Ask Lemmygrad

Capitalist realism is the idea that capitalism is the only viable way to organize society and the assumption that nothing could possibly supplant it. Just like chattel slavery and the divine right of kings before it, it is the assumption that this is simply the way the world is and must always be.

Nihilistic defeatist outlooks or liberal idealism depending on the variety expressed and who is expressing.

The book by Mark Fisher of the same name is decent but he had some problematic takes that lean toward the former.

A made up term by some champaigne socialist who repackaged gramsci's "cultural hegemony" for western college students.

I randomly decided to read some of these beginner marxism books a year or so ago, and mark fisher's books were the absolute worst. It's the focus and obsession of culture, art, over materialist analyses of history and imperialism, that's so appealing to westerners.

Capitalist realism is summed up in this phrase "It is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism"

It is the belief that everything other than capitalism is impossible or idealistic. This is best exemplified in the United States and the West's complete inability to do anything about Climate change. Most people have passively accepted that climate change and its ensuing destruction is inevitable and even those that go out to protest envision a capitalist solution (Elon Musk fixing it through business or something).

It is at its core state propaganda to fill the populace with hopelessness that any change is doomed to fail.

You want something better than capitalism, but for some reason you believe everything that the CIA tells you about Socialist States.

It is this feeling, this current state of being, where everything is...capitatalist. Everything in our global capitalist society is an exchange of values determent by the current socio-economic system, everything is being comodified and everything is becoming business to the point where people cant imagine essentials like housing or water being free and not profit driven only for the people who can afford it. It is this sense that capitalism is the only thing existent, that capitalism is the only true socio-economic system and that every alternative has been tried and failed. People cannot imagine a future beyond capitalism nor can they even think beyond capitalism because capitalism is the only viable system, it seems to have become the very fabric of our observable reality.

basically "embrace capitalist dystopia because this is the best system forever"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalist_Realism

A modernised explanation of the ideological aspects of the State and and social super structure. It is an attempt to simplify into modern and approachable language, with modern references, a core component of Marx's analysis of society

What is the idea that you want the world to be communist, and try to do that within your power, but accept that the current system we live in is capitalist and try to deal with that to live your life - capitalist practicalism?