Eat Yourself Alive: Capitalism, Zombies and ‘Tender is the Flesh’
French psychiatrist and political philosopher Frantz Fanon wrote in his 1961 book Wretched of the Earth, “The people come to understand that wealth is not the fruit of labour but the result of organised, protected robbery. Rich people are no longer respectable people; they are nothing more than flesh eating animals, jackals and vultures which wallow in the people’s blood.”
In parsing this out, Fanon essentially speaks to various characteristics of modern Capitalism and, most especially, how these manifest in the oppressive hierarchical structures and the role of “excess” in modern Capitalism. In many ways, the more we come to assess and to understand modern Capitalism, the more we should begin to contemplate the largesse of excess intrinsic to this system. As a people we are so often encouraged to want more than we need to extents that we begin to believe that we need more of what we want, with the lynchpins of Capitalism increasingly beginning to rely upon this growing culture of excess to build their own footholds at the head of the hierarchical structures.
But little consideration is ever given to the idea of excess at its highest point, or rather the question of where such an appetite and a culture for the excess could end. At what point would we as a people stop wanting? At what point would we as a people stop consuming?
For example, what would happen if the objects of desire that we have been engineered to believe that we need are no longer available to us for one reason or another? This culture of excess does not simply disappear when such an object of excess disappears, and the power of compulsion and need is in many ways absolute more than we have begun as a species to understand.
What is the end point of the largesse of excess and what are we as people capable of in the pursuit of this excess?
These are questions and concepts explored and depicted in fictional and/or theoretical visions of ostensibly “post-capitalist” dystopian futures, which are in reality typically depictions of a society experiencing Capitalism having pursued the concept of excess at its core to its most extreme point — or rather essentially “post-capitalism” is depicted as being the logical end point for Capitalism as the unfettered progression and culmination of what it is that fundamentally exists at the core of the modern Capitalist system; excess, a dystopia of hyper-Capitalism.
This hyper-Capitalist dystopia is alluded to by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Chris Hedges in his 2010 book The Death of the Liberal Class, in which he writes, “Unfettered capitalism is a revolutionary force that consumes greater and greater numbers of human lives until it finally consumes itself.”
We can find one depiction of such a hyper-Capitalist dystopia in that of the ‘Zombie apocalypse’, an exploration in many ways both of the primitive nature of man and the power of the thirst for the excess. As author Seth Grahame-Smith writes in Pride, Prejudice and Zombies, “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains.”
In some ways, the role of Capitalist excess in Zombie fiction has been previously explored, as Purcell writes when considering the work of Chris Harman in Zombie Capitalism, “Such is the passion of capitalism, such is the desire of capitalism, that this desire is almost always thought of as energetic, restless, migratory: it discards its objects, much as if they were inadequate terms or de-libidinized fetishes, in favour of the new, in favour of the ‘what’s next,’ as if in search of some future/past/paradisal object that it cannot yet see or name.”
He continues, “Harmon asserts that the figurative zombie well describes the theoretical function of large banks and financial institutions in the moment of late capitalism. The desire to consume and accumulate capital becomes not just the ascendant value, but the only value.”
It is this which speaks to the role of excess, and the concept of “Hyper-Capitalism” as explored in Zombie apocalypse fiction, ostensibly on two fronts — one being metaphorical in that the Zombies themselves act as being allegorical for those at the head of Capitalist hierarchy, those driving excess, and the other being in exploring the role of excess as promoted by Capitalism being so ingrained by the system that it becomes as though primitive instinct. It is, as hypothesised in Zombie fiction, unescapable in its totality.
But while Zombies may have valuable commentary on the role of excess in modern Capitalism and the concept of “Hyper-Capitalism”, a more recent depiction of hyper-Capitalist dystopia may offer even greater insights in to the role of excess in modern Capitalism via 2020 novel Tender is the Flesh, authored by Argentinian Agustina Bazterrica and translated to English by Sarah Moses.
The future depicted in Tender is the Flesh is one where a mysterious virus has made all animal meat deadly for human consumption. As a response, governments of this period initiate a ‘transition’ where eating human meat is both made legal and overseen by monolithic manufacturing empires. As the novel’s main character himself concedes, “humans bred as animals for consumption”.
At its most basic, the world of Tender is the Flesh explores the prominence and importance of excess at the core of Capitalism, but what it offers in regards to metaphorical explorations of the hierarchical structures of modern Capitalism is arguably even more valuable.
Hints at the extent to which Capitalist hierarchies are explored start early, the novel’s main character recalling the earliest introduction of the human meat industry, saying, “The press documented a case of two unemployed Bolivians who had been attacked, dismembered and barbecued by a group of neighbours. When he read the news, he shuddered. It was the first public scandal of its kind and instilled the idea in society that in the end, meat is meat, it doesn’t matter where it’s from.”
The journey of excess thus is seen to have begun early, where the excess does not simply end but progresses ‘up’ the hierarchical ladder, those at its lowest rung considered most immediately expendable — consumable.
“In some countries, immigrants began to disappear en masse. Immigrants, the marginalised, the poor. They were persecuted and eventually slaughtered,” the novel’s main character later continues, “Legalization occurred when the governments gave in to pressure from a big-money industry that had come to a halt. They adapted the processing plants and regulations. Not long after, they began to breed people as animals to supply the massive demand for meat.”
Throughout, the novel hints at hypothesising that the virus was manufactured, a concocted response by political elites to “reduce overpopulation”, though this is never confirmed. Even still, it makes clear from the beginning how the journey of excess begins and to where it leads, not simply disappearing, but progressing — want and need are blurred lines, exploited for the personal gain of those at the top of the Capitalist hierarchy.
This again is further explored, the indifference with which those at the higher ends of the Capitalist system regard those beneath them. As the novel’s main character observes of his employer, the owner and operator of a human meat processing plant, “He thinks that Señor Urami doesn’t look at people, and instead measures them. The owner of the tannery is always smiling and he feels that when this man observes him, what he’s really doing is calculating how many metres of skin he can remove in one piece if he slaughters him, flays him and removes his flesh on the spot.”
Such is the reality of modern Capitalism as inherently reductionist, encouraging the reduction of people to a basis of their perceived value to the system. Humanity is the product, Capitalism is the consumer. The human subjects bred for consumption have their vocal chords removed, “so they’re easier to control”, in much the same way that those outside of the political and societal elite in Modern Capitalism are encouraged not to speak up or to challenge the Capitalist status quo for much the same reasons, “easier to control”. They are encouraged to consume, to engage in the culture of excess, never to challenge it.
So it is that many don’t. As a local butcher of the novel’s hyper-capitalist world surmises, “Today I’m the butcher, tomorrow I might be the cattle.”
In this sense, the world of Tender is the Flesh recognises in Capitalism that the only thing assured is the consumption and that who consumes and why they consume is considered irrelevant. This is a hyper-Capitalist world where slavery is recognised as “barbaric”, but humans bred for consumption and imprisoned until their final moments are considered acceptable.
What is perhaps most alarming is how this is reflected in the Modern Capitalism of our present reality. While slavery is abolished and similarly accepted as barbaric, what amounts to essentially indentured servitude to the Capitalist system is not only normalised but ingrained.
Human beings are not bred for consumption in the way that they are in the world of Tender is the Flesh, but in so being primitively compelled to consume they themselves are consumed, in a sense, by the system and the culture of excess in to which they are thrust.
As one of the novel’s characters later observes, “After all, since the world began, we’ve been eating each other. If not symbolically, then we’ve been literally gorging on each other. The Transition has enabled us to be less hypocritical.”
This may well be argued as the author’s most clearly laying out the subtext of her novel and the world in which it exists, not in presenting a hyper-Capitalist dystopia that could never exist but, in many ways, presenting one that already does — merely more honest, more explicit. Thus we return to the question of the limits, or lack thereof, to excess in the Modern Capitalist system wherein this culture of excess is so ingrained and fundamental as to become in a sense primitive. As Fanon noted of ‘rich people’, “they are nothing more than flesh eating animals”, so it is that Modern Capitalism itself has been built to similarly consume.
While we may not exist in a world where humans consume other humans in the literal sense, we do exist in a world where humans consume other humans in the sense of participation in a system that views them as expendable and adjudges their value based not on their inherent humanity but on the extent to which they benefit the system.
While the system consumes, caught in such a culture of excess as it is, the question then becomes not so much about where that excess can lead — but a question of if we aren’t already there at its furthest point.
References
Bazterrica, A. and Moses, S., 2020. Tender is the Flesh.
Fanon, F., 1961. The Wretched of the Earth. New York, USA: Grove Press.
Grahame-Smith, S., Parada, R. and Austen, J., n.d. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.
Harman, C., 2009. Zombie Capitalism. Bookmarks Publications.
Hedges, C., 2011. Death of the liberal class. Toronto: Vintage Canada.
Lauro, S. and Embry, K., 2008. A Zombie Manifesto: The Nonhuman Condition in the Era of Advanced Capitalism. boundary 2, 35(1), pp.85–108.
Purcell, W., n.d. The Death Drive, Zombies, and Zombie Captalism. International Journal of Zizek Studies, 10(3).
