Religious aspects of modern capitalism

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Illustration by Liana Buszka

Text by Slavoj Zizek

We should not simply oppose a principal life - dedicated to duty and enjoying our small pleasures. 

Let's take today's capitalism. We have, on the one hand, the demands of the circulation of the capital which push us towards profit making - expansion, exploitation and destruction of nature and, on the other hand, ecological demands: let's think about our posterity and about our own survival, - let's take care of nature and so on. In this opposition between ruthless pursuit of capitalist expansion and ecological awareness - duty, a strange perverted duty of course - duty is on the side of capitalism, as many perspicuous analysts noted.

Capitalism has a strange religious structure. It is propelled by this absolute demand: capital has to circulate, to reproduce itself, to expand - to multiply itself. And for this goal, anything can be sacrificed, up to our lives, up to nature and so on. Here we have a strange unconditional injunction.

A true capitalist is a miser who is ready to sacrifice everything for this perverted duty.

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