We are swamped these days with brave new radical writing which –
given the populist mood in so much of the world – seems to have an element of
whistling in the wind about it.
I will try in future posts to draw all of this together and perhaps even make some suggestions....
My purpose in both the last post
and this one is to take a step back and to try to identify what I might call
the “perennial progressive” books – whose analysis remains fresh over time and
whose programmes for where we should place our energies are credible.
Too many books are strong on the dismantling of the present and weak on
the description of what should come next.
Restakis and Wainwright (in the table below) are good examples of a focus
on a positive vision….as are Bregman, Cumbers, Dorling, Gibson-Graham, Olin
Wright and even the Labour Party…
I have a little book on my shelves Utopia
or Bust – a guide to the present crisis by Benjamin Kunkel (2014) which you
can also flick by clicking the title…At one level it is superb – a nice 20 page
introduction to profiles of 6 leftist writers and a 7 page Guide to Further
Reading.
For me an ideal structure….we need more of this. But I’m let down by
his choice of the individuals for profiling – three of them are fine (David Harvey
who was one of the first to diagnose Neoliberalism; Robert Brenner and David
Graeber) but the other half are cultural theorists (Jameson, Zizek and someone
called Boris Groys). OK the book's author is actually a novelist and is turned on by that
sort of stuff - but I have to say I was tricked by his sub-title
Today I am looking at books written after the crash. A couple
of years ago I did an annotated list of the key titles of the past
decade - there were 50 of them - trying to make sense of the new economic world in which we find
ourselves.
But this is not an updating – although several new titles are in the
table….this is a prioritising – in other words a short-listing of the essential
books anyone seriously interested in making sense of our contemporary world
needs, in my opinion, to dip into
I have selected 20 individuals for very short profiling – although clicking
the title will often give you the entire book.
There are far fewer Americans in this list and more Europeans….I’m not sure what that says….
There are far fewer Americans in this list and more Europeans….I’m not sure what that says….
AFTER THE CRASH (names are in alphabetical order)
Name
|
Title
of relevant book
|
What
they bring to the table
|
Arrighi,
Giovanni
|
All activists need to take the
trouble to read at least one serious overview of the global political
economy. Gilpin’s “Global Political Economy” is clear but a bit outdated; and
Panich and Gindin’s “The Making of Global Capitalism” also very clear but too
oriented to the American Empire
|
|
Blyth,
Mark
|
Blyth is a political economist who
trained as a political scientist and uses his understanding of early
political scientists to blow the case for austerity apart.
|
|
Bregman,
Rutger
|
Utopia for Realists – and how we can get there; (2016 Eng)
|
Journalist whose little book has got a
high profile. It certainly is written very well but is very light and focuses
mainly on universal income and the short working week. Example of great
marketing
|
Collier,
Paul
|
||
Cumbers,
Andrew
|
Renewing Public Ownership – making space for a democratic economy (2014)
|
Political economist makes the case –
rarely heard in 2014 – for “the people” owning natural monopolies and other
assets
|
Davey,
Brian
|
Davey trained as an economist but has
moved on to community work and here treats the economic discipline as a set
of religious beliefs which need to be demystified and questioned.
|
|
Dorling,
Danny
|
A geographer who can both use
statistics and write very well tells some home truths. His Injustice – why social inequality persists (2010) was the best treatment I had read since
Tawney
|
|
Gibson-Graham
|
Economist and feminist. In some ways,
an update of Douthwaite (1996) - although not quite so well written
|
|
Kennedy,
Paul
|
A sociologist’s treatment which earns
high points by stating in the very first sentence that it has “stood on the
shoulders of so many giants that he is dizzy” and then proves the point by
having an extensive bibliography with lots of hyperlinks…It can be read in full here
|
|
Korten,
David
|
The latest in the grand old man of
activism’s series of books not only critiquing our economic system but setting out a more sensible path
|
|
Labour
Party (UK)
|
A discussion document from the Shadow
Cabinet during the 2017 election campaign
|
|
Laloux,
Frederic
|
Reinventing Organisations; (2014)
|
A rare book by an organisational
consultant which places the cooperative company (in its various guises) in
the wider context of organ types. A must for the activist - can be downloaded
in full from the link
|
Mander,
Jerry
|
Highly readable but strangely neglected
analysis from the great American journalist and ecologist – who also wrote “Four
Arguments for getting rid of Television”!
|
|
Mason,
Paul
|
Mason is a high-profile journalist
bursting with ideas and this is a well-written which does justice to both
history and the implications of the new high-tech world
|
|
Mazucatto,
Mariana
|
A long-overdue reminder of the key role
played by state investment
|
|
Mintzberg,
Henry
|
Rebalancing Society; (2014)
|
The Canadian management guru who was
warning in 2000 of capitalist excess and then had the courage to produce this
pamphlet.
|
Mulgan,
Geoff
|
This should be an important book but is
written at too high a level of generality … no entries in the index for
“cooperatives” or “ownership” and no mention of Jeff Gates’ “The Ownership
Solution” of 1998 despite a credit Gates gave Mulgan in his “The Ownership
Solution”
|
|
Olin-Wright,
Erik
|
Envisioning
Real Utopias (2009)
|
One leftist made
some withering suggestions that Wright operated too long in an academic
sociological bubble and should have mixed more with other disciplines and
perspectives…
His university keeps a full range of his papers accessible
here – and they are a treasure trove for the researcher.
|
Parker,
Martin, Fournier V P Reedy
|
A fascinating collection of entries
illustrating the richness of thinking about alternative futures – past and
present
|
|
Restakis,
John
|
Written by an activist with a degree in
religion! This is one of the most persuasive books about the essential
contribution the cooperative spirit can make not only to our economic life
but its quality. Useful summary here
|
|
Srnicek
and Williams
|
Sociologists who favour the
“accelerationist” strategy
|
|
Streeck
Wolfgang
|
a collection of this German sociologist’s
key articles, many from New Left Review. Superbly written but weak on future
of work and environment
|
|
Tirole,
Jean
|
Economics for the Common Good (2017 Eng)
|
Nobel prize winner 2014..French Economist.
This is political economy as it should be practised – taking the themes of
interest to us all and reasoning seriously with us about them.
|
Varoufakis,
Yanis
|
A brilliant and highly readable account
of how the financial crash came. For a summary see
|
No comments:
Post a Comment