Arbeitspapier

The Capitalist Degree of Immortality

This note offers some speculative ideas worth considering. One of the key features of all hierarchical civilizations is their rulers’ fear of death. This fear was famously narrated in the ancient myth of Gilgamesh – the Sumerian king who realized that, like all other humans, he too was destined to die and embarked on a desperate quest to annul his mortality. According to Lewis Mumford, this quest for immortality is the main reason why society’s rulers are forever obsessed with building and fortifying power hierarchies – or ‘megamachines’, as he called them. Controlling these megamachines, Mumford argued, is the rulers’ way of playing God, a futile yet all-possessive effort to conquer the future and live forever. In capitalism, the rulers finally figured out how to do it – sort of.

Sprache
Englisch

Erschienen in
Series: Research Note

Klassifikation
Wirtschaft
Capitalist Systems: Political Economy
Thema
capital
capitalization
future
immortality
power

Ereignis
Geistige Schöpfung
(wer)
Bichler, Shimshon
Nitzan, Jonathan
Ereignis
Veröffentlichung
(wer)
The Bichler and Nitzan Archives
(wo)
Toronto
(wann)
2021

Handle
Letzte Aktualisierung
10.03.2025, 11:46 MEZ

Datenpartner

Dieses Objekt wird bereitgestellt von:
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft. Bei Fragen zum Objekt wenden Sie sich bitte an den Datenpartner.

Objekttyp

  • Arbeitspapier

Beteiligte

  • Bichler, Shimshon
  • Nitzan, Jonathan
  • The Bichler and Nitzan Archives

Entstanden

  • 2021

Ähnliche Objekte (12)