The Enchantments of Mammon: How Capitalism Became the Religion of Modernity

by Eugene McCarraher

Indeed, Humanities features an array of duplicitous and savage gods with “the nimbus of divinity”: nationalism, fascism, racism, imperialism—all tutelary deities of capital.5 A graphic fusion of Metropolis and Brave New World, Ultimo is the most haunting of the folios, relating a post-catastrophic tale of a subterranean metropolis. The overindustrialized society has wrought irreparable havoc on the biosphere, and the earth’s inhabitants are forced to descend into a techno-paradise underground. With a “mild and pleasant temperature equable at all times,” the city is bathed in artificial light, with a “soft and palely green” firmament. Adorned with “gem-like gardens of rare beauty and translucency,” it also sports large, effervescent mineral springs in which the inhabitants bathe for health and sexual stimulation. The economy consists of centralized, Fordist industrial centers; a short working day; tube delivery of food and other goods, reminiscent of Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward. The citizens engage in a ceaseless and frantic life of production, for their lives depend on their marginal utility to the underground domestic product: “No one can exist who cannot do his allotted share.”