We should note that world history shows a far larger constellation of ‘genres’, e.g. the tragic (and comic)genre of ancient greece in the context of a religious background to state run theatres: in Athens in its classic period this produced the era of Aeschylus to Euripides. But then in modern times we see the ‘commercial’ theatres of the elizabethan period again producing tragic (and comic) genres in the context of something almost like primitive capitalism. This is not a plug for commercial theatres but perhaps a reminder that what is discussed here is monopoly capitalism that has turned into a kind of dead mass, a mechanical freak show of something closer to degenerated capitalism.
Let us note this effect in modern drama where full-fledged capitalism could never produce anything like a tragic genre as it generates a massively mediocre Hollywood monstrosity that has corrupted taste, perception, and genre diversity for dramatic junk engineered to for profit.
Source: How Capitalism Changed American Literature | Public Books
