Reanimating Marxist state theory: On the material force of capital's silent power

Abstract

This article engages critically with Søren Mau's Mute Compulsion: A Marxist Theory of the Economic Power of Capital (2023), which presents a compelling account of capitalism's structural domination, transcending ideology and repression. While Mau effectively foregrounds the material compulsions of capitalist life, we argue that his abstraction of economic power neglects the spatial, racial, institutional, and geopolitical configurations through which mute compulsion is concretely produced, sustained, and contested. Drawing on Marxist state theory, imperialism, and authoritarian populism, we expand Mau's framework by situating mute compulsion within the lived geographies of global capitalism. Through two U.S.-based case studies: the deportation of pro-Palestinian student protesters and the structural exploitation of immigrant labour, we show that mute compulsion operates unevenly, mediated by legal precarity, racialization, and imperial statecraft. Moreover, we trace how authoritarian populism reinforces mute compulsion by dismantling mediating institutions while weaponizing the rhetoric of ‘freedom’ to obscure deepening domination. In moments of rupture when protests erupt or exploitation is exposed, capital's silent power gives way to overt coercion, revealing its reliance on spectacular repression to restore order. We argue for a Marxist geography of mute compulsion: one attentive to its global asymmetries, institutional moorings, and crisis tendencies. Ultimately, mute compulsion is not only economic; it is geopolitical, racialized, and contingent; always haunted by the possibility of its breakdown.