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Anti-Capitalism
In Anti-Capitalism, activist and scholar Ezequiel Adamovsky tells the story of the long-standing effort to build a better world, one without an abusive system at its heart. Backed up by arresting, lucid images from the radical artist group United Illustrators, Adamovsky details the struggle against rising corporate power, as that struggle unfolds in the halls of academia, in the pages of radical newspapers, and in the jungles and the streets. From Marx through the Battle of Seattle and beyond, Adamovsky traces the beliefs and politics of the major figures in the anticapitalist tradition and explores modern experiments in building different ways of living, in the process providing an indispensible primer for anyone interested in finding alternatives to the so-called "best system we have"—and anyone interested in joining the fight.
176 pages, Paperback
First published February 28, 2005
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
March 4, 2012
I found the discussion about the problems of capitalism and the struggle against the inequities in capitalism very interesting. There is a much larger network of people thinking and working to create a different kind of marketplace. While the book does not endorse one approach it does give lots of sources and contact information for those interested in pursuing the struggle. The reality is that unregulated capitalism is a very cruel and destructive system. It is no less cruel than any dictatorship. Capitalism becomes very bottom line focused. It does not look to long term benefits. It does not care about environmental consequences. A "free market" economy is not going to be free for long under capitalism unregulated.
August 10, 2011
Excellent and profusely illustrated introduction to the thought of the movement against corporate globalization. Covers basics of the history of resistance to oppression, the main theoretical stances and concepts within the anti-capitalist movement, and practical policy goals and tactics. Recommended.
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October 23, 2020This book deserves, quite honestly, zero stars. The author has no idea what he's talking about. He's blabbing about everything, calling whatever he deems bad capitalism, and all the glories in the world comes from anti-capitalism.
He commits one fallacy after another. He constantly mistakes the act capitalism,—employing capital goods (money, equipment, land, etc...) in creating more money, equipment, or consumables that can be used again for production or consumption—with the system capitalism—the free-exchange market enterprise. Needless to say, he is a professor of history.
He has no idea what business men do with their money or how they create wealth; he calls every kind of cooperation exploitation; he excludes the Nazis from the anti-capitalists, in fact, in his skewed system Nazis are capitalists.
What a joke this book is. A perfect waste of time. Written by an entitled brat! He says that computer software cost nothing because they are immaterial. How can we store data? He says that if the poor were given an income, they would pursue higher vocations—by the way, you're supposed to accept whatever he says since he does not prove anything.
All historical expositions are shallow at best. He sympathizes with the socialists in China and Russia: They merely were overwhelmed by power. What's the solution? Create more seats with absolute power and put the right people in them.
He's trying to integrate into his system of anti-capitalism such faux-intellectuals, indoctrinated brain-washed ideologues: Marx, Engels, Hobsbawm, Bakunin, Gramsci, More (Thomas), Proudhon, Kropotkin, Kautsky, Bernstein, Luxemburg, Zapata, Lenin, Stalin, Trotski, Zedong, Guevara, Negri, Subcomandante Marcos, Jordan (John), Deleuze, Guattari, Klein, and so on. Nothing in this book is scientific.
He doesn't even know what capitalists think! He's saying that capitalists enjoy regulation. If it's capitalist economists, libertarians, political philosophers, that's absolute rubbish. But if it's people engaging in the act of capitalism, it really depends on the regulations, and to what degree will they expand?
He wants to abolish the state because the state is a system to preserve and sustain capitalism (You can't even make this up!) but then he wants it to expand so that it gives the poor their universal income and regulate the market which will help the capitalists but somehow now it will help the proletariat.
I can talk about this book for days. It's filled with fallacies, everything's wrong in it. It shamelessly calls everything it dislikes capitalists. Every portrayal is a straw-man. I really wish this was a parody, but it is not. Nothing in it makes sense, and it's so shallow and stupid and pointless and I swear to god that just going through an econ textbook would solve most of his problems—but why should he do it when he extracts from his ignorance and the masses' acceptance of this garbage his livelihood. His indoctrination is his means of production by which he extracts his money, and he quite unconsciously tells you that that action is wrong and immoral. Pathetic.
He commits one fallacy after another. He constantly mistakes the act capitalism,—employing capital goods (money, equipment, land, etc...) in creating more money, equipment, or consumables that can be used again for production or consumption—with the system capitalism—the free-exchange market enterprise. Needless to say, he is a professor of history.
He has no idea what business men do with their money or how they create wealth; he calls every kind of cooperation exploitation; he excludes the Nazis from the anti-capitalists, in fact, in his skewed system Nazis are capitalists.
What a joke this book is. A perfect waste of time. Written by an entitled brat! He says that computer software cost nothing because they are immaterial. How can we store data? He says that if the poor were given an income, they would pursue higher vocations—by the way, you're supposed to accept whatever he says since he does not prove anything.
All historical expositions are shallow at best. He sympathizes with the socialists in China and Russia: They merely were overwhelmed by power. What's the solution? Create more seats with absolute power and put the right people in them.
He's trying to integrate into his system of anti-capitalism such faux-intellectuals, indoctrinated brain-washed ideologues: Marx, Engels, Hobsbawm, Bakunin, Gramsci, More (Thomas), Proudhon, Kropotkin, Kautsky, Bernstein, Luxemburg, Zapata, Lenin, Stalin, Trotski, Zedong, Guevara, Negri, Subcomandante Marcos, Jordan (John), Deleuze, Guattari, Klein, and so on. Nothing in this book is scientific.
He doesn't even know what capitalists think! He's saying that capitalists enjoy regulation. If it's capitalist economists, libertarians, political philosophers, that's absolute rubbish. But if it's people engaging in the act of capitalism, it really depends on the regulations, and to what degree will they expand?
He wants to abolish the state because the state is a system to preserve and sustain capitalism (You can't even make this up!) but then he wants it to expand so that it gives the poor their universal income and regulate the market which will help the capitalists but somehow now it will help the proletariat.
I can talk about this book for days. It's filled with fallacies, everything's wrong in it. It shamelessly calls everything it dislikes capitalists. Every portrayal is a straw-man. I really wish this was a parody, but it is not. Nothing in it makes sense, and it's so shallow and stupid and pointless and I swear to god that just going through an econ textbook would solve most of his problems—but why should he do it when he extracts from his ignorance and the masses' acceptance of this garbage his livelihood. His indoctrination is his means of production by which he extracts his money, and he quite unconsciously tells you that that action is wrong and immoral. Pathetic.
December 13, 2022
Da un buen panorama de cómo el capitalismo extiende sus ramas a todas las esferas de la vida, y algunos esfuerzos que se han hecho para combatirlo. Especialmente me parecen interesantes esos que no son tan llamativos, sino que van más bien desde la vida cotidiana, desde las microprácticas que combaten sostenidamente un sistema, y que dan cuenta del principio de que la revolución no es un acontecimiento, sino un quehacer.
Entre los ejemplos que muestra al final hay algunos que se han mantenido, otros se han transformado y otros más han desaparecido, pero quizá es parte de lo mismo, las vías se han alternado aún más, pero la intención de no dejarse consumir se sostiene.
Entre los ejemplos que muestra al final hay algunos que se han mantenido, otros se han transformado y otros más han desaparecido, pero quizá es parte de lo mismo, las vías se han alternado aún más, pero la intención de no dejarse consumir se sostiene.
May 16, 2017
Excelente resumen de los movimientos de izquierda a traves de la historia y de las razones por las que han fallado. Pinta ademas la nueva situacion de los movimientos anticapitalistas y como debemos operar para poner freno a la absurdidad del capitalismo.
February 20, 2022
Me hubiera gustado que profundizara más en algunos conceptos centrales, pero me lo quedo como tarea pa la casa.
Fue un motor bacán para investigar más cosas por mi cuenta, y para conocer ideas nuevas que me hicieron mucho sentido :)
Fue un motor bacán para investigar más cosas por mi cuenta, y para conocer ideas nuevas que me hicieron mucho sentido :)
January 8, 2019
Excelente, sirve para lo que fue hecho.
Justamente para alguien que recién empieza a averiguar del tema o siente curiosidad es una excelente recopilación de información.
Justamente para alguien que recién empieza a averiguar del tema o siente curiosidad es una excelente recopilación de información.
April 7, 2014
An interesting graphic depiction of the history and problems of capitalism as an economic structure for society and the attempts to correct these problems from dogmatic, top-down statist communist and socialist programs. The book finishes with a look at what the author calls "the new anti-capitalism." I certainly don't disagree with the basic analysis or the problems. I also enjoyed the break down of "the new anti-capitalism." The graphic depictions were also great. No, my problem stems from the loosey-goosey telling of history (without really citing specific examples to highlight points, but rather depicting vague events that happen in capitalistic societies), and the rather out of date and severely lacking depictions of current anti-capitalist resistance within this "new anti-capitalism" paradigm. So there ya have it. I wanted more, so much more. I did think some of the chapters could be really good intros for folks who have no idea.
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December 4, 2014"For the new anti-capitalism the revolution isn't a future event we must wait for. The revolution is an ongoing process, which occurs every day, each time men and women develop new ways of resisting power and create new spaces of autonomy."
September 8, 2011
Amazing... read it. You'll learn how the system we allow to perpetrate keeps people in their economic ghettos. (Those are my words, not the author's.)
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews