What Is the Wrong of Capitalism? A Reply to Chiara Cordelli

Chiara Cordelli has recently criticized radical republicans for failing to ground a domination-based anti-capitalism. Cordelli argues that radical republicans “cannot prove either that domination under capitalism is less contingent than other wrongs, that capitalism’s distinctive wrong amounts to domination, or that such domination is unjust.” This article responds to Cordelli’s objections. I argue that Cordelli’s emphasis on capitalization does not threaten the non-contingency of capitalist domination; that capitalism’s distinctive wrong is domination and not alienation, and that this wrong is structural all the way down. Cordelli is right that capitalism involves alienation of our future to the vagaries of profit-maximization. But alienation is only a moment in capitalism’s fundamental wrong and ill—the domination of labor by capital.