The Spirit and Metaphysical Form of Capitalism: Devils, Worms, Octopuses and Worldeater(s)

Abstract

This chapter seeks to answer how and why the world is being consumed, digested and ultimately reconfigured. It presents the concept of the Worldeater(s) in its manifold forms through an extensive theoretical discussion of the metaphysics—spirit—and shape-shifting processes underpinning techno-capitalist development. While unconventional in academic circles, the dissident perspectives drawn upon reveal some of the ways that the trajectory of total extractivism normalizes and continues unabated as human beings and all other life forms are converted into entrails of the Leviathanic beast. Drawing extensively on writers such as Max Stirner, Michael Taussig and Fredy Perlman, this chapter uncovers the roots of the Worldeater(s) and its colonizing trajectory across the earth. The chapter shows how this colonization is made possible and furthered by techniques—the logic of the violent technologies of extraction.

Societies that dominate nature also dominate people. Where there is the idea that a massive dam should be built to control a river’s flow, there is the idea that people should be enslaved to build it; where there is the belief that a giant metropole may serve itself by despoiling the surrounding countryside and devouring its raw materials, there are castes and hierarchies to ensure that this is accomplished.

—Kirkpatrick Sale, 1985