Their End Is Our Beginning: Cops, Capitalism, and Abolition

A deeply reported analysis of the connections between policing and capitalism, centering global lessons of revolt and resistance

Where do cops come from and what do they do? How did “modern policing” as we know it today come to be? What about the capitalist state necessitates policing? In this clear and comprehensive account of why and how the police―the linchpin of capitalism―function and exist, organizer and author brian bean presents a clear case for the abolition of policing and capitalism.

Their End Is Our Beginning traces the roots and development of policing in global capitalism through colonial rule, racist enslavement, and class oppression, along the way arguing how police power can be challenged and, ultimately, abolished. bean draws from extensive interviews with activists from Mexico to Ireland to Egypt, all of whom share compelling and knowledgeable perspectives on what it takes to―even if temporarily―take down the cops and build a thriving community-organized society, free from the police. The lessons they offer bring nuance to the meaning of “solidarity” and clarity to what “abolition” and “revolution” look like in practice.

Featuring illustrations by Chicago-based artist Charlie Aleck, Their End Is Our Beginning is an incendiary book that offers a socialist analysis of policing and the capitalist state, a vital discussion of the contours of abolition at large, and the revolutionary logic needed for liberation.

brian bean is a Chicago-based socialist organizer, writer, and agitator originally from North Carolina. They are one of the founding editors of Rampant magazine. Their work has been published in Truthout, Jacobin, Tempest, Spectre, Red Flag, New Politics, Socialist Worker, International Viewpoint, and more. They coedited and contributed to the book Palestine: A Socialist Introduction, and wrote Their End is Our Beginning: Cops, Capitalism, and Abolition, both from Haymarket Books.

Charlie Aleck is a queer, First Nations artist (Nuu-chah-nulth) based in Chicago.