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Clear Bright Future: A Radical Defence of the Human Being Paperback – August 1, 2020
Purchase options and add-ons
- Print length368 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherPenguin
- Publication dateAugust 1, 2020
- Dimensions5.06 x 0.9 x 7.81 inches
- ISBN-100141986727
- ISBN-13978-0141986722
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Editorial Reviews
Review
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
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
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,630,682 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #786 in Sociology of Social Theory
- #979 in Humanist Philosophy
- #2,413 in Medical Cognitive Psychology
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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.
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.