It is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. Since 1989, capitalism has successfully presented itself as the only realistic political and economic system – a situation that the banking crisis of 2008 reinforced rather than undermined.

The book analyzes the development and main elements of this capitalist realism as a lived ideological framework. Using examples from politics, cinema, literature, work, and education, it argues that this capitalist realism, which colors every aspect of modern experience, is anything but realistic, and questions how capitalism can be challenged through its contradictions.

“In the 1980s, when Jameson began to promote his position on postmodernism, there were still political alternatives to capitalism, at least by name. What we face today, however, is a much deeper, much more corrosive sense of exhaustion, cultural and political sterility. In the 1980s, ‘Really Existing Socialism’ still persisted, even though it was in its final phase of collapse. In Britain, the dividing lines of class struggle were revealed entirely in incidents such as the miners' strike of 1984-85. The defeat of the miners was a significant moment in the development of capitalist realism, important both in its symbolic dimension and in its practical outcomes.

The closing of the pits was based precisely on the argument that keeping them open was not ‘economically realistic,’ and the miners were given the role of the last actors in a doomed proletarian romance. The 1980s was the period when capitalist realism was promoted and established, when Margaret Thatcher's doctrine that ‘there is no alternative’ – a more concise slogan for capitalist realism could scarcely be imagined – became a harsh self-fulfilling prophecy.

The long, dark night of the end of history must be perceived as a gigantic opportunity. The oppressive erosion of the means of capitalist realism that still radiates alternative political and economic possibilities may have had a disproportionately large effect. The smallest event can open a hole in the gray curtain of reaction that has marked the horizons of possibility under capitalist realism. From a state where nothing can happen, suddenly everything is possible again.

“Let’s not prolong this – Fisher’s impressively readable book is simply the best diagnosis of the unfavorable situation we find ourselves in! Drawing on examples from everyday life and pop culture, but without sacrificing any of its theoretical rigor, [Fisher] paints a relentless portrait of our ideological misery.” - Slavoj Žižek