Creative Destruction

Abstract

The capitalist spirit plays itself out in a drama of the creation and destruction of the world. While we are in the habit of thinking that this process is all about the creation of objects capable of a higher order of satisfaction, it is actually a process not of gaining but of losing. In this process, the losers are the most important actors. We can understand the capitalist process, then, as a loser’s game. While the game is meant to enable us to reconceive ourselves in a shape that provides definitive evidence of our intrinsic value, its efect is the opposite: to reinforce doubt about the self. Capitalism is not about self-interest but self-doubt.