4 results for "Capitalism"

The precipice: neoliberalism, the pandemic, and the urgent need for social change

Chomsky, Noam
"A collection of interviews with the world's leading public intellectual from the time of the rise of Donald Trump to power to the end of his presidency and the election of Joe Biden. In The Precipice, Noam Chomsky sheds light into the phenomenon of Trumpism, exposes the catastrophic nature and impact of Trump's policies for average Americans, the environment, and the planet on the whole. Chomsky also captures the dynamics of the brutal class warfare launched by the masters of capital to maintain and even enhance the features of a dog-eat-dog society along with the unprecedented mobilization of millions of people against neoliberal capitalism, racism, and police violence. A powerful sequel to Chomsky and Polychroniou's last interview collection, Optimism Over Despair." --
Haymarket Books 2021-06 352 pages

Postcapitalism: a guide to our future

Mason, Paul
"Over the past two centuries or so, capitalism has undergone profound changes--economic cycles that veer from boom to bust--from which it has always emerged transformed and strengthened. Surveying this turbulent history, Paul Mason's Postcapitalism argues that we are on the brink of a change so big and so profound that this time capitalism itself, the immensely complex system within which entire societies function, will mutate into something wholly new. At the heart of this change is information technology, a revolution that is driven by capitalism but, with its tendency to push the value of much of what we make toward zero, has the potential to destroy an economy based on markets, wages, and private ownership. Almost unnoticed, in the niches and hollows of the market system, swaths of economic life are beginning to move to a different rhythm. Vast numbers of people are changing how they behave and live, in ways contrary to the current system of state-backed corporate capitalism. And as the terrain changes, new paths open. In this bold and prophetic book, Mason shows how, from the ashes of the crisis, we have the chance to create a more socially just and sustainable economy. Although the dangers ahead are profound, he argues that there is cause for hope. This is the first time in human history in which, equipped with an understanding of what is happening around us, we can predict and shape the future"--
Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2016 340 pages

Europe and the people without history

Wolf, Eric R.
Offering insight and equal consideration into the societies of the "civilized" and "uncivilized" world, Europe and the People Without History deftly explores the historical trajectory of so-called modern globalization. In this foundational text about the development of the global political economy, Eric R. Wolf challenges the long-held anthropological notion that non-European cultures and peoples were isolated and static entities before the advent of European colonialism and imperialism. Ironically referred to as "the People Without History" by Wolf, these societies before active colonization possessed perpetually changing, reactionary cultures and were indeed just as intertwined into the processes of the pre-Columbian global economic system as their European counterparts. Utilizing Marxian concepts and a vivid consideration for the importance of history, Wolf judiciously traces the effects and conditions in Europe and the rest of the "known" world, beginning in 1400 AD, that allowed capitalism to emerge as the dominant ideology of the modern era.
University of California Press 2010-09-21 503 pages

Transnational conflicts: Central America, social change, and globalization

Robinson, William I.
In this timely and provocative study, William I. Robinson challenges received wisdom on Central America. He starts with an exposition on the new global capitalism. Then, drawing on a wide range of historical documentation, interviews, and social science research, he proceeds to show how capitalist globalization has thoroughly transformed the region, disrupting the conventional pattern of revolutionary upheaval, civil wars, and pacification, and ushering in instead a new transnational model of economy and society. Beyond his focus on Central America, Robinson provides a critical framework for understanding development and social change in other regions of the world in the age of globalization. Demonstrating how the very forces of capitalism have brought into being new social agents and political actors unlikely to acquiesce in the face of the emerging order, Transnational Conflicts shows why the Isthmus, along with other regions, is likely to return to the headlines in the near future.
VERSO 2003-10-16 400 pages