New Prophets of Capital and their adversary

Abstract

The article discusses the attempts to reform the contemporary capitalism. They are presented from the point of view of agents living in this socio-economic system. The starting point are four “stories” (trickle-down feminism, conscious capitalism, neoliberalism and philantrocapitalism) characteristic of the wealthiest social groups that have been brought forward and discussed here basing on the book The New Prophets of Capital written by Nicole Aschoff. Her criticism is here broadened by adding some new elements. The second part of the article contains two proposals for the reform of capitalism formulated from the perspective of agents living in this system, to be sure, but within the poorer groups of the population. These are: cooperatives and the “third industrial revolution,” postulated by Jeremy Rifkin that could be understood as the sharing economy, also.