McKenzie Wark: Capital Is Dead: Is This Something Worse? (2019)

“It’s not capitalism, it’s not neoliberalism—what if it’s something worse?

In this radical and visionary new book, McKenzie Wark argues that information has empowered a new kind of ruling class. Through the ownership and control of information, this emergent class dominates not only labour but capital as traditionally understood as well. And it’s not just tech companies like Amazon and Google. Even Walmart and Nike can now dominate the entire production chain through the ownership of not much more than brands, patents, copyrights, and logistical systems.

While techno-utopian apologists still celebrate these innovations as an improvement on capitalism, for workers—and the planet—it’s worse. The new ruling class uses the powers of information to route around any obstacle labor and social movements put up. So how do we find a way out? Capital Is Dead offers not only the theoretical tools to analyze this new world, but ways to change it. Drawing on the writings of a surprising range of classic and contemporary theorists, Wark offers an illuminating overview of the contemporary condition and the emerging class forces that control—and contest—it.”

Publisher Verso, London, 2019
ISBN 9781788735308, 1788735307
202 pages

Book launch (with Natasha Lennard, video, 90 min).
Interviews with author: Verso Books (video, 2019, 16 min), Red May TV (with Alexander Zevin, Jasper Bernes and Wendy Liu, video, 2020, 110 min), Guy Mannes-Abbot (Tank, 2019).

Reviews: Garrett Pierman (Marx & Philosophy, 2020), Ben Tripp (Hyperallergic, 2020), Madeleine Collier (Afterimage, 2020), Colin Drumm (Cosmonaut, 2019), Mark Steven (Sydney Review of Books, 2020), Steve Hanson (Manchester Review of Books, 2020), Antonio Navarro (Teknokultura, 2020, ES).

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PDF (9 MB, added on 2019-11-22)