Capitalism: A Horror Story
by Jon Greenaway, Repeater Books, £10.99
 

STUDIES of the radical imagination tend to emphasise gritty realism at the expense of the irrational. Jon Greenaway’s latest book corrects this imbalance by highlighting links between capitalism’s real-world atrocities and the imaginatively constructed evils of the horror genre.

The approach employed, “Gothic Marxism,” draws on the objectivity of Marxist analysis, but is also rooted in the traditions of romanticism. Greenaway sees it as a philosophy that allows us to reinterpret the past, describe the horrors of contemporary society and theorise about a utopian future. Specifically, it supports a radical interpretation of the literature and films of the horror genre.

The book outlines the long history of supernatural and macabre imagery in critiques of capitalism. For example, Marx and Engels opened the Communist Manifesto (1848) with the phrase “A spectre is haunting Europe” and, in the first volume of Capital, Marx’s metaphors are soaked in the blood and viscera of exploited workers. According to Greenaway, this language was not chosen for impact or decoration, but to capture the severity of the damage wrought by capitalism.  

The lineage of Gothic Marxism is explored in depth. For example, connections are established between the work of surrealist theorist Andre Breton and philosopher Walter Benjamin, both of whom used Freudian psychoanalysis to plug a gap in traditional Marxist thought. They saw Freud’s theories as a way to account for aspects of behaviour mediated by the unconscious, and a means of assessing the psychologically damaging consequences of capitalism.

We are also guided through the recondite thinking of the German philosopher Ernst Bloch, who identified the need to integrate the “cold stream” of scientific socialism and the “warm stream” of prophetic liberation. These are challenging ideas, and the accessibility of this segment of the book is a tribute to the clarity of Greenaway’s prose.

The chapter titled “Life and Death in Capitalist Modernity” highlights the breadth of the author’s knowledge and ability to synthesise disparate themes and motifs. Greenaway links the violence and degradation of The Jungle, Upton Sinclair’s 1906 novel set in the Chicago meatpacking stockyards, to three horror films from 2019 — The Platform (Spain), Parasite (Korea) and Ready or Not (US).

These works differ vastly in terms of their settings, metaphors for the social relations of capitalism and tone — some are unrelentingly grim, while others leaven horror with humour. They are, however, united by three elements: memorable portrayals of the physical violence done to working people; the presentation of capitalism as an inescapable quasi-religious cult based on blood sacrifice; and, Greenaway argues, the haunting possibility of a world that might be different. It’s apt that one of the key assertions in a book on Gothic Marxism is based on sedulous analysis and a leap of faith.

Greenaway’s analysis of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein connects the anguished existence of the eponymous scientist’s creature to the nascent movements for revolution and reform in the early 1800s. On the other hand, Dracula, Bram Stoker’s “filthy leech” is characterised as the personification of alienation under capitalism. Again, we are offered a glimmer of hope in that the demise of Dracula is a prophecy of the end of what Paul Lafargue called the “epoch … of pain, misery and corruption.”

This desire for utopia is a theme that runs throughout the book. Greenaway identifies it as an emergent property of the short fiction of Thomas Ligotti — in which the terrifying becomes revolutionary — and also finds it in the strange and alarming ritual of Liam Gavin’s independent horror film, A Dark Song (2016).

The conclusion, “We’re All Monsters Now,” demands solidarity with those that capitalism has monstered. Greenway’s enquiries into the possibility of genuine societal change, from the perspective of Gothic Marxism, suggest the notion of utopia is less far-fetched than the possibility that the machinery of capitalism can grind on forever.

The intellectual twists and turns are demanding, but Greenaway is a sure-footed and comprehensible guide. I have one criticism: the lack of an index is an issue in a book in which ideas are prefigured and there are thematic flashbacks. Rummaging for earlier information sometimes disrupted the flow of the author’s exposition.

Greenaway’s horror-infused story of capitalism is a demanding read, but an essential one.