Hermeneutic Capitalism? Prologue- the Death and the Challenge

Abstract

If as Vattimo notes, we are in the end-days of metaphysical capitalism, then just as metaphysical communism was able to collapse, so too can metaphysical capitalism. A new ‘Nietzschean’ announcement is therefore needed: capitalism -like communism - is dead. For in many ways, perversely, the left has continued its belief in capitalism long after it has lost its belief in communism. However if we are to re-engage with Marx, then capitalism is not the end but the state of transition. Secondly, in arguing versus Marx for Marx, the first stage is to interpret and then to change, for the old metaphysical arguments against capitalism- whether religious or communist - did not change it. Now however, after metaphysical capitalism, the task is to firstly interpret post-metaphysical capitalism and then to change it and to do so in tandem with another reworking of Marx whereby the criticism of capitalism is the premise of all criticism. The challenge is that this post-metaphysical capitalism, which I term hermeneutic capitalism is really the transition to hermeneutic communism because it will involve the only class capable of societal transformation in the west and north: the bourgeoisie.