According to anthropologist David Graeber, the capitalist system has a history of falling apart. Following such failures, the public must be persuaded by the economic elite to rebuild the economic system that failed them.

 

This is best accomplished by convincing people that there is no other alternative. Such a task is accomplished by the production of hopelessness through bureaucratic and security apparatuses. Hopelessness surpresses the sort of creativity that might generate challenges to existing power relations.

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Hurricane Katrina serves as an example. The failures of the flood barriers, the pumping systems, and the recovery process itself can all be considered a failure on the part of capitalism to sustain itself.

 

In the case of post-Katrina New Orleans, many people experienced circumstances of extreme liminality that left them in a state of hopelessness, entirely unable to cope with their circumstances. The maintenance of this liminality has produced further hopelessness, which suppresses creativity and the potential for alternative thought or action.