Capitalism is no longer just an economic system; it has become an ontology that has infiltrated the internal architecture of human beings. What lives in almost every household today is not a family, but a “consumption cell” organized on a micro scale. In this cell, individuals do not only consume commodities; they consume meaning, time, relationships and even each other. The parent absorbs the child's time, the child absorbs the parent's attention; everyone unwittingly puts everyone else's emotional energy on the market. This is different from classical forms of exploitation. For exploitation is no longer an external coercion, but an internalized way of life. Capitalism colonizes not labor power, but directly existence itself.
The most striking result of this transformation is the emergence of a new type of human being. This person is driven not by his or her needs but by constantly provoked desires. He thinks his desires are his own, but they are largely shaped by algorithms, advertisements and cultural codes. It confuses freedom with being able to make choices, whereas it has only a field of action that consists of wandering between the options put in front of it. The classical concept of alienation is insufficient here. Because today's man is alienated not only from what he produces but also from his own desire. What is even more shocking is that he can buy this alienation as an experience. Even fatigue becomes a market; one buys packaged solutions for rest, apps for tranquility, vacations designed for escape. Capitalism no longer produces needs; it produces lack and turns the human being into the permanent bearer of this lack.
This process also transforms the family. The family, once the main space of solidarity and sharing, gradually evolves into the most invisible reproduction space of the capitalist system. The child begins to resemble a future project and the parent a manager investing in this project. Even love is tied to performance; providing better opportunities, creating more opportunities, raising a more competitive individual... This seemingly innocent endeavor is actually the production of the type of person the market needs within the home. The child is coded as a consumer at an early age, growing up with screens, thinking in images and importing their desires from outside. Thus, the family unwittingly turns into a workshop where individuals compatible with the system are produced.
Culture and art are not excluded from this picture. Art, which throughout history has sometimes been a carrier of power, sometimes a crack against it, is today largely commodified. The museum is reduced to a space of experience, the concert to an event, literature to a content that is quickly consumed. Even objection itself is aestheticized and made marketable. It is no coincidence that figures that were once symbols of rebellion are now circulated as brands. The system absorbs and reproduces even the criticism directed against it. However, this does not mean that art has been completely neutralized. On the contrary, true art still carries a surplus that the system cannot fully absorb. Because true art produces a meaning that cannot be consumed; a surplus that disturbs, shakes and confronts people with their own existence...
Under these conditions, the idea of sharing, solidarity and commune does not arise spontaneously. Capitalism erodes not only economic relations but also the capacity to live together. Trust is replaced by competition, collectivity by solitude. People are increasingly connected not to each other but to the representations offered by the system. This is why the commune is not an outcome but a conscious rupture. Without breaking away from habits of consumption, the commodification of time and the instrumentalization of relationships, a true communal life cannot be established. Commune is not just a physical union; it is the courage to produce meaning together.
The solution here is not technical or superficial. The problem is not only in the system, but in the human being shaped by the system. Therefore, the solution requires a new understanding of man. This human defines itself not through consumption, but through production and the creation of meaning. It is based on cooperation instead of competition, depth instead of speed, experience and sharing instead of possessing. It sees time not as a resource to be spent but as an opportunity to be experienced. One of the most critical areas of this transformation is again culture and art. Because a new world is first imagined. A society whose imagination has been colonized cannot build a free future.
Ultimately, the issue is much deeper than an economic crisis. What is happening today is the alienation of man from his own essence. While capitalism reduces man to a customer, resistance is an effort to make him human again. And perhaps the most shocking question of our time is this: Are we really living, or do we think we exist only by consuming? If the answer is the latter, then what we are facing is not just a problem of the system, but a crisis of the human being itself.