Abstract
Capitalism in its ideal-typical form develops according to the schema “money, commodity, more money,” which in turn is but a special case of human history in general with its ideal-typical form “power, weapons, more power.” More than 150 years ago, human beings were predicted to continuously rebel against those other human beings who, through brute force or the magic of money, have aggrandized themselves into gods, reducing others to commodities. In the interregnum, there is growing sensibility that money must be invested in something other than commodities, and the “return on investment” must be something other than more money. In this chapter, pointing to a possible future for the kingdom of Sweden, I propose that one seed for this (r)evolution is in decent supply in many high-income nations’ middle classes; with massive collective holdings of financial capital (money), democratic states and NGOs already in place to manage it, better-than-ever knowledge of conditions of the social and natural world, and a prolonged experience of meaninglessness and its corollary cynicism, the urban middle classes may well, once again, come to serve as the avant-garde of the global proletariat. Last time round, it was about ending explicit racism and formal colonialism. This time, it is about ending imperialism altogether, thereby putting capitalism back where it belongs: in a prison run by government.