A truly free market would be of precisely no use to capitalists, as Marx himself understood quite well: the goal of the capitalist is precisely not to create the telos of a level playing field, but to warp existing economic structures so that they structurally advantage one’s own interests. Capitalism reproduces itself as a social system, in other words, not by attempting to bring into existence a particular ideal form, but by creating structures which selectively inhibit other social actors than yourself. Which is why Marlo is the The Wire’s figure for the savagery of unfettered capitalism: he becomes as powerful as he does not by evading the structures that regulate market society, but by employing and subverting the ones that already exist to work in his own favor. He therefore takes control of the co-op by transforming it, he fills the wire with noise so that nothing can be heard, and he leaves bodies in the vacant spaces left by others. He wins the game by embracing Weber’s spirit of capitalism, by replacing consumption with capitalization, and by subverting and repressing all forms of desire — especially that of reproduction and the attachment of family — he becomes a faceless agent of endless expansion, successful precisely to the extent that he lacks any standard by which his failure would even be legible.

— Zunguzungu [via]

For a good part of my intellectual life, I’ve been skpetical of Neo-Marxist understandings of power… The capital accumulative class might have strong advantages in the U.S. policy process, but the process was open and by no means was the state simply a handmaiden of capital like neo-Marxists might presume. Policy was a contest, the outcome was not predetermined. Then AIG happened.

— We Are All Neo-Marxists Now?

And to think, just before all this mess started I was starting to think that we were all over Marx and that I should stop being a sucker and get with the program already.

And would Marx not have said today: what are all the protests against global capitalism worth in comparison with the invention of the internet?

— Slavoj Žižek, “Violence” [via]