PostCapitalism: A Guide to Our Future - Softcover

Mason, Paul

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0141975296 ISBN 13: 9780141975290

Publisher: Penguin, 2016

Synopsis

'The most important book about our economy and society to be published in my lifetime' Irvine Welsh

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.

In this groundbreaking, Sunday Times top ten 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.

About this title

About the Author

Paul Mason was the award-winning economics editor of Channel 4 News. His books include Meltdown: The End of the Age of Greed and Why It’s Kicking Off Everywhere: The New Global Revolutions. He writes for The Guardian and the New Statesman, among other publications.

Review

“Even readers not quite persuaded will appreciate Mason's readable, reportorial style, his use of a wide range of economists, business gurus, and economic thinkers to help support his thesis, and his deft treatment of sometimes-difficult economic theories . . . A radical diagnosis and a bold prognostication bound to energize progressives.” ―Kirkus Reviews

“[Postcapitalism]'s vision for the future . . . is absorbing and provocative.” ―Publishers Weekly

“Mason weaves together varied intellectual threads to produce a fascinating set of ideas . . . The thesis about ‘postcapitalism’ deserves a wide readership among right and left alike . . . Politicians of all stripes should take note. And so should the people who vote for them.” ―Gillian Tett, Financial Times

“Deeply engaging . . . [Mason] is asking the most interesting questions, unafraid of where they might lead. What’s more, he writes with freshness and insight on almost every page . . . I can’t remember the last book I read that managed to carve its way through the forest of political and economic ideas with such brio . . . As a spark to the imagination, with frequent x-ray flashes of insight into the way we live now, it is hard to beat. In that sense, Mason is a worthy successor to Marx.” ―David Runciman, The Guardian

“Ecological crisis signals the death knell for an economic system that was already profoundly failing us, as Paul Mason mercilessly illustrates in these pages. Building on a remarkable career's worth of reporting on the frontlines of global capitalism and worker resistance, this book is an original, engaging, and bracingly-articulated vision of real alternatives. It is sure to many spark vigorous debates, and they are precisely the ones we should be having.” ―Naomi Klein

“After postmodernism and all other fashionable post-trends, Mason fearlessly confronts the only true post-, postcapitalism. While we can see all around us ominous signs of the impasses of global capitalism, it is perhaps more than ever difficult to imagine a feasible alternative to it. How are we to deal with this frustrating situation? Although Mason's book is irresistibly readable, this clarity should not deceive us: it is a book which compels us to think!” ―Slavoj Žižek

Edition details

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0141975296
• ISBN 13: 9780141975290
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 368