Overview

Capitalism is in a profound state of crisis. Beyond the mere dispassionate cruelty of 'ordinary' structural violence, it appears today as a global system bent on reckless economic revenge; its expression found in mass incarceration, climate chaos, unpayable debt, pharmaceutical violence and the relentless degradation of common life. In Revenge Capitalism, Max Haiven argues that this economic vengeance helps us explain the culture and politics of revenge we see in society more broadly. Moving from the history of colonialism and its continuing effects today, he examines the opioid crisis in the US, the growth of 'surplus populations' worldwide and unpacks the central paradigm of unpayable debts - both as reparations owed, and as a methodology of oppression. Revenge Capitalism offers no easy answers, but is a powerful call to the radical imagination.

Full Product Details

Author:   Max Haiven (Lakehead University, Canada)
Publisher:   Pluto Press
Imprint:   Pluto Press
Weight:   0.516kg
ISBN:  

9780745340555

ISBN 10:   0745340555
Pages:   288
Publication Date:   20 May 2020
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.

Table of Contents

List of figures Acknowledgments Preface Introduction: we want revenge 1. Toward a materialist theory of revenge Interlude: Shylock’s vindication, or Venice’s bonds? 2. The work of art in an age of unpayable debts: social reproduction, geopolitics, and settler colonialism Interlude: Ahab’s coin, or Moby Dick’s currencies? 3. Money as a medium of vengeance: colonial accumulation and proletarian practices Interlude: Khloé Kardashian’s revenge body, or the Zapatisa nobody? 4. Our Opium Wars: pain, race, and the ghosts of empire Interlude: V's vendetta, or Joker's retribution? 5. The dead zone: financialized nihilism, toxic wealth, and vindictive technologies Conclusion: revenge fantasy or avenging imaginary? Coda: 11 theses on revenge capitalism Postscript: after the pandemic – against the vindictive normal Notes Index

Reviews

'A deeply learned debt warrior, Haiven lays bare the abject cruelty of financial capitalism, and provides us with a rich supply of sources and arguments for a fightback that gives as good as it takes' -- Andrew Ross, author of 'Creditocracy and the Case for Debt Refusal' 'Perhaps the most theoretically creative radical thinker of the moment' -- David Graeber, author of 'Debt: The First 5000 Years'

Author Information

Max Haiven is Research Chair in Culture, Media and Social Justice at Lakehead University, Canada. His books include Art after Money, Money after Art (Pluto, 2018), Crises of Imagination, Crises of Power (Zed Books, 2004), Cultures of Financialization (Palgrave MacMillan, 2014) and the Radical Imagination (Zed Books, 2014).

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