Decapitalism is a term that has recently been propelled into the public spotlight by popular belief that the “old” capitalist system is gone and has in fact been replaced with something more akin to the feudalism of old dubbed, Decapitalism. Decapitalism is a term formed by combining two very simple words, decapitation and capitalism. The decapitation part refers to the removal of the need for the working and middle classes to be in decent and/or good mental and physical health to continue producing capital, with that being replaced by simply printing money! it’s in fact more complicated than that it more of refers to an economy run on debt generated investments and bailouts, however i am more interested in the implications of this shift in socio-economic policy in the ideological sense, for that i will need to briefly explain some other terms relevant to this discussion. Accelerationism (right wing accelerationism) and Corporate Capitalism. Accelerationists believe we should aggressively speed up the process of capitalism and technological advancement,either because that would be better for humanity or in this case because the current global trend sees most power accumulating in the hands of the few, therefore centralizing the system in the hands of corporations. Here is where the second term comes in, Corporate Capitalism, this refers to an economic system run by corporations with the main focus being on the detriment that corporations inherently bring because of being companies oriented strictly towards profits.
Now that we properly understand these definitions we can get onto explaining Decapitalism and the speculative “new” system we are heading towards according to greek economist Yanis Varoufakis and by David Elias Aviles Espinoza a candidate for a phd in political economy. Yanis Varoufakis, a very controversial figure in Greek politics argues as follows. You can imagine a world in which people go about their business as usual, sell clothes, songs, games, movies, etc. however, all the buildings they trade on and in fact the whole street is owned by this one guy, let's call him Jeff, furthermore you walk down the street and notice different stores, because everything is intermediated by Jeffs algorithm, as stated in an interview for The Guardian. Varoufakis argues this is in fact no market at all, it is simply feudalism, living on the property of a singular person (perhaps managed through the guise of a corporation) and we’d be the serfs. So basically, Decapitalism is the economic power concentrated in the hands of the wealthy to the point of economic singularity so to speak, where almost everything is owned by corporations owned by the same 5 people.
This should sound familiar as “late stage capitalism” as described first by Karl Marx (even though he did not refer to it as such and the term was first popularized by one Werner Sombart) and was first used to describe the economic expansion after ww2 and the rise of multinational corporations. However in recent times this term has become somewhat murky with multiple definitions. The simplest and seemingly the most widely agreed upon definition being “the richer get richer and the poorer get poorer”. This is referring mostly to the economic exploitation of the middle and lower classes especially in advanced western countries such as the USA.
The worries of the previously mentioned economists have been worsened by the 2020 pandemic, and the short term economical solutions made by the US government. The US has been criticized because of the money printing during the pandemic which was mainly used to pump back into the stock market preventing a crash, however while the stock market has recovered cost of living has not. With oil, food, gas, water and electricity prices rising everywhere it begs the question, is this the new system we are heading towards? Neo-feudalism anyone?
It is undeniable that corporations are having a bigger and bigger impact on the economy and on people's daily lives, the question still remains, should they be regulated by the governments of the world to better respect human rights and privacy? Should we step in similar to what the US did previously through disbanding Standard oil to prevent the accumulation of power in the hands of a few people? Or should the free market reign supreme over the current political economic climate?
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