Capital after Capitalism: The Evolution of the Concept of Capital in the Light of Long-Run Sustainable Reproduction of the Species

The capitalist mode of production has fulfilled a most astonishing “historical mission” for the human species. It enabled an explosion of labor productivity gains and the discovery of new utility dimensions. But this progress came at the price of an accompanying explosion of contradictions, of unequal benefits and burdens across global and local classes of humans. This article sets out to explore what will happen if capitalism is finally ending, if its mission collapses. Following the tradition of Hegel and Marx, it can be assumed that a large part of the capitalist algorithm simply will have to vanish. But as history shows there also always is a remainder of a mode of production that in an inverted form becomes part of the next progressive mode of production. To identify what “Capital after Capitalism” could be, what has to be abolished and what might survive in which form is a central prerequisite for a proper understanding of the coming revolution of the current mode of production. Since each step on the ladder of global social evolution is also a step in social human consciousness, this step in understanding implies a direct impact in guiding the actions to accomplish this turnover.