Reflecting on Wolfgang Streeck’s collection of essays, it’s hard not to think of William Butler Yeats’ The Second Coming. The poem encapsulates a sense of chaotic transformation that resonates with our contemporary challenges:
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity…
Streeck has long been a perceptive commentator on modern political economy. His recent analyses offer essential insights into how capitalism may face its decline, driven by its internal contradictions. He aims to provoke thought about how this global capitalist system might end, potentially without a clear successor. The collection features eleven essays, including titles like The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism, Citizens as Consumers: Considerations on the New Politics of Consumption, Why the Euro Divides Europe, and The Public Mission of Sociology. Each piece is worth reading.
Streeck outlines the inherent instability of capitalism:
Capitalism promises infinite growth of commodified wealth in a finite world, merging with modern science and technology. This makes capitalist society the first industrial society, expanding through contestable markets, fueled by a supportive state and its market-opening policies… Capitalist society is marked by the fact that its collective productive capital is held by a minority who possess the legal right to use it as they wish, including letting it sit idle or transferring it abroad… Consequently, the majority must labor under the direction of private owners, dictated by the owners’ desire to maximize capital.
This dynamic has generated precarity for many, including the Professional Managerial Class (PMC). They increasingly find themselves uneasy in a world where their livelihoods hinge on “The Economy.” Fundamentally, infinite growth is unattainable within a closed material system. This seemingly straightforward oversight, described by Alyssa Battistoni in Free Gifts: Capitalism and the Politics of Nature (2025), could spell disaster. The commodification of life—spanning food, family, labor, community, leisure, and even education—has fostered alienation and anomie that consumerism cannot resolve.
The vast majority must convert their constant anxiety about exclusion from productive roles, due to economic and technological shifts, into a resignation to extreme wealth and power inequities propagated by capitalism. This requires elaborate, yet fragile, institutional and ideological frameworks… This includes transforming insecure workers—whose insecurity is engineered to ensure obedience—into consumers who willingly accept their circumstances, despite profound uncertainties in labor markets.
In this context, “consumer” has become neoliberal jargon for “citizen.” Streeck highlights several systemic issues within capitalism, such as stagnation, wealth redistribution to the elite, exploitation of the public domain, corruption, and global chaos. Increasingly, secular stagnation appears inevitable as our resources become depleted by our production and waste. For instance, the rise in carbon emissions post-1989 has been staggering, surpassing all previous historical records.
Wealth continues to flow upwards alongside ongoing corruption, a pattern consistent throughout capitalism’s history. These failures cannot solely be attributed to either the left or the right; rather, both factions are complicit, especially within our current Neoliberal framework. As Streeck argues, we now find ourselves in a situation where only one party exists—the Property Party—both in the US and the UK.
Unlike in Bernard Mandeville’s Fable of the Bees, popular among traditional conservatives since the days of Russell Kirk:
Within financialized capitalism, the private vice of greed no longer morphs into public virtue, stripping capitalism of even its last consequentialist moral justification. The portrayal of capital owners and managers as custodians of society has lost all credibility, despite their celebrated acts of philanthropy. A pervasive cynicism has gripped the public consciousness, now viewing capitalism as merely an institutional avenue for the already wealthy to amass even greater fortunes. Corruption is regarded as a fact of life, alongside growing inequality and the concentration of political power among a self-serving elite.
While capitalism may be nearing its end due to its own contradictions, the challenge lies in the absence of a viable alternative. Although Marx acknowledged the substantial benefits of capitalism, such as elevated living standards in the Global North, these have also been accompanied by escalating social disorder and entropy—manifesting in chronic governmental dysfunction, as seen during the ongoing US government shutdown.
Gramsci’s words resonate, framing capitalism’s demise not as a transition to a new order, but rather a plunge into chaos:
The capitalist social order will give way not to another system, but to disorder and entropy—a historical phase marked by uncertainty, as Antonio Gramsci noted: ‘the old is dying, and the new cannot yet be born,’ leading to a period when various pathologies emerge…
Increased entropy defines our current reality, resulting in lives steeped in uncertainty, subject to unexpected disruptions that demand individual resourcefulness and luck. People bear the responsibility for themselves and their families—but this belief can easily be misinterpreted as freedom, unbounded by societal or institutional structures. However:
The core flaw in this neoliberal narrative lies in its oversight of the starkly unequal distribution of risks and opportunities that characterize de-socialized capitalism, including the ‘Matthew effect’ of cumulative advantage.
In this post-social landscape, the prevailing ethos emphasizes competitive self-improvement, relentless investment in marketable skills, and an optimistic embrace of risk in a world that seems to have outgrown governance.
What mechanisms will sustain an entropic, turbulent, and paralyzed post-capitalist society without collective regulation to address economic crises, mitigate inequality, or uphold trust in security and credit? Streeck outlines several possible responses to this looming interregnum, or “inconvenient apocalypse,” as follows:
- Coping: Individuals adapt through improvisations and stopgaps to navigate the emergencies of a disorderly interregnum.
- Hoping: People engage in mental exercises to envision and believe in a brighter future, using dreams as coping mechanisms.
- Doping: This may facilitate coping and hoping, often manifesting in substance abuse, both enhancing and replacing performance.
- Shopping: In wealthier capitalist nations, saturated markets necessitate that individuals develop new desires as their existing needs are satiated, a concept well explored by William Leach in Land of Desire: Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a New American Culture (1993).
During this interregnum, we can expect to see “individuals-as-consumers subscribing to a culture of competitive hedonism, one that transforms struggles into virtues.” This reflects a libertarian view of a vibrant world, unaware of the systemic advantages bestowed by the Matthew Effect.
What lies beyond the interregnum, if we endure climate catastrophe with a semblance of civil society intact? Streeck posits that escalating social and political entropy will continue to weaken institutional structures meant to reconcile conflicting interests and mitigate disruptions. This trajectory seems increasingly likely as we head into an uncertain future.
However, this outcome is not predetermined. Our environment will likely contract as opportunities for economic expansion vanish—having already surpassed Earth’s carrying capacity. Capitalist democracy has always been a contentious term, yet for a time, particularly in the wake of the Great Compression after WWII, it spurred economic and social advancement, albeit unevenly. Conversely, the current paradigm of Neoliberal capitalism presents a stark oxymoron. Yet, as opportunities diminish, local and regional improvements could arise, allowing communities to fortify themselves in a forthcoming multipolar world. These notions are ambitious, yet they foster hope.
It’s crucial to remember that markets and business culture do not equate to capitalism itself. Business has long made our way of life possible, existing alongside essential sectors such as education, healthcare, and the arts. As our world becomes more localized, we anticipate that businesses will shift from exploitative practices toward more equitable and legitimate operations—an approach that echoed some principles during the Great Compression. This transformation will cultivate a more humane environment, aligning well with ecological, cultural, political, and economic considerations. Democracy has always thrived from the grassroots level, and any semblance of genuine democracy has been local in nature. While such local democracy may not always be fair, it need not be so in the future, as we have learned valuable lessons from past missteps.
We can commence with food production and branch out to other essential goods, both durable and consumable. Genuine markets, characterized by transparency, alongside a thriving small business ecosystem, are fundamental to building a just world. Will this endeavor succeed? Or was Mark Fisher correct in asserting that “It is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism” (as previously noted by Fredric Jameson and Slavoj Žižek)? If we strive to avoid aligning with the misanthropic interests of Big Tech and AI, we must make this effort succeed—one individual tackling one issue at a time.
Additionally, we should embrace the insights of Bakunin: “Freedom without socialism is privilege and injustice; socialism without freedom is slavery and brutality.” Integrating some ideals of Proudhon and the late James C. Scott provides a different vision of anarchism—one characterized by mutuality and cooperation, as opposed to the nihilistic tendencies exhibited by some contemporary groups devoid of political awareness.
Returning to Yeats, we must galvanize those among us—regardless of origins, professions, or beliefs—to rekindle the conviction and intensity informed by goodwill and genuine contemplation. If we fail in this endeavor, Mark Fisher’s lament may resonate as a reality—leaving us to witness the fragments of what once was without the means to reconstruct it.
Notes
[1] Membership in society plays a critical role in human flourishing, regardless of prevailing narratives perpetuated by figures like TINA. Robert Putnam captured this sentiment in Bowling Alone. In the 1950s, General Motors’ CEO proudly cited his company as the largest employer in the U.S., providing “middle class” lives to countless workers and their families. Although true societal and political membership was unevenly distributed, it was expanding prior to the neoliberal restructuring that took place during Jimmy Carter’s presidency. Presently, the largest employers have eclipsed GM, often neglecting their workforce, many of whom require assistance just to survive. While CEOs may not be fond of unions, the ethos of post-war capitalism rejected a return to the extreme exploitation prevalent during the era of figures like Jay Gould, who purportedly remarked he could hire one half of the working class to kill the other half. Whether or not this statement is accurate, the disdain with which Gould and his contemporaries regarded the working class remains undeniable—even as the very workers helped create their immense wealth.
[2] Neoliberalism is a complex concept, and outstanding accessible interpretations can be found in the works of Wendy Brown and Quinn Slobodian (here, here, and here). In brief, neoliberalism posits that the market is the ultimate measure of all entities, even those that surpass quantitative assessment, wherein people serve the economy rather than vice versa. Purchasing a 6-pack of tube socks made by undervalued labor is not a means of enhancing our quality of life.
[3] I defer to Streeck’s insights and acknowledge my limitations in translating Gramsci. However, my favored interpretation of a quote from Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks is: The crisis manifests in the killing of the old without the new emerging; during this interregnum, a plethora of morbid symptoms arise.
[4] The Matthew Effect, coined by Robert K. Merton and Harriet Zuckerman, illustrates how prominent individuals often receive more recognition than they merit. I first encountered their concept during my tenure in a laboratory linked to the Science Library. Their observations about reward distribution extend beyond academia and aptly describe our neoliberal society, where “the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer.” Cumulative advantages often benefit those fortunate enough to have chosen their parents wisely. This blindness to their privileged start exemplifies the failure of conventional liberals and libertarians to grasp their unearned advantages.
[5] Streeck succinctly articulates the connection between doping and corruption, emphasizing that many substances enhancing performance are profitable legal products, while illegal drugs remain criminalized and primarily affect marginalized users. Wealthier individuals utilizing performance-replacing substances tend to receive rehabilitation with judicial sympathy.
[6] For insights into how regionalism can create a more humane society and democratic economy on a larger scale, the essays and works of Wendell Berry illuminate the significance of membership in a community, while acknowledging its inherent challenges.
