Ruins of Capitalism and Possibilism Beyond Homo Faber

This book explores two themes in connection with contemporary capitalism: infrastructural capitalism as the most advanced phase of a modernity, of which the "workman" or homo faber is the embodiment, who exists within an infrastructure whose logic of connectivity is aimed at value extraction; and a landscape of ruins - in the form of symbolic misery, the Anthropocene and a process of refeudalisation - that the homo faber has been piling up around himself as a result. In response to this dynamic, the author elaborates a social, cultural and political project - a "design hope" of both material and immaterial dimensions - that adopts the perspective of possibilism: an outlook that eschews ever greater social and environmental costs in the name of future "development" but seeks a logic of reproduction based on a real politics of care in the form of generalised social action. The Ruins of Capitalism and Possibilism will therefore appeal to scholars of social and political theory with interests in critiques of capitalism and alternative futures.

About the author

Vando Borghi is Full Professor of Sociology of Economic Processes, Work and Organization at the University of Bologna, Italy. He is the co-editor of the Research Handbook on Public Sociology and Workers and the Global Informal Economy.

Product details

• Authors: Borghi Vando, Vando (University of Bologna Borghi, Vando Borghi
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd.
• Content: Book
• Product form: Hardback
• Publication date: 27.08.2025
• Subject: Humanities, art, music > Philosophy > General, dictionaries; Non-fiction book > Philosophy, religion > Miscellaneous; Social sciences, law, business > Sociology > Sociological theories
• EAN: 9781032606583
• ISBN: 978-1-0-3260658-3
• Pages: 120
• Series: Critiques and Alternatives to Capitalism
• Subjects: Social Theory, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Sociology / General, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Sociology / Social Theory, Social & political philosophy, Political science & theory, social and political philosophy, Far-left political ideologies and movements, Political science and theory, Socialism & left-of-centre democratic ideologies, Left-of-centre democratic ideologies, Marxism & Communism, Social Reproduction, infrastructural power, Anthropocene studies, politics of care, critique of modernity and value extraction, symbolic misery, refeudalisation theory