Late Capitalism

[Joseph Tracy]

And what is capital? And how did it get ismized?   Capital is sometimes thought of as “the means of production”, already pretty far along in a certain model of thinking with mass production in mind. What are the means of production for a fig tree or Yosemite’s half dome. A river full of wild trout, crawfish, ducks, turtles, a prairie covered with bison, pigeons, oak trees, crows.  I think capital is rooted in the idea of  a magic machine able to endow its controller with potentially unlimited  wealth and power.  A jack tale that wore out its welcome a while back.. What is wealth? What is Power. The idea seems to me to be leaving something out of the reality of biological existence. Is power to enslave  capital? Are atomic weapons capital? Is nonstick plastic on a frypan capital? Is poison capital? Why is capital so fucking dangerous? Is untapped agression and hunger for violent domination capital? Money is a marker for what the economic system owes you. Is biological life a system of banking and debt? Is winning the money game any better than eating an apple right now, from a tree you planted, really tasting it, breathing clean air surrounded by living beings  ?  
  As rich  and Pynchon both point out the system is huge and very hard to tinker with, but it does have geographic and physical realities , equipment, names, faces and shitloads of weaponry,   all of which were made without without regard for certain real limits. Thise limits are becoming evident and the fragility of this seemingly un changeable machinery is also  becoming more evident. Every former empire looked invincible, but even a flea can bring down an empire. And how inviceable is something that needs to be so scary, so demonically driven?