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Clear Bright Future: A Radical Defence of the Human Being Paperback – August 1, 2020

4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 156 ratings

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How do we preserve what makes us human in an age of uncertainty? Are we now just consumers shaped by market forces? A sequence of DNA? A collection of base instincts? Or will we soon be supplanted by algorithms and A.I. anyway? In Clear Bright Future, Paul Mason calls for a radical, impassioned defense of the human being, our universal rights and freedoms and our power to change the world around us. Ranging from economics to Big Data, from neuroscience to the culture wars, he draws from his on-the-ground reporting from mass protests in Istanbul to riots in Washington, as well as his own childhood in an English mining community, to show how the notion of humanity has become eroded as never before. In this book Paul Mason argues that we are still capable—through language, innovation and co-operation—of shaping our future. He offers a vision of humans as more than puppets, customers or cogs in a machine. This work of radical optimism asks: Do you want to be controlled? Or do you want something better?
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Editorial Reviews

Review

It has quick wit, vivid prose and makes rapid and stimulating connections. Its subtitle sums up its strengths. Fundamentally, Mason believes in the power of agency - the ability to choose to act and shape your own future. —Financial Times

A very interesting book, wide-ranging, insightful and yet still optimistic...some of his glosses on the history of ideas, and their impact on our troubled present, are alone worth the price of the book: he explains, lucidly and persuasively, how the uncertainty principles of quantum mechanics - questionable in themselves - have bled, via post-modernist theory, into the climate of irrationalism and fatalism that fuels Brexit, Putin and Trump.  —
Irish Times

Clear Bright Future's account of our political predicament is thrilling. —Guardian

Paul Mason is doing something remarkable in this book, though it shouldn't be remarkable: he's focusing on the nature of being human, and how this is affected for better or worse by social, economic, and political forces that might seem overwhelming. It's the best analysis of neo-liberalism that I've seen for a long time, and puts our lives in a richly described context. Best of all, it's written with clarity and passion. I hope it'll change many minds. —Philip Pullman

Building on a remarkable career's worth of reporting on the frontlines of global capitalism and worker resistance, this book is an original, engaging, and bracingly-articulated vision of real alternatives. It is sure to many spark vigorous debates, and they are precisely the ones we should be having.” ―Naomi Klein on
Postcapitalism

Even readers not quite persuaded will appreciate Mason's readable, reportorial style, his use of a wide range of economists, business gurus, and economic thinkers to help support his thesis, and his deft treatment of sometimes-difficult economic theories . . . A radical diagnosis and a bold prognostication bound to energize progressives. ―
Kirkus Reviews on Postcapitalism

I can’t remember the last book I read that managed to carve its way through the forest of political and economic ideas with such brio . . . As a spark to the imagination, with frequent x-ray flashes of insight into the way we live now, it is hard to beat. In that sense, Mason is a worthy successor to Marx.” ―
Guardian on Postcapitalism

About the Author

Paul Mason is an award-winning writer, broadcaster, and film-maker. Previously economics editor of Channel 4 News, his books include PostCapitalism, Why It's Kicking Off Everywhere: the New Global Revolutions; Live Working Die Fighting; and Rare Earth: A Novel.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Penguin (August 1, 2020)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 368 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0141986727
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0141986722
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.06 x 0.9 x 7.81 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 156 ratings

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Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
4.4 out of 5
156 global ratings

Top review from the United States

Reviewed in the United States on September 4, 2019
Paul Mason has a very well constructed thesis and has certainly done his homework. Very thought provoking. I'm sure to refer to again and again to get his perspective on where we are headed and what we can do guide us in the right direction.
2 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

andreas Riedel
1.0 out of 5 stars Clear Bright Future: A Radical Defence of the Human Being
Reviewed in Germany on December 10, 2019
One star for the quality of the printing.
Obviously written by somebody who does not understand the nature of human beings and therefore wants to change them ideologicly. Many attemps were made but always failed. The last one was the DDR. One of our biggest mistakes within some of our political parties, mainly on the so called left side of the political spectrum.
The book is incoherantly written und makes very little sense. Ever so often some quotes from past personalties are thrown in but totally out of context.
Forgettable if not a prime example for a mindset which does not evolve and has not and will not.
One person found this helpful
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JWH
5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating, Wide-Ranging and Passionate Socialist Analysis of Contemporary Life
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 23, 2019
The Professor in the last book of CS Lewis' Narnia series (The Last Battle) mutters "It's all in Plato, all in Plato". If you replace the visual image of the Professor with a proudly Northern economics journalist in a leather jacket shouting "it's all in Marx, all in Marx", that catches something of the spirit of this book.
It is a very wide-ranging book, moving fairly effortlessly from worldwide vignettes of real life from his journalism into explorations of both Marxist and Liberal thought.

As might be expected from the title and sub-title, the author is a fierce opponent of what he terms right-wing authoritarianism and the techno-literate fascism of the alt-right (some of this was an eye-opening horror to this reader!) and he goes into some detail as to both the threat they pose but also the mechanisms by which they have achieved increasing success. However, he lays a lot of the blame for the rise of these onto left-wing postmodernist thought, which undercut the appeals to rationality and science that Mason, and Marxism generally, wishes to make. He has a special dislike for Nietzschean philosophy, which he believes underpins both fascism and the more extreme forms of capitalism.

More time and effort is spent both condemning and, more importantly, burying neoliberalism which he feels has left capitalism in contradictions it cannot get out of, hence the need for radical change. He explores this in some detail by showing the history of how it has reduced the power of the worker, the nation and the users of communications' technology, whilst increasing the power of multi-nationals, tech companies and financiers. Naturally the 2008 crash and its consequences are fully explored.

Marx is praised, particularly because the author feels his development of the labour theory of value is better able to explain the contemporary and future world of free networked information. The author also wishes to reclaim the humanist Marx, as opposed to the determinist Marx that was later emphasized. He is no slavish acolyte though: Marx does get criticized at points. The position of the working class throughout the history of capitalism is foregrounded.

He lays great emphasis on the possibilities of (more-or-less) free networked information and individuals as both the lever for change and its paradigm. However, he equally sees great dangers for human freedom and well-being in the increased power of tech giants and surveillance states exploiting increasingly powerful artificial intelligence. The examples are very wide-ranging here, incorporating Atari's original video game Breakout and cult classic Blade Runner...

The book finishes with the authors hopes for the future and his call to arms, both in the general hope of a communism of abundance and freedom, with some specific directions and recommendations for achieving this.

Short summaries like this cannot do Mason's arguments justice: his arguments are deeper and wider than that: Trump, Russia, racism, sexism, pornography, crime, the Iraq War, UKIP etc. all get a place. I really enjoyed it! It resembles a George Monbiot book in many ways, in the richness and variety of the discussions and the boldness in putting out solutions to be torn apart, or built upon.

I did have some criticisms: I thought that the author was unduly confident that capitalism would collapse rather than evolve and he was very sanguine about the capability of states and his networked humans to create systems which could resist algorithmic controls and authoritarian states. This mirrored a slight romanticization of the working class and an important gap for me: he never seemed to say whether the defeat of organized labour by neoliberalism was inevitable or the result of bad tactics. It seems possible that the power of organized labour was just as responsible for breaking down the post-war Keynesian consensus as the financiers and conservatives the author does in fact blame. He shows that he is a man of the Left, and the Right may not get an entirely fair hearing, although he does try and be as fair as he can to thinkers like Hayek, for example.

The book is highly recommended for anyone interested in the wider direction of contemporary politics, economics and society. The author has a very readable style, doing the detail without getting dull, and whether one agrees with the author or not, is full of fascinating argument and insight. It builds upon his previous book, Postcapitalism, but with a slightly wider purview than that book. Casual readers wanting to know what the author believes in general could probably make do with either one of the books, but those more interested in his thought will want both.
31 people found this helpful
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eduardo
5.0 out of 5 stars a lot of information
Reviewed in Spain on August 10, 2019
I want to know!!!!
Charles Tan
4.0 out of 5 stars A well-written book for the radical left.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 13, 2020
I have a copy of the physical book. Getting it on kindle so that I can re-read it again sometime. While I might not agree with everything Mason has said, it encapsulates issues that the radical left in the West would need to grapple with. A well-written book.
Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Actual
Reviewed in Spain on November 6, 2019