Here are 100 books that After Capitalism fans have personally recommended if you like
After Capitalism.
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There are many big problems in the world today–racism, war, climate change, unaccountable governments, exploitative corporations, and so on. But when you scratch the surface of almost any serious problem, what you find is that the root of the problem is inequality: a minority of people are rich and powerful, while those who suffer the most are typically poor and powerless. I’m so passionate about inequality because, in my eyes, it constitutes the heart and soul of what’s wrong with our world and the key to making things better.
In this already-classic work, Joseph Stiglitz–Nobel Prize winner and chief economist for the World Bank–describes the ways in which the market has been systematically rigged in favour of the rich and big business, leading to an explosion of inequality and the rise of the 1%.
I love how this book illustrates the ways in which inequality acts as a cancer on society, eating it apart from the inside. But Stiglitz also helped me to understand how such problems can be dealt with a realistic way.
The top 1 percent of Americans control some 40 percent of the nation's wealth. But as Joseph E. Stiglitz explains in this best-selling critique of the economic status quo, this level of inequality is not inevitable. Rather, in recent years well-heeled interests have compounded their wealth by stifling true, dynamic capitalism and making America no longer the land of opportunity that it once was. They have made America the most unequal advanced industrial country while crippling growth, distorting key policy debates, and fomenting a divided society. Stiglitz not only shows how and why America's inequality is bad for our economy…
There are many big problems in the world today–racism, war, climate change, unaccountable governments, exploitative corporations, and so on. But when you scratch the surface of almost any serious problem, what you find is that the root of the problem is inequality: a minority of people are rich and powerful, while those who suffer the most are typically poor and powerless. I’m so passionate about inequality because, in my eyes, it constitutes the heart and soul of what’s wrong with our world and the key to making things better.
Thomas Piketty rose to international fame for his 2014 Capital in the Twenty-First Century. But this book is even better. At a whopping 1000 pages, it’s a magnum opus. A phenomenally interesting panoramic of inequality across human history.
With intricate detail and voluminous evidence, Piketty documents the rise and fall of inequality throughout the ages, depicting the ways in which ideologies have worked to bolster or undermine it. Anyone who reads this book will walk away with a far richer understanding of some of the core dynamics underlying human history.
A New York Times Bestseller An NPR Best Book of the Year
The epic successor to one of the most important books of the century: at once a retelling of global history, a scathing critique of contemporary politics, and a bold proposal for a new and fairer economic system.
Thomas Piketty's bestselling Capital in the Twenty-First Century galvanized global debate about inequality. In this audacious follow-up, Piketty challenges us to revolutionize how we think about politics, ideology, and history. He exposes the ideas that have sustained inequality for the past millennium, reveals why the shallow politics of right and left…
There are many big problems in the world today–racism, war, climate change, unaccountable governments, exploitative corporations, and so on. But when you scratch the surface of almost any serious problem, what you find is that the root of the problem is inequality: a minority of people are rich and powerful, while those who suffer the most are typically poor and powerless. I’m so passionate about inequality because, in my eyes, it constitutes the heart and soul of what’s wrong with our world and the key to making things better.
Everyone is familiar with the idea of a minimum wage, but should there also be a maximum wage? Should there be an upper limit on the amount of wealth that anyone is allowed to possess? In this fantastic and easy-to-read book, Ingrid Robeyns convincingly argues yes. She shows why a society with billionaires is dangerous, unfair, unhealthy, and ultimately worse for everyone.
Like every brilliant book, this one starts off seeming radical but ends up seeming obvious.
"A powerful case for limitarianism-the idea that we should set a maximum on how much resources one individual can appropriate. A must-read!" -Thomas Piketty, bestselling author of Capital in the Twenty-First Century
An original, bold, and convincing argument for a cap on wealth by the philosopher who coined the term "limitarianism."
How much money is too much? Is it ethical, and democratic, for an individual to amass a limitless amount of wealth, and then spend it however they choose? Many of us feel that the answer to that is no-but what can we do about it?
There are many big problems in the world today–racism, war, climate change, unaccountable governments, exploitative corporations, and so on. But when you scratch the surface of almost any serious problem, what you find is that the root of the problem is inequality: a minority of people are rich and powerful, while those who suffer the most are typically poor and powerless. I’m so passionate about inequality because, in my eyes, it constitutes the heart and soul of what’s wrong with our world and the key to making things better.
Although many people intuitively recognize that inequality is a serious problem, there is widespread doubt that anything can realistically be done about it. Saez and Zucman–perhaps the two most famous tax economists in the world–demolish this pessimism. In a clear, no-nonsense manner, they demonstrate that tax systems can easily fail but they can also be made to work.
The authors describe how rich people and corporations currently avoid tax, how tax havens function, and, most importantly of all, how an evidence-based tax system can be successfully built to prevent evasion and thereby meaningfully reduce inequality.
Even as they became fabulously wealthy, the rich have seen their taxes collapse to levels last seen in the 1920s. Meanwhile working-class Americans have been asked to pay more. The Triumph of Injustice is a forensic investigation into this dramatic transformation. Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, economists who revolutionised the study of inequality, demonstrate how the super-rich pay a lower tax rate than everybody else. In crystalline prose they dissect the deliberate choices and the sins of indecision that have fuelled this trend: the gradual exemption of capital owners; the surge of a new tax-avoidance industry and, most critically, tax…
F. Scott Fitzgerald claimed, “there are no second acts in American lives.” But I am on my third. I started out in the theatre, then became a lawyer, and then a political philosopher. What drove each move is that I was always outraged by injustice and wanted to find a better way to fight against it. For me, reading, writing, and teaching political philosophy turned out to be that way. The books on this list provide important lessons on how certain economic policies can cause injustice while others can cure it. Each has been around for a long time, but they are as relevant today as when they were first written.
A renowned economist and Harvard professor with a bit of a cult following, Schumpeter provides a realistic evaluation of what capitalism is and whether it can survive if it does not do more to help a wider range of people.
First published in 1942, Schumpeter’s fear was the rise of socialism, but what he had to say about the failings of capitalism back then applies with equal force today.
Schumpeter was the originator of the term “creative destruction” to describe how capitalism works, and Part II of the book was the inspiration for my paper, “Can Liberal Capitalism Survive?”
“Joseph Schumpeter’s classic Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy explains the process of capitalism’s 'creative destruction' — a key principle in understanding the logic of globalization." — Thomas L. Friedman, Foreign Policy
In this definitive third and final edition (1950) of his prophetic masterwork, Joseph A. Schumpeter introduced the world to the concept of “creative destruction,” which forever altered how global economics is approached and perceived. Now featuring a new introduction by Pulitzer Prize-winning Schumpeter biographer Thomas K. McCraw, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy is essential reading for anyone who seeks to understand where the world economy is headed.
As Nobel prize-winning economist Robert Lucas put it, "Once you start thinking about economic growth, it's hard to think about anything else." That's why I am eager to share the best books on economic development with you! I am a Senior Economist at the World Bank, the world's premier development institution. Over the years, I have developed a deep interest in what makes countries prosper, have published extensively on the topic in academic journals, and earned a PhD in Economics along the way. As a development practitioner, I have been supporting sustainable growth across the globe, with working experience in the Caribbean, Africa, and the Pacific.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the 1990s saw the model of democratic capitalism prevail. Thirty years later, democracy is being questioned, and capitalism has been threatened by growing inequality.
Martin Wolf’s book provides a deep study of the underlying causes of this worrying development, something I very much appreciate. For all its flaws, Wolf argues that democratic capitalism remains the most promising economic model to provide individual freedom and shared prosperity, but it will require a revisiting of the concept of citizenship to foster a shared belief in the common good.
From the chief economics commentator of the Financial Times, a magnificent reckoning with how and why the marriage between democracy and capitalism is coming undone, and what can be done to reverse this terrifying dynamic
Martin Wolf has long been one of the wisest voices on global economic issues. He has rarely been called an optimist, yet he has never been as worried as he is today. Liberal democracy is in recession, and authoritarianism is on the rise. The ties that ought to bind open markets to free and fair elections are threatened, even in democracy’s heartlands, the United States…
I’ve always been intrigued by politics and the tools and tactics people use in attempts to gain and maintain power. Since 2010, I’ve been researching and writing about propaganda and digital media. With collaborators at the University of Washington, the University of Oxford, and—currently—the University of Texas at Austin, I’ve done groundbreaking work on computational propaganda: the use of algorithms and automation in attempts to control public opinion. I’ve also worked with numerous think tanks, news organizations, policymakers, and private firms in efforts to make sense of our current informational challenges. In the summer of 2022 I testified before the U.S. congress on election-oriented disinformation challenges faced by communities of color.
Papacharissi’s work—more so than almost any other thinker—has informed my thinking about how social media and the internet are inherently tied to politics and power. In this book, she interviews everyday citizens in order to understand where (and who) democracy has failed, but also how it might succeed in the future. This book situates communication, and particularly digital communication, at the center of our current political challenges. It manages to provide some much-needed hope, thinking through how technology and its use might be tied to solutions to the current problems associated with disinformation.
What do ordinary citizens really want from their governments?
Democracy has long been considered an ideal state of governance. What if it's not? Perhaps it is not the end goal but, rather, a transition stage to something better. Drawing on original interviews conducted with citizens of more than thirty countries, Zizi Papacharissi explores what democracy is, what it means to be a citizen, and what can be done to enhance governance.
As she explores how governments can better serve their citizens, and evolve in positive ways, Papacharissi gives a voice to everyday people, whose ideas and experiences of capitalism, media,…
I fell in love with Latin America as I meandered around Mexico in the summer of 1969. The passion has never died. Within a year I walked into Brazil’s ‘wild west’ to research the violence along its moving frontier, while over fifty years later I am an emeritus professor of Latin American politics at the University of Oxford and an honorary professor at the University of Exeter. An early decision to look at politics from the ‘bottom up’ led to a life-long inquiry into the theory and practice of democracy, and the publication of many essays and books that are available to view on my Amazon author page.
The author list combines a leading sociological theorist, a premier scholar of Latin American political economy, and a sophisticated practitioner of statistical analysis who between them have written one of the great classical works on Latin American economy and democracy.
The book itself combines a rounded theoretical approach, a comparative framework that extends to Europe and North America, and a thorough grounding in Latin American history. Though published some thirty years ago, it remains a must-read for those trying to get to grips with Latin American democracy.
How are capitalism and democracy related? Does capitalist development today generate pressures for democratization in the same way it did earlier in the core countries of capitalism? Past research has come to divergent conclusions on these questions. Cross-national statistical research has found that capitalist development and democracy are consistently correlated. By contrast, comparative historical studies have argued that economic development and democracy was and is compatible with a variety of political forms, and that in some cases economic development imperatives have led to the authoritarian eclipse of political competition, and that the chances of democracy in developing countries are rather…
I am researching how elites and societies in Russia and East Central Europe have adapted to the social, political, and economic transformation processes following the end of Communism. What fascinates me about this topic is understanding why many of these countries continued to fall back to the same patterns of re-autocratization as they did during the Communist times. My answer is that it is because many institutions and elites in these regions have continued certain policies and behaviors from Communist times, which are still affecting their politics and economics. I also examine the impact of the transformational shock on Russia's international revisionism and democratic backsliding across the region.
For anyone interested in populism, this book is a must. It is one of the classic books for understanding the nature of populism, its causes, its worldwide dynamic, and its effects on politics in various contexts.
One of the most cited books on the topic, it also introduces the classic definition of populism as an ideology grounded in a Manichean worldview that divides society into two antagonistic camps: the "pure people" and the "corrupt elites."
Populism is a central concept in the current media debates about politics and elections. However, like most political buzzwords, the term often floats from one meaning to another, and both social scientists and journalists use it to denote diverse phenomena. What is populism really? Who are the populist leaders? And what is the relationship between populism and democracy? This book answers these questions in a simple and persuasive way, offering a swift guide to populism in theory and practice.
Cas Mudde and Cristobal Rovera Kaltwasser present populism as an ideology that divides society into two antagonistic camps, the "pure people"…
I am researching how elites and societies in Russia and East Central Europe have adapted to the social, political, and economic transformation processes following the end of Communism. What fascinates me about this topic is understanding why many of these countries continued to fall back to the same patterns of re-autocratization as they did during the Communist times. My answer is that it is because many institutions and elites in these regions have continued certain policies and behaviors from Communist times, which are still affecting their politics and economics. I also examine the impact of the transformational shock on Russia's international revisionism and democratic backsliding across the region.
This is one of my favorite books on the topic: it explains how and why electorates in postcommunist Europe became disillusioned with the promises of modernization and liberalization following the collapse of the Communist system. It shows how naïve and cheerful they were at first and how skeptical and disillusioned they’ve subsequently become.
The reforms were painful, and the results of those reforms were not always as expected. This disillusionment led to the rise of populism across the region. The authors also trace similar dynamics in Russia and the United States, which led to the rise of Putin and Trump, respectively.
Why did the West, after winning the Cold War, lose its political balance?
In the early 1990s, hopes for the eastward spread of liberal democracy were high. And yet the transformation of Eastern European countries gave rise to a bitter repudiation of liberalism itself, not only there but also back in the heartland of the West.
In this brilliant work of political history, Ivan Krastev and Stephen Holmes argue that the supposed end of Communism turned out to be only the beginning of the age of the autocrat. Reckoning with the history of the last thirty years, they show that…
