Replace Me

An essay about capitalism, automation, and fear of being replaced

Fear of being replaced has come to define the late-capitalist psyche. In an age of gig work and AI, more and more workers are threatened with replacement; meanwhile dating apps present both limitless choice and limitless competition, and demagogues stoke racist paranoia through myths of a ‘great replacement’ by immigrant populations.

In this wide-ranging essay, Amber Husain asks how we might redirect the fear, turning our replaceability from an individual weakness into a collective strength.

Radical, clear-sighted, and moving, Replace Me examines both the terror and the allure in fantasies of infinite replacement. Hailed by Chris Kraus as ‘one of the most sweeping assessments to date of neoliberalism’s psychic toll’, this new edition features a foreword by Daisy Lafarge and an afterword by the author.