Economic Vampirism: Dracula versus Capitalism.

“For life be, after all, only a waitin' for somethin' else than what we're doin'; and death be all that we can rightly depend on.” – Bram Stoker’s Dracula, (2011, 77).

Vampires; there is not a single person alive today who doesn’t know what they are, what their most basic qualities are: bloodthirsty, afraid of the sun, dark and dangerous. Vampires are one of the most popular icons in the world today. There are TV-series, movies, books and so on: the vampire merchandise is endless.

            It is hard to imagine that the popular vampire has a very old origin: Dracula (Stoker, 2011). He is one of the most adaptable and resilient popular icons. Ever since the novel was published in 1897, he has never lost his ability to frighten audiences, regardless of generation or cultural differences (Morrissette, 2013; Morrissette, 2013).

However, as interesting as it would be to investigate more of the popular phenomenon, I will be investigating Bram Stoker’s Dracula in relation to capitalism. There are many connections in such a way. In this comparison, I will not view Dracula as a supernatural vampire, like all the popular culture has done, but as a portrait of economic vampirism.

            Bram Stoker wasn’t the first author to write about the vampire; A far more known person was: Karl Marx. Marx offered critique on capitalism by portraying it as a vampire. According to Marx, capitalists drained the surplus value of the worker’s labour to further enrich themselves (Morrissette, 2013). In the original novel, Dracula is portrayed as a count in Transylvania. He’s pale, dark haired and fairly mysterious. No one seems to know him and those who do fear him. Yet he never wastes a drop: he takes only that what he needs, but he takes it nonetheless. Dracula takes the blood he needs in order to get stronger. Factory owners can be placed in the role of the vampires and the workers are their victims. “Seduced by the capitalist’s spell – the comforting distraction of religion, politics, consumer culture – the worker suffers a ‘loss of self’ and emerges as little more than a walking corpse” (Morrissette, 2013).

            This is the primary relation between Dracula and Capitalism. The count is the same as the factory owner and the workers are its victims. However, both Dracula and capitalism have come a long way since 1897.

Over time, Dracula has evolved in the same way capitalistic corporations have handled labour. In 1897, nothing was wasted. What the corporations needed, they took. However, in time it has changed. In the seventies Dracula was bloodthirsty, dangerous and wasteful. In Dracula 2000 he was the ultimate consumer: preferring conspicuous consumption to monopolistic accumulation (Ambrisco & Svehla, 2006).

The same is clearly visible in capitalism: corporations in 2000 didn’t take what they needed: they took what they wanted and much more. Part-time jobs and different kind of contracts were introduced during time. Each of these changes took something away from the workers but adding to the corporations: the workers end up as little more but a walking corpse, living to work instead of the other way around.

            As stated before: everyone knows who Dracula is, but not many people have thought about it in any other way but entertainment. Ever since 1897, Dracula, and especially vampires in general have been portrayed in many different ways: Nosferatu, Blade, Dracula 2000, Twilight, True Blood, The Vampire Diaries and most recently, Dracula Untold. In this article I have shown a few connections between Dracula and capitalism. It remains interesting to investigate this connection. Lately in popular culture, we have a different way of looking at vampires.

            Before, vampires were the villain, plain and simple. They sucked the blood of innocent people and were purely evil or at least to be feared. These days, villains and vampires alike have been portrayed as the ‘unsung hero’, they are simply ‘misunderstood’. This started after the new Millennium, with shows as Moonlight, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and so on. The vampires try to survive in other ways than harming humans and try their hardest to blend into society, so the humans won’t notice they’re there. Does the same apply to corporations? Are they unsung heroes?

            If the same connections that I have illustrated in this article apply, then yes. Even in the latest movie: Dracula Untold, we view his history. We see the horrors he has endured and see why he did what he did. He did what he had to do in order to save his country, his family. Surely everyone would have done the same?

            Is this what capitalism’s  is trying to say now? The economy has been bad the last few years and if one can believe the media, unemployment is unusually high. The economy is horrible, no one can find employment and a lot of people have chosen to blame the capitalistic companies for this: they should have seen it coming and they should have made different choices. If the companies had chosen a different path then maybe the economy wouldn’t be in its present day state. If they hadn’t chosen to be consumers of the highest level, if they hadn’t been such vampires, surely things would be different?

            This is an interesting field of research and I hope I will one day get the opportunity to do just that. It is my belief that throughout the popular culture you can see problems in the present day society: that is what movie makers can draw from. It is precisely this what makes classic literature so important: it offers the same insight in the world many years ago as popular culture does today.

            Perhaps one day Dracula Untold will be analysed the same way Bram Stoker’s Dracula has been analysed. Maybe one day, another researcher will make the connections nessicairy between the old parsimoniously Count Dracula, Dracula Untold and capitalism from 2014.

Bibliografie

Ambrisco, A. S., & Svehla, L. (2006). The Coin of our Realm: Blood and Images in Dracula 2000. Journal of Dracula Studies.

Morrissette, J. J. (2013). Marxferatu: The Vampire Metaphor as a Tool for Teaching Marx's Critique of Capitalism. The Teacher, 637-642.

Stoker, B. (2011). Dracula . Barnes & Noble .