Capitalism at the carnival

Think about Bakhtin, Rabelais, and Dostoevsky for a moment. In the context of, for example, Davos, Bakhtin wrote about the other two. Famously? Posing as a literary critic, he was a moral philosopher, famously avoiding the Gulag. Three themes.

First, sometimes in Dostoevsky, you can’t tell what the author thinks.

Second, nothing is ever finalised or begun; we don’t know what happened before the beginning or after the end.

And

Third. Carnival. Renaissance carnival, turning the world upside down. Kings are beggars and beggars, kings; mockery, blasphemy, license, obscenity, insolence and ribaldry rule. No observers (as in satire). No audience. Just players. Jokers.

Celebrities, scamps, economists, politicians, experts, swindlers and pollsters cavort in Makerfield, Davos, Love Island, Boardrooms, Cabinets, COP summits, NASDAQ and whatever. Putin, Princes, Dukes, Trump, and statesmen romp, puke (perhaps), merge, hedge,  resign, hire, fire, protest and whatever. Cabaret? Burlesque? Pandemonium?

 We, solemn, don’t mock.