Gore Capitalism and The Cartel

Sayak Valencia's 'Gore Capitalism' and Don Winslow's 'The Cartel'

“'gore capitalism' refers to the undisguised and unjustified bloodshed that is the price the Third World pays for adhering to the increasingly demanding logic of capitalism.”

Valencia, 12

“It is a product of economic polarization, the excesses of information/advertising that create and support a hyperconsumerist identity and its counterpart: the ever shrinking numbers of people with the financial power to satisfy their consumer desires"

Valencia, 16

Gore capitalism includes the use of necroempowerment carried out by endriago subjects

Necroempowerment: the act of killing in order to gain status and accumulate wealth.Endriago subject: a person who use violence for empowerment, status, validation in society, and wealth accumulation.

How Valencia's ideas about gore capitalism can inform our understanding of Winslow's 'The Cartel'

Gore Capitalism offers wider context as to why people are drawn to cartels

We see characters, such as Chuy, drawn to joining cartels as it is the only feasible way they can achieve the consumerist lifestyle promoted to them due to poverty , lack of job oppurtunites, and lack of education.

Chuy becomes an endriago subject as he seeks to establish himself as a "valid subject with the possibility of belonging and ascending within society.” (Valencia, 16)

None of those narcos live in a wooden house on cinder blocks. None of them share a bathroom with eleven other people, with a toilet that doesn't flush half the time, a trickle of cold water

Winslow, 173

They have new cars, hot girls and money.[...] it doesn't come from lugging concrete, digging ditches, laying pipe. [...] Chuy knows where this money comes from

Winslow, 173

Gives us a 'why' behind the violence seen in The Cartel

The violence seen in The Cartel is necroempowerment; murders victims are displayed publically with narcomantas in order to gain status through fear and threat of more violence. Cartel violence is used as a form of communication between cartels (you mess with our business, we mess with yours) or scaring citizens into supporting them in order to avoid the grisly consequences of not supporting them.

The Zetas take photos of the bodies and post them on the internet with the message This was for direspecting our friend Diego, You fes motherfuckers. Sincerely - The Z company (Winslow, 407)

Just last week, four decapitated bodies that used to be his guys hung from a Cuernavaca bridge with the message this is what happens to those who support the traitor crazy Eddie Ruiz. (Winslow, 482)

By understanding the violence enacted by cartels as necroempowerment, we can begin to understand the deeper issues (capitalism, globalisation, large wealth gap, consumerism and poverty) underpinning the events of the novel.

However...

Valencia's ideas mightn't be the best starting place for thinking about The Cartel

Capitalism is based on human existance: self interest (needs and preferences and everyone else’s), demand (I want something), supply (there it is), and labor( doing something to get it).

“Everybody laughed, like, yeah, that’s real funny, but then Diego looked all serious and said, “No. Maybe you’re eating him.” Eddie set his spoon down. Diego said, “I mean, they say you should eat what you kill, don’t they? Besides, the flesh of a strong enemy makes you strong”

And the king said unto her, What aileth thee? And she answered, This woman said unto me, Give thy son, that we may eat him to day, and we will eat my son to morrow. So we boiled my son, and did eat him: and I said unto her on the next day, Give thy son, that we may eat him

Bible, 2nd Kings 6: 28- 29

All of us

• Ourselves buying products with no thought of the consequences and paying for the wars through taxes

• State intervention putting blocks on demand which creates the black markets to fulfil the demand for illegal substances.
• Fighting “wars” to enforce the rules they set to which makes the cartels/mafias arm up.

“And why, again, are the victims mostly the little guys—the poor, the street dealers, the beggars, the driftwood? Pablo knows the answer. He just hates what it is. It has to do not with the cross-border drug trade, but with the internal market. It’s not good enough to just blame the U.S. market anymore"

“You are the same. You are all the cartel. And you are guilty. You are guilty of murder, you are guilty of torture, you are guilty of rape, of kidnapping, of slavery, of oppression, but mostly I say that you are guilty of indifference. ”

Capitalism is based on human existance: self interest (needs and preferences and everyone else’s), demand (I want something), supply (there it is), and labor( doing something to get it).