Capitalism and Its Critics
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  • Published: 29 April 2025
  • ISBN: 9780141993546
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 624
Categories:

Capitalism and Its Critics

A Battle of Ideas in the Modern World

Formats & editions
Hardback
18 Jul 2025
EBook
29 Apr 2025
Audiobook
29 Apr 2025
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A sweeping, dramatic history of capitalism as seen through the eyes of its fiercest critics

At a time when we are faced with fundamental questions about the sustainability and morality of the economic system, Capitalism and Its Critics provides a kaleidoscopic history of global capitalism, from colonialism and the Industrial Revolution to the ecological crisis and artificial intelligence.

John Cassidy adopts a bold new approach: he tells the story through the eyes of the system’s critics. From eighteenth-century weavers who rebelled against early factory automation to Eric Williams's paradigm-changing work on slavery and capitalism, to the Latin American dependistas, the international Wages for Housework campaign of the 1970s, and the modern degrowth movement, this absorbing narrative traverses the globe. It looks at familiar figures – Smith, Marx, Luxemburg, Keynes, Polanyi – from a fresh perspective, but also focuses on many less familiar, including William Thompson, the Irish proto-socialist whose work influenced Marx; Flora Tristan, the French proponent of a universal labour union; John Hobson, the original theorist of imperialism; and J. C. Kumarappa, the Indian exponent of Gandhian economics.

Blending biography, panoramic history, and lively exploration of economic theories, Capitalism and Its Critics illuminates the deep roots of many of the most urgent issues of our time.
  • Published: 29 April 2025
  • ISBN: 9780141993546
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 624
Categories:

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Praise for Capitalism and Its Critics

Fascinating and informative. The history of capitalism is told through the eyes and legitimate concerns of its most articulate critics. This is intellectual history at its best. Essential reading for anyone who wonders how the modern world wandered off course

Simon Johnson, winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize for Economics and co-author of Power and Progress

Capitalism and its Critics [is an] unexpectedly lively romp through the two-and-a-half-century history of capitalism ... a zombie tale in which the mystery is why capitalism, having so many ill-wishers and so many chronic health problems, keeps rising anew from each crisis – be it the 1930s Great Depression or 2008 financial crisis – even stronger and more resilient. Cassidy ... offers gripping analyses of socialist communes, slavery, imperialism and monetarism; he takes us to the heart of such topical questions as whether tariffs are folly, as laissez-faire orthodoxy suggests, or essential to making America great again, as Donald Trump insists ... I predict it’ll become the intelligent beach read of the summer

Stuart Jeffries, Telegraph

A marvellously lucid overview of capitalism’s critics, written in good old-fashioned expository prose

Pratinav Anil, Guardian

An intriguing account of how some of the most consequential ideas in economics developed, and how they forged the modern world…Several enjoyable evenings might be spent with Netflix off and Mr Cassidy’s new book open

Economist

Cassidy's range is impressive ... [he] makes the history of capitalism digestible by weaving together, in each chapter, the biography of each of his subjects with their key critique of capitalism, thus humanising otherwise dry debates about economic theory

Yuan Yi Zhu, The Times

Each chapter is a substantial essay on an economist, activist or policymaker and their work ... astonishing ...

Alan Ryan, Literary Review

John Cassidy’s Capitalism and Its Critics is an impressive history of arguments about capitalism, from the industrial age to our time. Clear and accessible, it is an invaluable touchstone for current debates about economic renewal in our post-globalization moment

Michael J. Sandel, author of <i>The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good?</i>