ABSTRACT
Cosmopolis presents a parable of postmodern cybercapitalism, epitomized by the global financial shark Eric Packer. Packer’s journey through New York is lined with allusions to death, the fear of death and the wish for immortality. The focus in this chapter is on the systematic causes and motives for Packer’s alienation, (auto-) aggression and eventual death. Packer is both an active and a passive agent of financial capitalism. He is a sophomoric megalomanic, always inclined to “irrational exuberance.” (Alan Greenspan) But he is also subject to a system that propels the technological acceleration of time, the corresponding elimination of space and, concomitantly, the accumulation of capital as an end in itself. He enjoys the death of possible competitors and kills his loyal bodyguard. For him the death of someone else enlarges his life, reaffirms his existence and the illusion of a triumph over death. Yet his rampage through New York is utterly self-destructive. As a consequence of his merging into digital data, the abstraction of monetary accumulation, and social (self)- alienation he seeks out “his pain” and his death – the only liminal phenomena that remain essentially his own.
