Capitalism and the Imagination of Possibility

Tad Skotnicki, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Kelly Nielsen, University of California, San Diego

The notion that a better world is possible if only we can imagine it is ubiquitous in academic and popular discourse. Many claim that imagination is a necessary component of or even precursor to social transformation. But where and how can we locate this possibility? And how should we understand what it means to imagine a better world? Furthermore, what does it mean for a better world to be possible and imaginable under capitalism? In a capitalist world, is it possible to cure cancer, close the wage gap between men and women or the wealth gap between black and white households, abolish prisons or student debt, or achieve ecologically sustainable economic growth? Are socialism, communism, or some other non-capitalist way of organizing society possible? How do we know if they are possible? As a totalizing social system, capitalism delimits the conditions of possibility–both within this system and as the necessary ground for transformation to a post-capitalist system. In other words, if we live in a capitalist world–and certainly there are those who would dispute that claim (e.g. Block 2018)–we must delineate possibility in relation to capitalism. Perhaps in consequence, scholars have been more comfortable addressing the degradation of possibility in capitalism (e.g., Skotnicki and Nielsen 2021) rather than its sustenance. In this paper, we disentangle imagination and possibility to better map their historical interrelations in a capitalist age. Doing so will enable more precise efforts to locate the sources of possibility and to specify the role of the imagination therein.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 186. Power and Normativity, 1: Capitalism and Orders of Time