Necrocapitalism: the Core Value of Project 2025 and T***p 2.0

What it is, how it works, and what we can do about it

I’ve been thinking that we really need a unifying concept, an idea or framework that sparks the motivation and innovation necessary for meeting this moment.

Resistance always seems to begin by labeling the offense committed by the ‘other side.’ Fascism works for that, as does oligarchy, demagoguery, corporatocracy, technocracy, Naziism, and many other nuanced synonyms for a system of government that concentrates power in a few hands, conflates wealth and power by facilitating and prioritizing accumulation of resources among a small minority and at the expense of the populace, and promotes policies that either actively or cavalierly cause pain, suffering, and death. These words are all accurate descriptions of our current political crisis, but fail to address some core issues that might be necessary to understand in framing a coordinated response.

Why is the right so focused on binary gender? Why are they so hostile to the blatant evidence of catastrophic climate change? Why are they depleting the federal government’s workforce, demonizing and detaining and deporting immigrants, alienating our allies, intentionally convulsing the economy, undermining the separation of powers, snubbing the Constitution, facilitating right-wing militancy?

Certainly it’s about greed, converting public resources into private ones. But I believe the answer is further illuminated by the concept of necrocapitalism.

In a 2008 article found here, Subhabrata Bobby Banerjee outlines the key features of the concept of necrocapitalism, based on earlier work by many others but particularly on Achille Mbembe’s concept of necropolitics, which he describes as “contemporary forms of subjugation of life to the power of death” (Mbembe 2003: 39).

Necrocapitalism, an expansion of the concept of necropolitics, is similarly defined by Banerjee as “contemporary forms of organizational accumulation that involve dispossession and the subjugation of life to the power of death.” In essence, he is describing institutional frameworks, rhetoric, and practices that privilege accumulation of resources over the life of other human beings and (this is my addition) the planet.

Several contingencies must exist within the frame of necrocapitalism. The first is the use of violence to enforce extraction and accumulation. Pretty much the entirety of U.S. foreign policy is based on this condition, the obvious willingness to kill in order to access oil, minerals, agricultural land, water, cheap labor, and more. (It is important to note that death doesn’t have to be a direct result of violence but can occur in the form of dispossession, disease, poverty, political danger, and more.) It appears that our domestic policy is poised to follow.

The second is what Banerjee, based on the work of Carl Schmitt and Giorgio Agamben, refers to as a ‘state of exception’ where the law is suspended, ignored, or diverted so that violence, torture, and death can occur without political or judicial oversight, resulting in a situation where the only law that exists is the one that ensures those actions’ validity. Extra-judicial detainment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay is a perfect example as is the current genocide and ethnic cleansing in Palestine. Defunding Medicaid also fits here since the administration must ignore existing law (Congressional appropriations, court orders) to do it, create a new ‘normal’, i.e. state of exception, and many people will suffer and die.

The third condition for necrocapitalism is dehumanization. Imperialism asserts sovereignty, which becomes a decision on the value of life. Nations, along with supporting international organizations, invoke “civilization”, “development” and “security” to defend permanent states of exception that maintain imperialistic geopolitical and economic relationships. Anti-immigration agendas, the use of ‘terrorism’ to justify militarism, and Naziism are examples of this condition. So is “family-focused” anti-gay and trans rhetoric; it is designed to reenforce an us-against-them supremacy mindset, dehumanize anyone who doesn’t fit invented binary gender paradigms, and justify violence as a viable means for asserting power.

Finally, necrocapitalism depends on the neoliberal conflation of state aparati with corporate profit and power. Banerjee describes the collusion of states and corporations to allow or create “death worlds” in which private militaries perpetrate violence on behalf of both the state and corporate profit, occupied nations are forced into devil’s bargains to receive aid or loans that require the privatization of national resources, indigenous farmers are displaced in favor of corporate food production. I can add to his list the detention of immigrants in private prisons, the defunding of federal agencies responsible for health and life, the reframing of Russian aggression in Ukraine, ethnic cleansing in Gaza, Elon Musk’s role in monetizing governmental responsibilities, scorning climate change evidence in favor of fossil fuel profits, and pretty much everything else that the Trump administration is doing.

It is not enough to say that they don’t care if we die. Necrocapitalism isn’t a side project. It is a guiding force, a core value, a naturalized and embodied premise, no more or less than what we have simply been calling ‘capitalism’ up until now. Capitalism has always been necrocapitalism, though it was possible in recent history to believe that some areas of political and economic practice operated within rules of law. That delusion is gone, and we have now tipped over into a permanent, unrestrained, and comprehensive state of exception, most vividly demonstrated by Trump’s legal immunity, J6 rioters’ impunity, and DOGE’s complete disregard of judicial oversight. All of the factors are in place: violence or threats of violence to dissenters and anyone blocking complete private access to public resources, a fully enforced and pervasive state of exception, dehumanization (just plug in patriarchal white supremacy/eugenics here), and the total breakdown of any barriers or distinction between government and corporate spheres (i.e. no such thing as a conflict of interest.)

How can we respond when the power of public service, public resources, and national sovereignty are turned against the lives and well-being of the very people they are meant to represent and protect? What do you do when you are physically and materially threatened by your own government, one that is essentially stealing from you and is actively creating a scenario in which they can steal from everyone, including other sovereign nations (Greenland, Canada, Panama) and former allies (the EU, NATO)? We are at that moment in the movie where the man with the gun has entered the house and is climbing the stairs. We know that, in order to get whatever we have that he wants, he’ll be willing to kill for it. In fact, he’ll blow up the house, the neighborhood, the whole city, if that’s what it takes to secure all the wealth and power for himself and his friends. Maybe this is why superhero franchises are so popular and lucrative. Who will be our Avengers?

We may not be able to stand up to supernatural forces in real life, but these forces are not supernatural. They are rich, greedy little boys in men’s bodies who have found the key to the gun cabinet and the safe. The GOP and even the Democrats haven’t stood up to them because they all imagine themselves benefitting from the spoils if they are just indulgent enough to let this transgression, and then the next transgression, and then the one after that, slide. They are not just complicit in necrocapitalism. They are disciples.

We have to let them know that the consequences of letting this slide are worse than the apparent benefits, however useless that might feel. Along with advocacy, writing, protesting, broadcasting, organizing, striking, we need to form coalitions that support life over death, that refuse to accept the premise of necrocapitalism. Life must be our theme - human, animal, oceans, soil, reefs, trees . . . .

No more violence in our names for anyone anywhere.

Call out states of exception and their role in necrocapitalism for what they are.

Avoid dehumanization at all costs.

Defend people and planet.

Stop participating in corporate profit: buy nothing or only local, boycott, actively pursue alternatives to fossil fuel use, join or start mutual aid groups and cooperatives, grow food, walk, play, make music, have a block party.

Don’t mince words. Tell people on the bus about necrocapitalism.

Find resources to share on social media.

Model a giving economy.

Don’t give up.