[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"doc-detail-114836-en":3,"doc-seo-114836-105":29,"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":91},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",{"doc_id":7,"user_id":8,"nickname":9,"user_avatar":10,"doc_module":4,"category_id":11,"category_name":12,"doc_title":13,"doc_description":14,"doc_content":15,"file_id":16,"file_url":17,"file_type":18,"file_size":19,"view_count":20,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":20,"is_downloadable":20,"audit_status":20,"page_count":21,"language":22,"language_code":23,"site_id":24,"html_lang":23,"table_of_contents":25,"faqs":26,"seo_title":13,"seo_description":14,"update_tm":27,"read_time":28},114836,687197207919,"Theodora","https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/avatar/a000253d6f5f7c60be?x-image-process=image/resize,m_fixed,w_180,h_180&k=1779446848396160552",8,"Research & Report","Pure Excess - Capitalism and the Commodity","Pure Excess - Capitalism and the Commodity examines how capitalism sustains itself through the commodity form, arguing that “excess” is not accidental waste but a structural principle. The analysis develops central concepts including uselessness, objective excess, and two distinct fetishisms, showing how subjects become bound through forms of servitude and paranoia. It also offers a critical account of the anticapitalist imagination and connects these ideas to broader social theory, critique, and artistic practice.","PURE EXCESS  \nPURE EXCESS  \nCAPITALISM  \nAND THE COMMODITY  \nTODD McGOWAN  \nColumbia University Press New York  \nColumbia University Press  \nPublishers Since 1893  \nNew York Chichester, West Sussex [cup.columbia.edu](cup.columbia.edu)[ ](cup.columbia.edu)Copyright © 2025 Columbia University Press All rights reserved  \nCataloging-in-Publication Data available from the Library of Congress.  \nISBN 9780231217583 (hardback) ISBN 9780231217590 (trade paperback)  \nISBN 9780231561808 (ebook)  \nLCCN 2024024921  \nPrinted in the United States of America Cover design: Julia Kushnirsky  \nFor Hyon Joo Yoo, who exceeds  \n1  \nCONTENTS  \nAcknowledgments ix  \nIntroduction: Excessively Yours 1  \n1 The Apotheosis of Uselessness 31  \n2 An Objective Excess 67  \n3 Two Forms of Fetishism 91  \n4 The Indebted Servant 121  \n5 The Reasonable Paranoiac 149  \n6 Portrait of the Anticapitalist as an Artist 173  \nNotes 199  \nIndex 242  \nACKNOWLEDGMENTS  \nT  \nhanks to Distinktion for permission to publish a revised section that appeared as “Sublimating the Commodity,”Distinktion: Journal of Social Theory 23, nos. 2–3 (2022):  \n359–77. I also worked through the ideas in the book in a course at the Global Center for Advanced Studies and in talks at the Impakt Festival in Utrecht, the India Students Association, the Waseda Institute for Advanced Study, and the Centre for Global Politics, Economy, and Society.  \nWendy Lochner has been the Platonic ideal of an editor. I hope that she doesn’t head to Syracuse to advise those in power there but instead remains in Athens.  \nMy parents, Bob and Sandi McGowan, play more of a role in this book than in anything else I have written, perhaps because they both struggled against the commodity form, even if they thought they were investing themselves in it. They betrayed it while it was betraying them. My brother, Wyk McGowan, has always operated without such illusions and has been a constant theoretical interlocutor, from the time when neither of us knew what we were talking about.","cbCaih41WwhjPHb8","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaih41WwhjPHb8","pdf",2062079,1,285,"English","en",105,"# Contents\n## Introduction: Excessively Yours\n## The Apotheosis of Uselessness\n## An Objective Excess\n## Two Forms of Fetishism\n## The Indebted Servant\n## The Reasonable Paranoiac\n## Portrait of the Anticapitalist as an Artist\n## Notes\n## Index","[{\"question\":\"What does “excess” mean in the book’s account of capitalism?\",\"answer\":\"Excess functions as a structural feature of the commodity form rather than a mere byproduct of production. 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