Mark Fisher explores how the entrenchment of the idea that there is no alternative to capitalism following the end of the Cold War has impacted our cultural and political life.

Socialist Realism was known as a rigid style of art, mandated by the Soviet Union to reflect official communist ideology.

But today, after the fall of communism, we find ourselves in a new aesthetic and cultural moment — one that Mark Fisher has dubbed 'capitalist realism.'

Fisher was a music critic and cultural theorist who wrote and edited the blog k-punk before his death in 2017.

In this 2009 book, the late philosopher explores how society has changed dramatically since the 1980s and how these changes have been normalized.

Fisher finds that the influence of capital has led us to accept a status quo in terms of culture, health, politics, and economics that would have been totally unthinkable just 40 years ago.