● The Corporation in the Twenty-First Century: Why (Almost) Everything We Are Told About Business Is Wrong
John Kay
Review via Financial Times
When capital-intensive plant and machinery were the means of production, the capitalist elite had permanent power over the workers. But now control resides with professional managers who derive power not from ownership of the physical means of production or accumulated wealth but from their transient role in the business. Thus “the workers are the means of production” — and Kay’s italics are important.
Building on this, the importance of capital needs downgrading and redefining, argues Kay, a former FT columnist. In a suggestion that will jar with those actually running businesses or trying to start them up, the capital requirement of modern business is relatively modest. But it is difficult to argue with the observation that the modern IPO is more a means of enabling founders to extract capital than to raise it.

● The Master’s Tools: How Finance Wrecked Democracy (And a Radical Plan to Rebuild It)
Michael McCarthy
Summary via publisher (Verso)
Why is democracy so broken and how might it be fixed? In The Master’s Tools, award-winning author Michael A. McCarthy argues the answer can be found in the flows of credit and investment bound up with finance capital. Today, finance guides and constrains our politics, but there is no reason why this must be so. In this groundbreaking work, McCarthy develops a political and social theory of institutional transformation rooted in the interconnectedness of finance and democracy. Inspired by ancient Athens, where small groups chosen by lottery were used to ensure democratic participation, he shows how democracy and working-class power can be strengthened by introducing new forms of financial governance, focusing on the inclusion of historically excluded groups.

● The Bailout State: Why Governments Rescue Banks, Not People‘
Martijn Konings
Summary via publisher (Polity)
How did we end up in a world where social programs are routinely cut in the name of market discipline and fiscal austerity, yet large banks get bailed out whenever they get into trouble? In The Bailout State, Martijn Konings exposes the inner workings of this sprawling infrastructure of government guarantees. Backstopping financial markets and securing banks’ balance sheets, this contemporary Leviathan manages the inflationary pressures that its generosity produces by tightening the financial screws on the rest of the population. To a large extent, the bailout state was built by progressives seeking to buttress the institutions of the early postwar period. The resulting tide of capital gains fostered an asset-centered politics that experienced its heyday in the nineties. But ever since the financial crisis of 2007-08, promises of inclusive economic growth have looked increasingly thin.

● The Mechanic and the Luddite: A Ruthless Criticism of Technology and Capitalism
Jathan Sadowski
Summary via U. of California Press
This short book demystifies how the two systems of technology and capitalism work together and equips readers with practical tools to dismantle them and build a better world, bit by bit. Our society is constantly made to serve the needs of two systems: technology and capitalism. Neither exists outside humans, but both are treated as above and beyond us. The Mechanic and the Luddite offers the critical tools needed to deconstruct these systems—how they work, whom they work for, and what work they do in our lives. With signature style and energy, Jathan Sadowski presents a provocative one-stop shop for understanding the political economy of technology and capitalism.

● Monetary Economics and Policy: A Foundation for Modern Currency Systems
Pierpaolo Benigno
Summary via publisher (Princeton U. Press)
Over the past two decades, monetary policy has been deployed in unprecedented ways, as central banks attempted to mitigate the adverse consequences of the 2007–2008 financial crisis, the COVID-19 global lockdown, and recent inflationary surges. In Monetary Economics and Policy, Pierpaolo Benigno offers a new way to understand the potency and effectiveness of monetary policy, presenting a unified modeling framework to analyze policy challenges posed by both paper and digital currency systems. He investigates current theoretical and policy controversies, drawing connections with historical themes in monetary economics.

● 99% Perspiration: A New Working History of the American Way of Life
Adam Chandler
Interview with author via KERA radio
Q: The thing you take aim at here is a concept you call American Abracadabra. What is this magical belief we have?
A: Well, essentially, when we think about the abracadabra, it’s it’s sort of like the bootstraps myth. It’s the lived in companion to it. As you mentioned, the bootstraps myth is this classic American idea that it’s up to you to pull yourself toward success. And the abracadabra is the sleight of hand, sort of a magic trick that says if you don’t make it in America, the land of opportunity, it’s because you’re not trying hard enough. And so it turns success or failure into a matter of individual character. Rather than have us collectively confront the obstacles that have made it so much harder to achieve in recent years.

● The Certainty Illusion: What You Don’t Know and Why It Matters
Timothy Caulfield
Essay by author in The Toronto Star
We are evolutionarily hardwired to prioritize emotional content, especially scary and maddening stuff. This powerful tendency — called the negativity bias — is universal and, for most of human history, worked in our favour (hence the “hardwired” bit). But in today’s chaotic information environment, this propensity is being exploited: by the algorithms that decide what content we see; by marketers to sell products and brands; by politicians to garner votes; and by state actors to create distrust and divide us. It is also facilitating the profound distortion of our reality, allowing our beliefs and behaviours to be informed more by scary lies than nuanced facts.

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