The factors that brought about the 2008 financial collapse are examined in this analysis that explores the systemic crisis of capitalism after two decades of neoliberal globalization. Samir Amin lays bare the relationship between dominating oligopolies and the globalization of the world economy and argues that the current crisis is a profound crisis of the capitalist system itself, bringing forward an era in which wars--and perhaps revolutions--will once again shake the world. The author examines the threat to the plutocracies of the United States, Europe, and Japan from decisions of recent G20 meetings and analyzes these powers' attempts to get back to the pre-2008 system and to impose their domination on the peoples of the South through intensifying military intervention by using institutions such as NATO. An alternative strategy which, by building on the advances made by progressive forces in Latin America, would allow for a more humane society through both the North and the South working together is proposed.

"Prophecies about the end of capitalism are as old as capitalism. None of them, so far, has come true. Yet we keep looking into the crystal ball in search of harbingers of doom. Francesco Boldizzoni gets to the root of the very human need to imagine a better world and uncovers the mechanisms by which the same forecasting mistakes are made over and over again. He offers a compelling solution to the puzzle of what is capitalism and why it seems able to survive all sorts of shocks. The global crisis that developed countries faced at the beginning of the twenty-first century has undermined faith in the capitalist market economy bringing once again to the forefront questions about its long-term prospects. Is capitalism on its way out? If not, what should be expected from future crises? Will society be able and willing to bear the social and environmental costs of creative destruction and relentless financialization? These and other questions have lain at the heart of political economy since the age of Karl Marx. Foretelling the End of Capitalism takes us on a journey through two centuries of unfulfilled prophecies to challenge the belief in an immutable destiny"--

For nearly 300 years, capitalism propelled the world's most successful economies to new heights of development. But a spate of global environmental disasters and severe economic crises compels thinkers to question whether the system continues to function. Leveraging historical perspective, extensive research, and case studies, The Crises of Capitalism builds a compelling argument that challenges the most fundamental assumptions of prevailing economic theory. Saral Sarkar exposes capitalism's flaws through the lens of ecosocialism, a philosophy that asserts that natural resources drive production and development. Keynes, Schumpeter, Marx, and Engles had no reason to believe that there would ever be a shortage of oil, minerals, water, or food—and that technological innovation could surmount any obstacle. But oil extraction has peaked, food is harder to come by, and the cost to maintain what natural resources remain has increased exponentially. Capitalism requires constant innovation to create growth—but as Sarkar establishes, even computers wouldn't exist without copper, gold, and zinc. The Crises of Capitalism exists at the intersection of environmental awareness and economic theory. Sarkar challenges predominant explanations for catastrophic events like the 2008 global economic crisis, revises the classic paradigm of growth, and points to evidence of systemic economic failure. In this provocative, revolutionary criticism, Sarkar suggests that like other long–abandoned economic theories, capitalism has reached its limits. "This is an important book, and it is on the front edge of the thinking that has to come to bear on the real crisis the world is facing, of the impossible idea of growth forever and the economic model that is driving the planet into irreversible crises." —Doug Tompkins

In Allegories of the End of Capitalism, Milo Sweedler deconstructs the events of films Melancholia; Cosmopolis; Suffragette; Django Unchained; Elysium and Snowpiercer, the socio-political contexts they arise from and enter into, and their impact on contemporary culture and life. He examines how filmmakers from six different countries, across four continents, give narrative and audio-visual form to the frustration and anger that burst into public view in 2011, the ongoing class war between the super-rich and the rest of the world's population, and the insurrection that it yet to come.

One of the “Best Books of the Year”: Guardian • Financial Times • Times Higher Education A major collection of essays that questions whether contemporary capitalism will end with a bang or a whimper—from a leading political economist and the author of Buying Time. After years of ill health, capitalism is now in a critical condition. Growth has given way to stagnation; inequality is leading to instability; and confidence in the money economy has all but evaporated. In How Will Capitalism End?, the acclaimed analyst of contemporary politics and economics Wolfgang Streeck argues that the world is about to change. The marriage between democracy and capitalism, ill-suited partners brought together in the shadow of World War II, is coming to an end. The regulatory institutions that once restrained the financial sector’s excesses have collapsed and, after the final victory of capitalism at the end of the Cold War, there is no political agency capable of rolling back the liberalization of the markets. Ours has become a world defined by declining growth, oligarchic rule, a shrinking public sphere, institutional corruption and international anarchy, and no cure to these ills is at hand.

Commentators across the political spectrum have argued that the future has been absorbed by an ever-expanding present to which we cannot imagine alternatives. The notion that we have lost the ability to imagine change-culturally, socially, and politically-has become one of the defining problems of our time. But what is the difference between the populist narratives of those who promise to solve this problem by returning us to a glorious past and those who promise to lead us into a glorious future? Often, this book argues, not very much at all. Revealing neo-authoritarianism and capitalist hyper-innovation as two sides of the same coin, Mathias Nilges shows that today's reactionaries and futurists both harness and profit from the same temporal crises of our present. Looking to design, popular culture, literature, and recent theoretical and political discussions, Nilges offers ways of understanding the re-emergence of familiar and disturbing forms of right-wing politics and culture (authoritarianism, paternalism, fascism) not as historical repetition but as dangerous consequences of the contradictions of capitalism today. Using critical theory, in particular the work of Ernst Bloch, this book recovers a politics and culture of hope, which it locates beyond a future that is colonized by capitalism and a past that becomes the mystical playground for the new Right:in that which was never allowed to be and thus demands realization.

Essays that explore new ways of living with technological change Every year since 1964, the Socialist Register has offered a fascinating survey of movements and ideas from the independent new left. This year's edition asks readers to explore just how we need to live with new technologies. Essays in this 57th Socialist Register reveal the contradictions and dislocations of technological change in the twenty-first century. And they explore alternative ways of living: from artificial intelligence (AI) to the arts, from transportation to fashion, from environmental science to economic planning. Greg Albo - Post-capitalism: Alternatives or detours? Nicole Aschoff and Pankaj Mahta - AI-deology: Science, capitalism and the dream of a ‘people’s AI’ Hugo Radice - There is nothing artificial about AI: Labour, class, utopia, socialism Larry Lohman - Interpretation machines: Contradictions of digital mechanization in twenty-first century capitalism Robin Hahnel - Democratic socialist planning: Against, with and beyond the new technologies Tanner Mirrlees - Platform socialists in the age of digital capitalism Derek Hrynyshyn – Imagining information socialism Bryan Palmer - Capitalism and the clock: Time’s meaning in the struggle for socialism Sean Sweeney and John Treat - Shifting gears: Labour strategies for low-carbon public transit mobility Adam Greenfield - Smart cities, technological traps, democratic possibilities Christoph Hermann - The consequences of commodification: Contours of a post-capitalist society Joan Sangster – The surveillance of service labour: Conditions and possibilities of resistance Jeronimo Montero Bressan - Beyond neoliberal fashion: Imagining clothing production as a human need Massimiliano Mollona - Art/Commons: Art collectives and the post-capitalist imagination Ingar Solty – The world of tomorrow: Scenarios for our future between demise and hope

Ernest Mandel (1923–1995) was one of the best-known Marxist scholars active in the second half of the twentieth century. A leading member of the Fourth International, his books on capitalist economics, bureaucracies in the workers’ movement and on power and socialist strategy were translated into many languages. Democratic self-organisation of workers was a red thread that ran through all of his thinking. In Against Capitalism and Bureaucracy, Manuel Kellner presents the first and until now only comprehensive overview of Mandel’s theoretical and political contributions, arguing that his work remains important for the debates on a socialist alternative in the twenty-first century.

In this thought-provoking new book, Anthony Smith analyses key debates between historians and social scientists on the role of nations and nationalism in history. In a wide-ranging analysis of the work of historians, sociologists, political scientists and others, he argues that there are three key issues which have shaped debates in this field: first, the nature and origin of nations and nationalism; second, the antiquity or modernity of nations and nationalism; and third, the role of nations and nationalism in historical, and especially recent, social change. Anthony Smith provides an incisive critique of the debate between modernists, perennialists and primordialists over the origins, development and contemporary significance of nations and nationalism. Drawing on a wide range of examples from antiquity and the medieval epoch, as well as the modern world, he develops a distinctive ethnosymbolic account of nations and nationalism. This important book by one of the world’s leading authorities on nationalism and ethnicity will be of particular interest to students and scholars in history, sociology and politics.

Daniel Bell assesses the impact of Christian resistance to capitalism in Latin America, and the implications of theological debates that have emerged from this. He uses postmodern critical theory to investigate capitalism, its effect upon human desire and the Church's response to it, in a thorough account of the rise, failure and future prospects of Latin American liberation theology.