Slavoj Žižek: The End Times of Capitalism

If the rockstar economist in the aftermath of the financial crash was Thomas Piketty, Slavoj
Žižek is undisputedly the rockstar philosopher of the ‘end times’ of capitalism (see Self
2017). No contemporary book on capitalism’s critics would be complete without some
engagement with the work of the enigmatic Slovenian psychoanalyst. Žižek has popularized
the critique of capitalism amongst a new generation. His idiosyncratic Hegelian-Lacanian
analysis is presented in numerous books (Žižek 1989, 2008, 2009, inter alia) and even in
feature-length documentary films (Fiennes et al. 2006, 2013). His rockstar academic status
is undeniable, despite the fact that his work is often stiflingly inaccessible.

However, what is clear throughout Žižek’s writing is his certainty that capitalism is in terminal
decline and that it is rapidly ‘approaching its apocalyptic zero-point’ (Žižek 2010: x). In Living
in the End Times, Žižek’s argument is that capitalism is dying yet people are unable to
accept this reality. Capitalist realism collides with capitalism’s unmistakable death rattle. The
vast majority of people are hit with a confused, disconcerting and unacknowledged grief
when they consider their social existence. If it is easier to imagine the end of the world than it
is to imagine the end of capitalism (see Fisher 2009), yet capitalism is clearly ending, a
psychic trauma ensues as people struggle to process the discordance of their reality. There
is a repressed collective mourning for the end of capitalism.

To develop this argument, Žižek turns to the five stages of grief outlined by Elisabeth
Kübler-Ross (2005). Žižek argues that we are slowly, and at different rates, moving through
these stages of grieving as we try and grapple with the contradiction: capitalism is immortal
and it is dying. It should be stressed that Žižek’s text is somewhat inaccessible and this
abstracted argument is never presented in explicit, clear prose. Indeed, critics of Žižek have
long accused him of a range of charges, including obfuscation, methodological imprecision,
even outright racism (see Moller-Nielsen 2019).

In earlier work, Žižek (2008) identified a possible revolutionary actor, a class representing
the ‘universal individual’. These are ‘the slum people’, those who are left outside capitalism
insofar as the system has effectively given up all claims to support their uplift. They have
been abandoned to their fate and as such, for Žižek, the fate of capitalism becomes
inextricably connected with their own. In In Defence of Lost Causes [2008], Žižek argued
that the possibility for revolutionary change lies in the alliance of the ‘slum peoples’ and the
progressive elements of the proletariat. Yet, in Living in the End Times, there is no such
focus on a revolutionary subject; the death of capitalism is simply a fact to be stated. That
said, while there is no revolutionary actor, there remains a clear humanist focus throughout
the text. The primary concern of the book, at least at an explicit level, is how people deal
with the reality of capitalism’s demise. In this regard, Žižek’s analysis of capitalism is
depth-psychological as much as it is sociological.

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The Five Stages of Grief Applied to Capitalism

1. Denial
The first of Kübler-Ross’ stages of grieving is ideological denial. The subject refuses to
accept that capitalism is ending: there is a dogmatic reassertion of the inherent ‘naturalness’
of market mechanisms and of the stability of the capitalist way of life. There is also a
deliberate attempt to foster and fetishize other conflicts to displace the reality of capitalism’s
demise. We must talk of anything but the death!

Žižek comments on the much-discussed contradictions of liberal (in)tolerance and the

challenges of multiculturalism. Žižek argues that in both responses, outright denial and
deliberate displacement, there is an ideological shrouding of the demise of capitalism, which
is capably supported by the culture industry. Hollywood films serve to maintain the magic of
capitalist realism. Hollywood is thus the ‘ideological battlefield’ which requires considered
examination.

For Žižek, the underlying message of popular films such as Batman and Kung Fu Panda is
to be aware of, but then subvert, repress and ignore, the contradictions inherent in the failing
social order. Both Batman and Kung Fu Panda are shown to be injunctions to lie, an
ideological injunction to conceal the truth, to acknowledge the falsity of your world but then to
return to the illusion. In an earlier interview, Žižek argued that Kung Fu Panda (a children’s
movie) was ‘a really dangerous film’, ‘ideology at its purest’ (Žižek and Stein 2008); as it
prescribes repression of the awareness of social contradictions. Hollywood obscures and
normalizes the contradictions of the present, teaching us to repress our awareness of the
incoming economic and ecological Armageddon.

2. Anger

The second phase of grief identified by Kübler-Ross is anger. Such anger is typically
misplaced, eliding with the denial identified above. Today one may think of both the rage of
Capitol Hill rioters in Washington, DC, but equally of the liberal contempt of Trump.³ Žižek
encourages the reader to think of the anger against religious extremism and against cancel
culture as being, at least in part, equally displaced and misunderstood.

As Howard Beale declares in Sidney Lumet’s 1976 classic Network, we are all ‘mad as hell’
and ‘are not going to take it anymore!’ But, as per Beale’s proclamation, the ‘it’ which people
‘won’t take any more’ remains unclear. For Žižek, the true genesis of the ‘it’, if not the
displaced content which ultimately becomes fetishized, is capitalism.

3. Bargaining

The third phrase of grief is bargaining. Such bargaining is insufficient and unconsciously
offered. We buy hybrid cars to offset incoming environmental cataclysm, forgetting the vast
insufficiency of this futile gesture. We will read of rising sea levels and recycle carrier bags.

Theoretically and intellectually this bargaining presents itself: we see a pseudo return of
interest in Marx (as discussed in the preceding chapter). Increasingly, even liberals admit
that there maybe is something to Marx’s ideas after all. Tellingly, Marx appeared on the cover
of Time Magazine in 2009. However, as with our analysis of Piketty in the preceding chapter,
this Marxian renaissance is often more symbolic than substantive. It is an unconscious,
inconsequential return to Marx, a desire to return a debased signifier to circulation.

Such symbolic-Marxism is the functional equivalent of recycling milk bottles in Richmond to

offset the building of a hundred coal power stations in China. It is not merely futile, it serves
to retard genuine resolution and anagnorisis. In short, with this third phase of grief,
bargaining, we see the rise, both politically and theoretically, of symbolic, structurally
inconsequential posturing, which impedes true self and world-awareness.

4. Depression

The penultimate stage of grief is depression, which leads on naturally from such futile
bargaining. One may well ask ‘If China is building hundreds of new coal power stations, why
bother with anything?’ The emerging pandemic of ‘climate anxiety’ could be well captured by
this phase (see McKibben 2021). There is an awareness that capitalism’s death knell has
sounded, that little can be done. We thus see a spike in mental health conditions, of anxiety,
depression, suicide.

For a disaffected youth, there is a lack of purpose, a widespread ennui and an

inter-generational exasperation. Why bother explaining anything to ‘boomers’?

5. Acceptance

Finally, we reach the last stage: acceptance. People realize that the basis for a new social
formation exists, latent within the present. The end of capitalism is not the end of the world.
A new form of subjectivity also exists, emerging from the rubble of the end times, an entirely
new form of social life may be about to emerge.

A wide variety of sources are deployed by Žižek to demonstrate a new fascination with
emerging subjects, from the science-fiction TV drama series Heroes to a resurgence of
interest in Kafkaesque fiction. Yet, while there are some signs of ‘acceptance’, the earlier
stages of the grieving vastly predominate. We are a long way from genuine collective
acceptance.

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Capitalism’s Terminal Decline as Assumed Premise

Tellingly, Žižek does not even attempt to justify his assertion that capitalism is in terminal
decline. It is the accepted point of departure for his analysis. Capitalism is reaching an
‘apocalyptic zero-point’; we simply have to accept this if we are to accompany him beyond
the foreword. The four horsemen of this particular apocalypse—climatic crisis, economic
inequalities, the biogenetic revolution and increasingly ossified social cleavages—are
referred to, but there is no attempt to justify their existence and significance. It is as if that
time has passed.
Rather, the cycle of grief is what structures Living in the End Times. These four horsemen
are not representing speculative possible futures: we must admit to their current reality as a
sine qua non for any contemporary theorization of capitalism. We simply must accept that
we are ‘living in the end times’.

For Žižek, there is some possible hope for the future; there remains some vestigial
communist horizon. However, the immediate forecast is apocalyptic. We remain rooted in a
collective repressed grief, which elides denial, anger, unconscious bargaining and
depression. Time to actively shape the future in a progressive and rational direction is
running out.