ABSTRACT
Capitalism today is omnipresent to such a degree that it tends to become invisible.3 The word capitalism has disappeared from public discourse. Whosoever still uses it soon incurs an odium; it is like a public secret and hence a taboo. This is not only just another example of a policy of euphemisms (‘free-market economy’ sounds so much more appealing), but also points to a new phase in the evolution. The capitalism of the New World Order is not late capitalism – there is nothing late about it – but a transcendental capitalism. Transcendental means: without an opposite term, an all-inclusive condition of possibility, the most central concept in meaning as well as scale. Without an opposite term: there seems to be no alternative for capitalism; no real alternative, not even a thinkable one. Capitalism with some social corrections is the best we can come up with. But precisely that socially corrected type of capitalism is being undermined by the globalisation of the economy.4 All-inclusive condition of possibility: one can no longer understand our world without taking capitalism as a starting point, an axiom. Nothing is thinkable any longer without the input of capital, not even culture. Hence in scale and content it is ultimately the most central notion in our world.
