Capitalism and its critics

Contributor(s): John Cassidy | In this lecture John Cassidy will speak about his new book, Capitalism and Its Critics: A Battle of Ideas in the Modern World. At a time when we are faced with fundamental questions about the sustainability of the economic system, Capitalism and Its Critics provides a kaleidoscopic history of the now dominant system of global capitalism, from colonialism and the Industrial Revolution to the ecological crisis and artificial intelligence. Cassidy will tell 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. He 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.