring us visions of a world that questions the oppressive natures of class, race, gender, and ableism.
As you engage with these alternate realities I invite you to bring your mind, body and soul into the stories.
- How do you feel when you see a system of oppression in capitalism be turned upside down?
- What are the emotions that arise in you?
- What beliefs are being questioned?
Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
Fifteen-year-old Lauren Olamina lives inside a gated community with her preacher father, family, and neighbors, sheltered from the surrounding social chaos and anarchy caused by climate change and economic crisis. In a society where any vulnerability is a risk, she suffers from hyperempathy—a debilitating sensitivity to others’ emotions.
Precocious and clear-eyed, Lauren must make her voice heard in order to protect her loved ones from the imminent disasters her small community stubbornly ignores. But what begins as a fight for survival soon leads to something much more: the birth of a new faith . . . and a startling vision of human destiny.
#gender #race #ableism
- Lauren’s disability is seen as a huge weakness and with time we get to see a different perspective where she uses it as a strength. How have you seen others or you yourself used something that was seen by society as a weakness as a strength?
- In this post apocalyptic world we see the same race and gender constructs we see today,for the most part. What portions of gender and race feel most familiar to your experience today? What about least familiar?
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
A lone human ambassador is sent to the icebound planet of Winter, a world without sexual prejudice, where the inhabitants’ gender is fluid. His goal is to facilitate Winter’s inclusion in a growing intergalactic civilization. But to do so he must bridge the gulf between his own views and those of the strange, intriguing culture he encounters.
#gender
- In Winter there has never been war and the envoy who had experienced war elsewhere wondered whether the lack of continuous gender is part of the reason for the planet’s lack of violence. Even without war there was plenty of political intrigue and differences in how things were seen. How do you think gender may affect war?
- The envoy carried a lifetime of experiencing gender as fixed. As time went on and he spent more time with the inhabitants of Winter the envoy began to see the limitations of seeing people so entwined with their gender, especially the way that he had internalized misogynism.
Psalm for the Wild Built and Prayer for the Crown-Shy by Becky Chambers
It’s been centuries since the robots of Panga gained self-awareness and laid down their tools; centuries since they wandered, en masse, into the wilderness, never to be seen again; centuries since they faded into myth and urban legend.
One day, the life of a tea monk is upended by the arrival of a robot, there to honor the old promise of checking in. The robot cannot go back until the question of “what do people need?” is answered. But the answer to that question depends on who you ask, and how. They’re going to need to ask it a lot.
Becky Chambers’ new series asks: in a world where people have what they want, does having more matter?
#gender #race #class
- Dex has everything they need and yet they feel they are missing something. When Mosscap asks them what they need, Dex is unsure of how to answer the question. In this classless society everyone can determine what they need without a focus on society’s expectations. Why do you think it’s difficult for Dex to respond to Mosscap’s question?
- I love that in Panga the world is post gender and people’s preferred gender pronouns are something to be developed and understood over time. Can you think back on when you were deciding your own gender? What was that like? Was it even part of your process?
- Similarly, in Panga I don’t remember hearing race at all. What do you think is lost when we don’t have race as part of personal identity? What do you think is gained?
These aren’t just thought experiments. The world these books imagine is already being built.
Creating an Alternative Centered in Love
While this list of fiction is not exhaustive I hope it creates a solid starting place for your own inquiries. The good news is that the alternatives to extractive capitalism aren’t only living in fiction — they are being built right now, in communities around the world. The Global Tapestry of Alternatives is a living network that maps and connects these real-world experiments in cooperative living, solidarity economies, and regenerative cultures. If the books above help you feel a different world, the Global Tapestry shows you it is already being lived. Late stage extractive capitalism is exhausting the planet and everyone on it. Alternatives are flourishing in imaginations and in real life.
Late stage extractive capitalism is exhausting the planet and everyone on it. Alternatives are flourishing in imaginations and in real life.
Prefigurative politics and living into the world we want to see is a key first step and it’s not the end of the road. There are so many problems worth solving — whichever one calls to you is the right one. With over 8 billion souls on this one planet we all have a key role to play. For me, I work to reduce suffering around money as a money coach and to allocate capital into building a solidarity economy as an investment manager. What is your role to play? How much time and energy can you allocate to it?
In preparing this article my dear friend Mikee Ciul suggested two additional works to read and watch. I’d love to add more to this list!
- Everything for Everyone: an oral history of the New York commune 2052-2072 by Eman Abdelhadi and M. E. O’Brien
- Identiteaze – science fiction film by Jessie Gender
In your life, what are the books, movies, plays or other works of fiction that have helped you not only question capitalism and a limiting status quo, but have helped you imagine a more generous new future? Please send your fiction recommendations my way! Include what the piece made you question and a few guiding questions for readers or watchers.