Disclaimer: This essay is a philosophical exploration of capital, subjectivity, and existential anxiety. All terms — including “existential economy,” “capital as a living subject,” “infrahuman,” and “ideal crime” — are used strictly in a conceptual and metaphorical sense. The text does not advocate, endorse, or legitimize any illegal, unethical, or harmful actions. Its purpose is to examine the psychological, phenomenological, and symbolic structures underlying modern economic behavior. All references to strategic behavior, identity collapse, or the engineering of existential events should be understood as components of a speculative philosophical framework and not as prescriptions for action. The essay belongs to the domain of critical theory and existential reflection.
This essay continues my philosophical development of existential economy — a concept I explore across several texts devoted to the fear of capital, the obsession with possession, and the psychology of the investor.
Beneath the surface of the modern market soul lies an existential anxiety — a primordial fear of nonbeing that permeates the behavior of money and those possessed by it.
Classical economists portrayed the rational human — and the rational investor — as a cold calculator maximizing utility, while behavioral economists catalogued deviations from rationality: cognitive biases, emotional impulses, breakdowns in judgment.
Existential economy, as I see it, offers a third path between these paradigms. It claims that at the very foundation of economic activity lies not a flaw in logic, but an ontological panic — a deep trembling of capital before the void.
A financier rushing into dubious ventures; an investor obsessively inflating the cryptocurrency bubble; a billionaire going all in — they are driven not merely by greed or foolishness, but by an existential impulse to prolong their being through capital.
Here, capital appears as an animated participant in the drama — a quasi-subject, alive and suffering. Its irrational movements are not explained by calculation, but by fear of death. Money trembles and quivers like a hunted animal, sensing the threat of devaluation, the tragedy of existence, and annihilation.
When facing a market collapse, the investor experiences not merely a financial loss — his very sense of self is shaken by the terror of disappearing along with his capital. He fears not only physical death, but social death: the loss of status, identity, and presence, the descent into nothingness.
Hence the feverish drive to avoid “the end” at any cost — to win no matter what, to deceive time, to purchase another tomorrow. Rationality here is powerless: ontological anxiety intervenes in the course of events, rendering the player's behavior unpredictable, irrational only at first glance — in truth, governed by the logic of being struggling to survive, defying nonbeing.
Nikolai Berdyaev spoke of a spiritual crisis in which man becomes a slave to things, losing the primacy of spirit over matter. Existential economy extends this idea: the person of the market now fears not only for the life of the body, but for the “life” of their capital — for they have come to identify with it.
“I exist only because I possess” — this is the unspoken thesis of our consumer age. And thus, the threat of losing one’s property is experienced as the threat of one’s own extinction. The existentialists — Heidegger, Jaspers, Sartre — described the dread of nonbeing, the anxiety that torments the soul when gazing into the abyss. Today, that same anxiety seeps through business suits and stock reports. Capital trembles with fear of death — and through that fear, it imposes its madness on those who serve it.
Existential economy invites us to view capital phenomenologically — not as an object, but as a particular form of obsession within consciousness. Like Max Stirner’s “spook,” capital takes hold of the person from within, becoming their fixed idea, the spirit through which the individual experiences their own existence.
The person no longer merely owns capital — capital owns the person, organizing their will and emotions around itself. Money becomes a mirror of the soul: what matters is no longer what capital is “in itself,” but what it means to its bearer, how it is experienced.
Imagine a wealthy investor who has reached every conceivable material summit. One might think he would find peace, but instead he is haunted by an existential crisis: “If I already have hundreds of millions, then what is the meaning now? Who am I without the endless accumulation of wealth?”
The fear of disappearing as a significant figure drives him to irrational actions. He begins to take wild risks, to bet against the market itself, as if trying to feel alive on the edge.
The phenomenological approach allows us to say: capital is not a dead number on a bank account, but an inner voice demanding eternal multiplication. It carries its own intention — a will toward self-preservation and growth — which it instills in its bearer.
A person gripped by this obsession begins to see only what relates to money. The entire horizon of their experience contracts around capital: joy, fear, love, self-worth — all are measured by gain or loss.
In this state, life becomes an endless game with the ghost of nonbeing. Capital ceases to be a tool and becomes a mirror: the person gazes into the shimmering flow of financial data and sees there the reflection of their own significance.
He struggles painfully to hold onto that reflection, to keep it from vanishing. This is idolatry — the reduction of being to having — as Erich Fromm warned unequivocally.
Existential economy states plainly: I am no one, a void, because my entire being is embedded in things. Capital, as obsession, empties the soul: in place of a living “I” remains an idol demanding devotion.
But the idol is fickle. At times it offers the illusion of immortality, at others it threatens collapse. The subject possessed by capital sleeps lightly and restlessly. At night he sees visions of market volatility; by day, the ghost of bankruptcy lurks just behind him.
This ontological insecurity gives rise to the strangest economic phenomena — irrational investments, financial pyramids, bizarre pseudo-tokens, and the endless pursuit of a quick-money solution.
Capital demands movement — otherwise it dies. And with it dies the soul of the capitalist, stripped of its foundation. Thus, capital becomes a superstitious god, one that demands sacrifice and constant activity, threatening its worshipper with existential execution — the unbearable sense of their own insignificance.
To describe the complex movements of capital in obsession, existential economy partly draws on the metaphor of the field (Kurt Lewin). Generalizing this idea, one can imagine a “life-space of capital.” Here, profitable opportunities act as positive charges, drawing capital toward growth, while threats appear as negative charges, causing it to withdraw or evade.
Capital lives within a field of forces shaped by economic factors (interest rates, prices, taxes), psychological states (market sentiment, panic, euphoria), and social institutions (competition, regulation, norms). Within this field, capital appears to pursue its goal — infinite self-expansion — while simultaneously evading “death” in the form of devaluation and loss.
Of course, this model is largely metaphorical. In practice, economists attempt to calculate such interactions through equations — they speak of “market forces,” “competitive pressure,” and even use gravitational models to describe trade flows.
But my existential economy deliberately moves beyond dry mathematics, offering a philosophical perspective. The field of capital is a unified landscape where numbers and passions are woven together.
Here there is room for the fear of bankruptcy, the hope for success, regulatory constraints, and irrational rumors. All components are interdependent: the mood of the investor crowd can crash charts as effectively as an actual balance sheet deficit; and a new regulation can cool feverish growth by appealing to ethics or the threat of punishment.
Existential economy sees the market process as a single fabric of being, where human emotions and institutions are inseparable from the movement of capital.
It is especially important to remember: capital is always entangled in human relationships. It does not exist on its own — it is owned, invested, fought over, and shared by people. Strictly speaking, then, we should speak not of the field of capital itself, but of the field around capital — a socio-psychological space where the interests, fears, and hopes of many subjects intersect.
Inside a corporation, for example, the budget is distributed among departments — this too is a field: projects and factions pull the blanket toward themselves, and capital flows where the weight of influence prevails.
In the market, investors form a collective field of sentiment: panic and euphoria spread like waves, drawing in new participants. If a major player hesitates, the smaller ones, sensing a shift in the field, rush to follow.
This is how the “crowd effect” takes shape, as fears and desires amplify one another, forming a unified surge. These phenomena are nothing other than existential dynamics — the manifestation, within economics, of the fundamental traits of human existence: the fear of loss and the drive to assert oneself.
The “field metaphor” emphasizes that the behavior of capital does not arise in a vacuum — its trajectory is the result of many interacting vectors. Instead of linear causality, we find a complex pattern of forces balancing one another. This echoes the ontological drama of the self: after all, the human being too is torn between conflicting desires, struggling to preserve a sense of wholeness.
Existential economy thus humanizes capital, restoring to economic analysis a lost dimension — the dimension of meaning, emotion, and the true drama of existence. Here, capital is not an abstraction, but a protagonist in the narrative, filled with fear, hope, and the will to survive.
And here, driven by his own deeper motivation, sensing the fear of capital and its weakened instinct for caution, a particular figure steps onto the stage — the infrahuman, a mysterious super-player who understands this logic more deeply than others and knows how to use it to his advantage.
The infrahuman, a phenomenon to which I have devoted a number of essays, is, as we recall, a person (or group) with a brilliant mind and a completely “disabled” conscience.
While everyone else remains an ethical weather vane, their morality spinning with the winds of success and failure, the infrahuman has deliberately freed himself from moral constraints.
He plays on the field of economics with cold calculation and creative audacity, feeling neither remorse nor illusion. This is not mere amorality — it is a kind of inner symmetry, where the mind is no longer bound by any taboo and can calculate moves at the deepest possible level.
Imagine a game where all participants crave victory, but in the face of defeat, rush to declare themselves “victims of injustice.” We see this everywhere: a fallen investor blames the market; a fraudster outwitted by a more cunning fraudster suddenly becomes “just an investor,” lamenting unfairness.
This victim posture is the essence of moral relativism: as long as I’m winning, I’m a hero; the moment I lose, I’m an innocent victim — the world has wronged me. It’s a convenient mask that preserves one’s pride and self-image.
But the infrahuman does not play these games. For him, the category of “victim” does not exist — each person chooses to enter the risk, and if they lose, they accept their fate without complaint.
The infrahuman has no need for excuses; defeat, for him, is part of a larger design — a lesson or a step forward, but never a reason to tear his hair out. His “I” is not dependent on victory or loss — it is rooted beyond the morality of outcomes.
The infrahuman is the antithesis of the victim. He will never cry out, “I was deceived!” — even if he was. He will take the blow in silence, draw his conclusions, and rise above the situation — or retreat quietly, preserving his wholeness.
In the history of ideas, this type is most vividly portrayed in the works of Marquis de Sade. In his dark philosophical novels, the most brutal villains are philosophers of vice — figures who have completely severed ties with morality.
They are cruel, yet... respectful toward one another: a villain will not harm an equal, recognizing in him the same clarity of mind. In the novels Justine and Juliette, de Sade writes openly: “We could have sacrificed him, but a mind so lucid deserves to live.”
Villains respect their own kind, for they see in one another a freedom of spirit — that dark freedom which transcends good and evil. But the moment one of them shows weakness — attachment, trust, love — he instantly becomes prey: “when a philosopher falls into morality, he is no longer a philosopher, but a victim-in-waiting.”
This remark by de Sade echoes the nature of the infrahuman: the one who exposes the nerve of conscience or a dependency on another ceases to be untouchable — and can be destroyed.
The infrahuman is an engineer of being, designing situations that force others to confront the raw truth of their own existence. In this sense, the infrahuman is a key agent of “existential engineering” — the deliberate construction of events through which the deeper truths of the human are revealed.
Infrahumans recognize one another by their signature — by the absence of the victim pose, by that unsettling freedom in the eyes. Upon seeing an equal, the infrahuman will often choose to retreat into the shadows or act through proxies rather than confront directly.
There is no personal hatred between them, no emotional motivator — and without that, the confrontation loses its meaning, becoming merely a dry collision of algorithms. In cinematic symbolism, a fitting example is the clash of machines in Terminator: T-800 versus T-1000 — a conflict of pure strategies, without emotion, where victory belongs to the more advanced architecture, not to “personality.”
The image of the infrahuman is, in essence, that of the ideal philosophical criminal. Not a villain driven by greed or sadism, but a player who has grasped the mechanics of existence. He sees that most people deceive themselves, hiding behind morality and law while things are going well — and dropping that mask at the first sign of catastrophe.
He understands that the security system of the capitalist order relies on the predictability of the average person — the one who fears punishment, seeks justification, and is therefore vulnerable to intimidation.
The infrahuman does not fear being wrong — morality is not his criterion. He is intelligent — and thus nearly uncatchable, for he thinks one step ahead of the state or his rivals, who remain bound by rules. He senses precisely what capital fears, where its Achilles’ heel lies. And that is where he strikes.
At the heart of existential economy emerges a paradoxical figure — the ideal crime. But this is not merely a flawlessly executed theft or scheme. In the philosophical sense, the ideal crime is an act that forces the victim to come face to face with their own existence.
The infrahuman orchestrates, for the capital-possessed, an event that suddenly strips away all familiar defenses — legal, social, psychological — and exposes their essence before the abyss of being.
Imagine a wealthy fraudster who has built his fortune by deceiving hundreds. He is used to feeling untouchable: money grants him power, connections, protection — a whole cocoon shielding his sense of self. But then comes a moment, orchestrated by someone more cunning: the fraudster is made to confront the very investors he deceived.
There is no one to call for help, no security present, and calling the police risks immediate arrest. He is confronted with a fact: all his money and connections are now powerless. Perhaps he will be handed over to the authorities. Perhaps there will be vigilante justice. For the first time, a person who identified entirely with capital feels himself reduced to a mere body, to matter — something that others can now do with as they please. This is the moment of existential truth.
He undergoes a catastrophe of existence: his lifelong narrative — “I am always in control” — collapses. The status of “master of the game” is revoked — he is now a piece on someone else’s board. He is gripped by a primal terror — not merely the fear of physical death, but the fear of vanishing as a person, of losing face, of becoming a thing.
Heidegger called such a state Ergriffensein von der Angst — “being seized by dread.” The figure in our scene is seized by dread: he no longer has a name, no power, he is merely the object of another’s will.
It is a threshold state: all former masks are stripped away. Neither calculation (the rational mind is powerless — there is nothing to compute, no one to bribe), nor moral self-justifications (the role of the “victim” fails — there is no one to plead with) can save him.
His identity tears apart: he no longer knows who he is now that money, status, and the game itself are gone. The capital he lived for loses all meaning in this moment — it cannot be traded for freedom, for the rules are now dictated by someone else.
This is the ideal confrontation with one’s own being. The person no longer sees the familiar image of success in the mirror, but a trembling creature — utterly dependent, exposed. All self-deceptions unravel: like ghosts, every crime and lie he once committed rises to the surface — for they can no longer be repressed. Suppressed fears return: the fear of pain, of prison, of retribution — once drowned out by luxury and power — now roar to life.
Now they rejoice around him in chorus. Before him stands an uncompromising foreign will, indifferent to who he once was in society. This is neither trial nor negotiation — it is a verdict of being, where the measures of success are nullified.
From a philosophical perspective, the ideal crime becomes a kind of ritual of initiation. Each “victim” (and we place this word in quotation marks, for from the standpoint of existence they are not a victim, but a participant in the encounter) passes through the purifying fire of dread and, in essence, is given a chance to be reborn.
After such an ordeal, three outcomes are possible (like three days of the soul):
Psychosis — the personality cannot withstand the confrontation, and the psyche collapses. Dread without masks is no easy matter; a fragile self may simply go mad, shatter, unable to accept its own insignificance.
Acceptance of defeat — the subject inwardly concedes: “Yes, I was outplayed, and it is just.” He burns, but without complaint, acknowledging the other’s superiority. There is even a kind of nobility in this: having endured the shock, such a person may emerge with a new humility and a deeper understanding of their own limits.
Transformation — the most intriguing outcome: the subject who has passed through fear becomes an infrahuman themselves. Having experienced absolute dependence and the death of their former ego, they are reborn — now without illusions or fear. Like tempered steel forged in fire, they gain that cold clarity characteristic of the infrapersona. This is, in a sense, psychotherapy through existence: the shock shattered the old self and provided the material for a new one, free from former weaknesses.
It echoes Nietzsche: what does not kill you makes you stronger — ultimately transforming the victim into a new predator. The ideal crime thus fulfills the role of an existential teacher. It exposes the truth about the person, stripping away false layers.
In this lies a profound, though unsettling, truth: the ideal crime serves as a moment of revelation, where economics confronts existence directly. Money no longer decides anything, the law falls silent — only the naked human remains, face to face with the abyss.
In this essay, we have traced a complex, tragic, and at the same time purifying line of thought: from the anxiety of capital to the ideal crime, from the obsession with possession to the possibility of liberation. Existential economy has revealed itself not merely as a theory of markets, but as a philosophy of human existence within a world ruled entirely by economic relations. It has shown us the hidden side of statistics — the human passions, fears, and hopes concealed behind performance charts and profit curves.
This is its strength and depth: it can restore to economics the dimension of meaning and morality — a dimension perhaps lost since the time of Adam Smith and his Theory of Moral Sentiments. For economics is a human creation, and humans are existential beings, searching for meaning even in the pursuit of profit. To ignore this is to misunderstand both the human and capital at their core.