The problem is not that we have not been truly capitalist, not capitalist enough, but that capitalism by definition constantly averts its own intrinsic tendency toward self-destruction. And so a ‘true capitalism’ would amount to the end of capitalism.

Here, Slavoj Zizek’s infamous call to fully identify with the symbolic mandate, to reject the cynical/ironic distance that has passed for resistance thus far, gains a new meaning. We shouldn’t any longer try to resist capitalism, or try to live outside of capitalism, to show that ‘another world is possible’. Capitalism has only been able to sustain itself thus far by always resisting itself, by cynically applying a double standard to the developed and underdeveloped world, to capital and workers. We shouldn’t try to restrict the free flow of capital, but claim that real capitalism would grant just as much freedom of movement to workers. We shouldn’t strive for the right of greater subsidization and protection for underdeveloped countries, but totally reject the privilege of doing so that developed countries grant themselves. We shouldn’t prove we can live comfortably without engaging in capitalism, but accept that capitalism works by ‘refusing to engage in capitalism’. We must no longer deny our complete complicity with capitalism, and insodoing, deprive capital of its greatest defense mechanism.