LSD Capitalism Promoted By Musk Promises A Bad Trip

Business interest in psychoactive substances is not just some random whim of the markets. Rather, it is deeply rooted in history and the very origins of capital, Russian journalist Rustam Yulvarisov wrote for Jacobin Magazine.

Photo Insert: These days, Silicon Valley residents in search of inspiration take drugs at Burning Man in the Nevada desert, drink ayahuasca in the jungle, and listen to the most popular podcast in the world, Joe Rogan’s show about psychedelics.

The creation of a legal market for psychedelics is a realization of a deep-rooted need of capital, which has historically gravitated toward this commodity.

The return of psychedelics to the legal market in the 21st century can easily be explained through the mechanism of “recuperation” identified by the Situationists in the 1960s: Capitalism appropriates protest ideas and turns them into commodities.

And if hippies took LSD to revolt against the system, now workers are driven to microdose to work better for the system. Like Steve Jobs, who took acid in the 1970s and then founded Apple, today boasting a market capitalization of $2.47 trillion.

These days, Silicon Valley residents in search of inspiration take drugs at Burning Man in the Nevada desert, drink ayahuasca in the jungle, and listen to the most popular podcast in the world, Joe Rogan’s show about psychedelics.

It was at Rogan’s house that the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, smoked a joint and later took LSD and Mike Tyson was stoned on psilocybe. Where are these Atlases, captains of industry, bold visionaries leading humanity? Obviously, psychiatry alone will not satiate business in general.

In his 2019 book “The Age of Addiction: How Bad Habits Became Big Business,” historian and global drug policy expert David Courtright articulated the concept of limbic capitalism. It is a technologically advanced but socially backward business system in which global industries encourage overconsumption and create addiction.

“Limbic capitalism is just my shorthand for global industries that basically encourage excessive consumption and even addiction. In fact, you could make that even stronger and say not only do they encourage it but now they’ve reached the point where they’re actually designing it,” Courtright added.

The limbic area of the brain deals with pleasure, motivation, long-term memory, and other functions crucial to survival.

“You couldn’t live without your limbic system and you couldn’t reproduce without it, and that’s why it has evolved. And yet that same system is now susceptible to hijacking by corporate interests in a way that actually works against your long-term survival prospects,” he stressed.

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