Coin-operated doors and pirated toasts: reflections on capitalism from Philip K. Dick’s Ubik to Cory Doctorow’s Unauthorized Bread
Fredric Jameson once wrote that it is easier for us to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. This quasi-ubiquitous statement has by now achieved an almost axiomatic status among scholars of utopias and dystopias, as they set to analyse seemingly endless versions of the future and end up smashing into the impenetrable wall of capitalism. This socio-economic system survives in idealised, collapsing and, at times, post-apocalyptic societies, signalling that not even the end of the world might make away with it. Yet, as Ursula K. Le Guin countered in one of her last public appearances, «We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art—the art of words.» Although Le Guin certainly inspires hope for change, one that can take us beyond the constraints of capitalism as we know it today, for the time being we are without a doubt still trapped within it. More precisely, we are deep into what has been called late capital... continua a leggere
tag: capitalismo, Cory Doctorow, fantascienza, Philip K. Dick
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