Capitalist Realism

We wish to avoid the tendency to reduce society to a mere binary, a "powerful-dark-evil-bad-rich vs powerless-oppressed-humble-poor" narrative. That's far too simple, and life just isn't like that: There's always a bit of yin in yang and yang in yin, and a lot of gradation between. Imagine your Boomer uncle at the Thanksgiving table. He works for a company that adds catchy music to hypnotic commercials for another company that puts artificial ingredients into a cartoon-based children's breakfast cereal made of the cheapest possible source of carbohydrate calories, and he thinks the world is a great place. For him and most of the people he knows, it probably is.

The Fractopian World is one in which many of the functions once performed by government or public institutions have been taken over by corporations and private institutions. The direct control of incorporated urban areas under a capitalist system (even modified) has given rise to a social arrangement that might be considered a form of "Corporate Feudalism."

Note, however, that the corporate world is not viewed as "dark" by the billions of people who engage with it willingly; not even its lowest-level workers. They enjoy their blipverts and spectacular holoshows. They like having the option of four thousand virtual worlds to choose from. They participate in the programs of the corporate world and they celebrate its successes; they view it as the nature of Progress itself and they're not really wrong. "Just look at all the wonderful things we have invented!" they say.

These people are not mindless drones (though they are very often medicated). Their view of the world is one of civilization's technological mastery over the dangers of the world (i.e. the natural world, red in tooth and claw, and full of climate chaos). They view corporate power much as most of us today view our own state's or nation's power. Which is to say, while they may be unhappy about this or that particular feature, quality or program, and while they may grumble sardonically about "the folks at the top," most citizens approve of the charter city in general, and never really question its inner workings very deeply.

To these citizens, the Ubi world is a very nice place, full of commodities, entertainment, opportunities and neat things to do – as long as you accept its terms and work within them. The system is just fine, if you ask them. Amazingly wonderful, in fact.

From a Fractopian position one can see either a utopia or a dystopia just around the corner, and yet that corner never really gets turned. Instead the world is increasingly fragmented, diverse, multi-layered and troubled, just like the real world today. Politically, the Fractopian view admits both Capitalist Realism and socialized solutions to many of today's cultural issues, and like our own world, it teeters on a knife-edge between the two.