Recession is here, everywhere. Whether recession is artificial and thus compatible with the axiomatic of capitalism (that is, the tendency toward a world market), or forced and thus a threat to capitalism is still debated. From the perspective of Capital, what is more important is that the historic magnification, which has been defining capitalism since the 15th century, is not likely to maintain its pace or character. There are no more barbarians to civilise, no more virgin lands to conquer and colonise. The new barbarians are refined, the new virgin lands are not defined by geographical parameters. Primitive accummulation has been completed; explosion now gives way to implosion. It was reckoned that a myth central to capitalism came full circle in three generations: I would start from scratch with empty hands and empty pockets, slowly but gradually accummulate rights and money, then build a house, find a wife with whom I would make a family, then have a son and raise him, and, sooner or later, die. My son would repeat the process once more, but his son – my grandson - would inherit more than my son did, say three times more. In the elapsed space of three generations, total wealth would have multiplied by nine times. This myth starts to shun all relevance: the historic magnification of capitalism, based on longestablished materialist notions of value, is no longer feasible. In all probability, my grandson will not inherit three houses. And here comes the reversal of perspective of Capital: as the concept of the Spectale is conceived to its full radicality, as a process of generalised social abstraction, the commodity-form implodes to encompass and invest all of shared lived experience. [full - text here]

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