Savage Cannibal Capitalism’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde — The Piramal Scenario by DebaprasadBandyopadhyay Via Flickr: onceinabluemoon2021.in/2026/04/13/savage-cannibal-capital... This article offers a structural critique of contemporary capitalism through Deleuze and Guattari’s Capitalism and Schizophrenia, exposing the persistent Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde split between the ethically articulated philosophy of conscious capitalism — inclusive growth, Gandhian trusteeship, Karuṇā–Sevā–Samṛddhi, philanthro-capitalism, and animal spirits — and the savage cannibalistic logic of surplus value extraction. The luminous Dr. Jekyll face presents capitalism as purposeful and compassionate, with profit as mere “oxygen” and Shubh Labh as guiding intent, yet this high-definition screen conceals the relentless Mr. Hyde reality of appropriating crystallised labour, life savings, and ecological commons for endless accumulation. Marxist, anarcho-syndicalist, and Orwellian lenses reveal how ethical language merely re-describes extraction without altering its arithmetic, unmasking doublespeak and Memory Hole mechanisms in restructuring and philanthropic reterritorialization. The 2021 DHFL resolution, upheld by the Supreme Court on 1 April 2025 and culminating in the 2025 reverse merger into Piramal Finance, exemplifies the paradox: celebrated as bold value unlocking, it delivered steep haircuts for retail depositors while allowing the acquirer to retain avoidance recoveries — losses socialised downward, gains capitalised upward. Conscious-ethical-inclusive capitalism thus emerges as a Chimera, generating a Glitch Art aesthetic of smooth philanthropic visions atop crashing realities for the vulnerable, as capitalism deterritorializes moral and spiritual flows only to reterritorialize them as legitimacy capital, sustaining its schizophrenic reproduction. True change demands confronting the foundational mechanics of accumulation beyond moral rebranding.
