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A sweeping, dramatic history of capitalism as seen through the eyes of its fiercest critics.
At a time when artificial intelligence, climate change, and inequality are raising fundamental questions about the economic system, Capitalism and Its Critics provides a kaleidoscopic history of global capitalism, from the East India Company to Apple. But here John Cassidy, a staff writer at The New Yorker and a Pulitzer Prize finalist, adopts a bold new approach: he tells the story through the eyes of the system's critics. From the Haitian rebels who overthrew French colonial capitalism and the English Luddites who rebelled against early factory automation, to the Latin American dependistas, the international Wages for Housework campaign of the 1970s, and the modern degrowth movement, the absorbing narrative traverses the globe. It visits with familiar names-Smith, Marx, Luxemburg, Keynes, Polyani-but also focuses on many less familiar figures, including William Thompson, the Irish proto-socialist whose work influenced Marx; Flora Tristan, the French proponent of a universal labor union; John Hobson, the original theorist of imperialism; J. C. Kumarappa, the Indian exponent of Ghandian economics; Eric Williams, the Trinidadian author of a famous thesis on slavery and capitalism; Joan Robinson, the Cambridge economist and critic of the Cold War; and Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, the founding father of degrowth.
Blending rich biography, panoramic history, and lively exploration of economic theories, “Capitalism and Its Critics” is true big history that illuminates the deep roots of many of the most urgent issues of our time.
At a time when artificial intelligence, climate change, and inequality are raising fundamental questions about the economic system, Capitalism and Its Critics provides a kaleidoscopic history of global capitalism, from the East India Company to Apple. But here John Cassidy, a staff writer at The New Yorker and a Pulitzer Prize finalist, adopts a bold new approach: he tells the story through the eyes of the system's critics. From the Haitian rebels who overthrew French colonial capitalism and the English Luddites who rebelled against early factory automation, to the Latin American dependistas, the international Wages for Housework campaign of the 1970s, and the modern degrowth movement, the absorbing narrative traverses the globe. It visits with familiar names-Smith, Marx, Luxemburg, Keynes, Polyani-but also focuses on many less familiar figures, including William Thompson, the Irish proto-socialist whose work influenced Marx; Flora Tristan, the French proponent of a universal labor union; John Hobson, the original theorist of imperialism; J. C. Kumarappa, the Indian exponent of Ghandian economics; Eric Williams, the Trinidadian author of a famous thesis on slavery and capitalism; Joan Robinson, the Cambridge economist and critic of the Cold War; and Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, the founding father of degrowth.
Blending rich biography, panoramic history, and lively exploration of economic theories, “Capitalism and Its Critics” is true big history that illuminates the deep roots of many of the most urgent issues of our time.
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This audiobook takes a sideways look at the history of capitalism by profiling some of its critics from the dawn of the Industrial Revolution to today's digital revolution. Some names and movements will be familiar, such as Karl Marx, John Maynard Keynes, and the English Luddites. Many others are less widely known. Nathaniel Priestly narrates the work in a steady professional tone. The author is a
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