So, there’s a lineage, isn’t there, I think, from those first two commercials into the Louise Mensch position. There’s a narrative behind it, which is a story about desire. These protesters have the products of advanced capitalism, therefore… it’s not only that they’re hypocrites, it’s that they don’t really want what they say they want. They don’t really want a wealth beyond capitalism. What they want is all of the fruits of capitalism — and ultimately that’s why capitalism will win. They may claim, ethically, that they want to live in a different world but libidinally, at the level of desire, they are committed to living within the current capitalist world.

we’ll hear a bit about the three different accounts of postcapitalism: Nick and Alex’s, Gibson-Graham’s, and Paul Mason’s. Paul Mason’s is a kind of syncretic account, really, based on lots of different theories

OK. So, what are the advantages of the concept of postcapitalism? — and just initially I think it’s worth thinking about this — why use the term “postcapitalism” rather than “communism”, “socialism”, etc.? Well, first of all, it’s not tainted by association with past failed and oppressive projects. The term “postcapitalism” has a kind of neutrality that is not there with “communism”, “socialism”. Although this is partly generational, I think: the word “communism” has lots of negative associations for people of my age and older.

It implies victory — that’s the other thing, isn’t it? If you’re talking about postcapitalism, it implies that there’s something beyond capitalism. It also implies direction, doesn’t it? If it’s postcapitalism, it’s a victory and a victory that will come through capitalism. It’s not just opposed to capitalism — it is what will happen when capitalism has ended. It starts from where we are. It’s not some entirely separate space — I think that’s implied, right? The concept of postcapitalism is something developed out of capitalism. It develops from capitalism and moves beyond capitalism. Therefore, we’re not required to imagine a sheer alterity, a pure outside. That’s one of the emphases of postcapitalism. We can begin with, work with, the pleasures of capitalism, as well as its oppressions. So, we’re not necessarily trapped in this Louise Mensch world where if we have iPhones, we can’t want postcapitalism. Although I don’t think we’d want iPhones in postcapitalism…

[Moralism] provides an emotional shoring up of the reactive stance of the weak, ‘who define themselves in opposition to the strong’. With the dissolution in recent times of positive projects of socialist construction, left moralism has been energized by increasing investments in injury, failure, and victimhood. When power is identified with what is ruthless and dominating, it becomes something the left must distance itself from, lest it be co-opted or compromised.

So, the idea there is, then: that power itself is pathological. To hold power is to inherently be oppressive, therefore it’s better to be wounded; it’s better to be the wounded, the abject, because you’re not actually holding power, which is oppressive. This becomes the name for a kind of impossible desire in lots of ways. Who are these appeals aimed at? What is a political project which doesn’t aim at capturing power or building power in some way? I think we can recognise the ways in which this form of desire has shaped a lot of left-wing politics recently. Brown’s essay is highly profound; both of those: “Wounded Attachments” and the one on left melancholia, which builds on [Walter] Benjamin’s discussion of left melancholia.19