After the End (Fragments of the Apocalypse Industry)

The end of the world and the end of capitalism reinterpreted via theology, science fiction, and philosophy

The motto of capitalist realism, that “it is easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism”, is out of date. We have failed to think the end of capitalism and the world because we have failed to understand the end as such. The dominant ‘apocalypse industry’ exploits this self-obscuring end. Looking at the volatility of aggressive techno-capitalism with its neoliberal and populist deviations, After the End argues that modern political economy weaponizes and manufactures the end in order to occupy both sides of it. Our social and political predicament reflects an obfuscation and commodification of ‘endings’, and this book is therefore a political and philosophical attempt at theorising the end.