PostCapitalism
A Guide to Our Future
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
From Paul Mason, the award-winning Channel 4 presenter, Postcapitalism is a guide to our era of seismic economic change, and how we can build a more equal society.
Over the past two centuries or so, capitalism has undergone continual change - economic cycles that lurch from boom to bust - and has always emerged transformed and strengthened. Surveying this turbulent history, Paul Mason wonders whether today we are on the brink of a change so big, so profound, that this time capitalism itself, the immensely complex system by which entire societies function, has reached its limits and is changing into something wholly new.
At the heart of this change is information technology: a revolution that, as Mason shows, has the potential to reshape utterly our familiar notions of work, production and value; and to destroy an economy based on markets and private ownership - in fact, he contends, it is already doing so. Almost unnoticed, in the niches and hollows of the market system, whole swathes of economic life are changing.. Goods and services that no longer respond to the dictates of neoliberalism are appearing, from parallel currencies and time banks, to cooperatives and self-managed online spaces. Vast numbers of people are changing their behaviour, discovering new forms of ownership, lending and doing business that are distinct from, and contrary to, the current system of state-backed corporate capitalism.
In this groundbreaking book Mason shows how, from the ashes of the recent financial crisis, we have the chance to create a more socially just and sustainable global economy. Moving beyond capitalism, he shows, is no longer a utopian dream. 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, rather than simply react to, seismic change.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Mason, economics editor for Britain's Channel 4 News, predicts that a new economic order will rise from the ashes of neoliberal capitalism, and that it will involve a new, digital-savvy, independent-minded workforce motivated by rewards other than money. Already, this new world is appearing but Mason explains that it has been stalled by neoliberals intent on perpetuating the status quo. At first, Mason's ideas may appear hopelessly unrealistic and utopian. Yet his passion is so contagious, his prose so absorbing, and his thoughts so intriguing that the reader is soon swept up in his enthusiasm. Parts I and II of the book comprise a fascinating review of the history of economic thought. Part III (where Mason's credibility declines sharply) describes how we might transition peacefully from capitalism to a new age, one ideally featuring very limited global warming, greatly increased prosperity, and work becoming voluntary. How this is to be practically achieved is scarcely explained; Mason merely observes that weathering digital-era disruptions should be easy compared to, for example, the seismic shift in gender roles effected by contraceptive pills. Nonetheless, this book's vision for the future, even if unlikely, is absorbing and provocative.