The Corona Crash: How the Pandemic Will Change Capitalism

by Grace Blakeley

In The Corona Crash, leading economic commentator Grace Blakeley anatomises the long term causes for the financial fragility and offers a series of radical means to not only restore but revolutionise the world's economy. We have never experienced such an economic moment such as this one. The coronavirus pandemic heralded one of the most catastrophic financial crashes in history. In March, stock markets collapsed. In April unemployment figures skyrocketed and the price of oil went negative. Meanwhile the human cost is recorded in an ever spiraling death toll as the world, it seems, is in lock down. Whatever happens, we can never go back to business as normal. This moment demands a radical programme similar to the Green New Deal that demands social justice, equality and an economy with the future of the planet at the fore. If not, the alternatives, as Blakeley warns, may be even worse than we feared.

Genres: Politics, Economics, Nonfiction, Theory, Cultural, Current Affairs

112 pages, Paperback

First published October 27, 2020

About the author

Grace Blakeley is a British economics commentator and author.

Reviews

[Richard Derus · Rating 4 out of 5]

FOUR YEARS ON
We're here again. The Forces of Metastatic Capitalism are fighting really, really hard against the hugely consequential victories of Old Man Biden here in the US by sowing doubt and division, wielding their incredible powerful control of our attention to force in the idea that this president is not up to the job...because he's won so many fights against them and their interests. Chip away at the achievements and tell people they are wrong about what they feel because They (unspecified) think things are worse, and like the smoking campaigns of the 1950s you'll get status quo.

Don't let it work this time!

The UnHoly Trinity of metastatic capitalism: financialization, monopoly, stagnation. We're seeing the results of around forty-five years of neoliberal nightmare-fodder economic and social policy: A US state, a UK state both hobbled by incompetent and apparently actively evil governments whose vision of how to control the pandemic is to punish the people who live in their states.

In the absence of a rational, harmonious vision for the changes we want to see come to the world, the capitalists will sow dissension and scream about irrelevancies like tradition, continuity, the sacredness of institutions...which they've been subverting for decades, largely and ineffectively when done unopposed. The tech giants whose dominance in the financialized capitalism of the 21st century achieved such glittering heights of social and societal control have done so largely frictionlessly. This is the naked, ugly ass that the capitalists are showing the world, and this is a clear sign that this election cycle in the US truly is an existential choice between more of what we had versus less of everything we've earned.

While I'm no fan of any tech giant, and I am sure that these companies possess monopoly powers that urgently need curbing, what the hearings in the Senate demonstrated was that the right-wing party here wants the monopoly powers to remain in place and thus be usable by them to make their propaganda the only accessible viewpoint. That would mean that their worldview would, for many unsophisticated consumers, become to all intents and purposes, Reality.

If you ever needed a proof that the monopolistic inevitability of capitalism is extremely bad for you and me, that should be it.

The Green New Deal gets a lot of play in this book. What that means is never spelled out in there, and the fact is that's a sign of how quickly this book was put together. Representative democracy that includes representatives of the laboring classes has largely been dismantled by the neoliberal austerity hawks. The few remaining vestiges of that era of workers' unions with actual power are increasingly, in this crisis, seeing their agenda picked back up: extensive polling in the US and UK (eg, YouGov) that a solid plurality of the people want a Green New Deal. Now what will happen post 3 November 2020? The Biden campaign has a consistency issue, but is broadly aware that the time to act is now. A Left-led charge, using the Covid Crash as a combination crowbar and bludgeon, stands some chance of making substantial progress. If 45 is re-elected, there's no point in worrying about it because the Apocalypse is assured.

There's more at my blog.

[Antonia Untalan]

Not going to rate this, but definitely learned a few things! For such a short book it definitely contained a lot of interesting analyses. Like the comparisons to 2008 financial disaster and the constant tie in to future environmental problems in our future. Would recommend!

[Kai · Rating 2 out of 5]

decent rundown of the state of the global economy with a focus on financialization. with the subtitle "how the pandemic will change capitalism" i expected a little bit more substance over history, though it is of course important to understand how tenuous the balance sheet of global capitalism had become prior to the pandemic. Blakeley essentially argues that the pandemic will only retrench "state monopoly capitalism," but after vehemently arguing that this is the essential tendency of capitalism, the appearance of a vaguely-defined global Green New Deal as a solution feels a bit...easy? like if the problems are this entrenched, how far can we really take technology transfer? I give Blakeley credit for highlighting that a writeoff of the Global South's debts is absolutely required. And few would argue against the necessity that "tackling climate breakdown require a mass movement that can fight back against a capitalist system that exploits human beings as much as it does the natural environment. But much like Malm's book in this series, there's no indication as to where this "mass movement" would come from, how it would be composed, who would be its subject and what would be its demands (other than saying "global GND," which has already been ingested and attenuated). these are problems that a short book like this isn't meant to solve, but it's worth flagging them again simply because i sometimes feel like i'm going crazy that few seem to notice the enormity of the gap.

[El · Rating 5 out of 5]

A relatively accessible, if a little dense (but it’s 80 pages so fair play), guide to the current state of UK and global capitalism (note: it’s... not great). Grace Blakeley’s arguments for debt cancellation for countries in the Global South and a Green New Deal created by the people for the people (as opposed to the wealthy elite) are clear and informative. I would recommend to anyone interested in where to go from here.

[Nawasandi · Rating 3 out of 5]

On the Blakeley’s Corona Crash
By ANS Kuncoro

Her conclusion is so bold that I cannot resist to read the book word by word. Quoting Marx on the tendencies toward oligarchy i.e. collusion between capitalist, government, and political elites, Blakeley relates it to the governments’ and IFIs’ responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Too bad that her observation is too narrow, limited to only Western democracy. She excludes Asia, Arabs, and Africa who are far more vulnerable to revolts. Her 1st policy recommendation to deepen the accountability of public officials to working people is so true but has no novelty. Deeper public scrutiny for govt departments, central banks, and quasi govt organization (perhaps what she meant is SOEs) has no novelty as well. They have already been addressed in the good governance principles.

Besides, deeper scrutiny means bigger government, right? So, she demands a bigger government and redundancy, which is so inefficient. Meanwhile, she’s a Marxist, and as a true Marxist she shouldn’t demand any kind of govt extension, not now not in the future. Instead, she should eliminate the state or make it withering away as Engel has stated.

On her 2nd recommendation to democratize the economy, well...I guess it sounds so Marxist in a way that it is so boldly indoctrinating and seems rather a ‘jargon’ with no elaboration on the “how” and “why”. Well, of course, Blakeley mentions “the introduction of public ownership and democratic control of largest corporations and financial institutions”, BUT again, she misses the BIG HOW for she only recommends for the govt who massively bails out corporations and financial institutions to be run not by tiny elites but by “the people”.

My questions for Blakeley are then:
1) “who is ‘the people’? should there be some representatives? Or should they be represented by parliament members? Or every individual count?”
2) “How exactly ‘the people’ controls both real sectors and the financial sector? And using what kind of oversight instrument? Is it by the board of commissionaire or management? Or by ownership?”,
3) “Is it through stock? Is it through state ownership? Is it through the government’s capital injection or what?”
4) “If through stock, how you deal with foreign portfolios or shallow domestic engagement in the equity market?”
5) “If through govt’s capital injection, how you build a bridge between govt official i.e. Minister of Finance and ‘the people’ or taxpayers? Is it gonna be through ordinary scrutiny by the govt oversight bodies? Or how?”

She, unfortunately, fails to address my questions above. In addition, she misses the HOW on the issues of decarbonizing the economy (except the Carbon Tax and that’s all), minimizing socioeconomic disparity, and maximizing prosperity and fairness. Although she argues to globalize the Green New Deal, to write-off debts, and for countries to unite to reshape a new set of rules for international trade and international tax, and global economy, again..no such novelty in that notions because IMF, World Bank, ECB, UN, and some progressive countries such as Netherland and Indonesia, they all have already promoted those three multilateral policy recommendations.

Blakeley hardly criticizes capitalism by saying that “you cannot have capitalism without crisis, centralization, and cronyism”, BUT this is so odds for, in my opinion, you cannot also have socialism without a crisis (as well), centralization (as well), and cronyism (as well) plus bonus an Orwellian kind of failed state.

Quoting YouGov surveys in which 51 percent of respondents support UBI (universal basic income), Blakeley seems demanding central planning but missing on how to finance the UBI. In other words, how are you gonna pay the UBI? Of course, most people want it, but I bet they do not wanna pay for it through taxes, or if they want, there will be a recursive impact to the economy because when (say) the tax is designed too progressive, middle class and the rich might be risk aversed in terms of investments and there might be a tax avoidance which demands bigger administrative/enforcement costs.

Of course, I do agree with Blakeley that in a time where the state is the commanding height of the economy during the crisis, it is an opportunity for us to allocate resources BY the public FOR THE PUBLIC, not BY THE CAPITAL FOR THE CAPITAL. But, again, the how questions are so hard to be answered without riots because we are fighting a very lifelong intimate alliance between government, capitalists, and politicians both within the sovereign states and within the IFIs. Not to mention the revolving door that happens to be a ‘smooth’ mode of corruption as warned by Dwight D. Eisenhower post-World War II.

I like this compact and concise book in a way that this really stimulates my neurons and conscience to think deeper about the known unknown, the unknown unknown, and the reimagination of the New World in the making. The best non-fiction books are those that can stimulate our imagination about a new better, greener, and more just, caring & peaceful worlds with shared prosperity. This book hypnotizes you to read them page by page and freeze your time.

[Ricky Bevins · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice partner to her first book, Stolen: How to Save the World from Financialisation, this much shorter work illuminates much more sharply what globalisation and financialisation is morphing into - State Monopoly Capitalism.

I was anxious that this book would largely be a rehash of many of the ideas communicated in Stolen, but I was pleasantly surprised. This is a pointed and urgent examination of Capitalism and British affairs as they exist in 2020. Its so pertinent that some of Grace's predictions about repetitive lockdowns have already come to pass since the book's publication in October 2020.

Grace also describes the necessary transformations required to fix economic inequality, the pandemic and environmental breakdown in no uncertain terms, which again do not feel like a rehash of the cures stated in 2019's Stolen, although they do of course remain unequivocally socialist in nature. But hey, the economy is run so destructively and inequitably at this point that simply describing how our capitalist systems work feels like socialist propaganda.

Where Grace could do better is in her writing. She sure does love long sentences, which occasionally makes for repetitive and confusing reading.

But that's a small price to pay for the powerful analysis on offer. Would very much recommend to anyone, especially those that would like a short, digestible description of where we are and what we need to do now to save ourselves, future generations and the planet.

[Matthew Laidler · Rating 4 out of 5]

The great thing about Blakeley’s work is that it is always routed in how we should be looking at and dealing with the immediate issues that we face. For socialists, the argument since 2008 has largely been based around calls for more public spending which made sense in response to neoliberal austerity. But as Blakeley tells us, the situation caused by the pandemic is likely going to be very different from that of 2008 and the left must be ready to adjust their arguments to fit the situation.

Socialism is not defined by a larger state and more public spending. What we need to argue for is a change in the set up of the state and the relationship it has with the people. This way we can ensure that the state works in our interest, and not in the interest of capital.

The crisis has created the perfect grounds for making the case for a green new deal as the myths that have held up neoliberalism for the past 40 years are withering away. Blakeley’s short but important book is a great resource to make sense of what is occurring and the arguments we should be making.

[Jesse Maritz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good little primer on the neoliberal decay of our international order through the financialization of the economy in the global north, economic imperialism in the global south, and the weaknesses of the system in the face of pandemic, climate change, and its own inherent contradictions. Finishes off with a potential path forward to a brighter future, though acknowledges the chances are unlikely and unspeakable disaster is soon to come.

[Zak Henry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very enjoyable as a quick read on the current state of the world and how we got here. Somewhat vague on the how to move forward out of the crisis aside from generalizations but does give some avenues

[Marc · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was disappointed to find that this wasn't much more than a restatement of the author's views on the global economy from before the pandemic, albeit with a few more recent statistics and a sense that recent events have justified those beliefs. Blakeley believes that a process of "financialisation", driven by the class interests of capitalists and financial services professionals in the developed world has immiserated the working classes of the developed world and has imposed a neocolonial control structure on developing economies. The solutions to this are a larger degree of state control of the economy with democratic control of the state-planning apparatus, alongside a green new deal of some description and debt forgiveness for developing countries.
However, the case that is made for that point of view is not especially compelling - there are large jumps in the argument. For example, from the fact that large amounts of government intervention have been undertaken and are considered optimal in the aftermath of the initial shock to the idea that they are sustainable over the long term. Another confusion that arises is between the kind of interventions that have been made (furloughing, stimulus checks, extension of loans) which essentially provide a safety net to firms and households, and full-scale central planning of the economy. The argument of the book relies on the fact that the two are close enough in character as to be identical, but they are not, nor does the book show that they are.
In addition, there is a marked lack of curiosity in the book about the solutions that are proposed. The suggestion is that the means of reaching policy decisions (assumed to be central-planning) is made more democratic, through greater accountability for planners, and the public ownership and democratic control of the largest corporations and financial institutions. No detail is given of how greater accountability could be provided, or the effects of nationalising large corporations and banks on capital flows or the allocation of capital across the economy.
Furthermore, the author commits the sin of which Marxists traditionally accuse liberals – she ignores political economy. There is no discussion of how to nationalise these institutions in a context where most large firms are multinationals, and the issues that this may cause in international cooperation and generate within national politics. There is similarly no discussion of how a Green New Deal can be made global when it requires unevenly distributed costs and benefits, and how a global policy agenda can be pursued in a manner that involves democratic control and public ownership without global government. It seems as if the nation state is just imagined away for the purposes of this section of the book.
Fundamentally, the problem is that the solution given is both a means of reaching policy decisions (democratic central planning) and a concrete policy agenda (a global green new deal). There is no consideration of how these could find themselves in tension with each other (what if the democratically-generated decision is not to proceed along these lines?), which is especially odd, given that the UK electorate emphatically rejected a party offering a Green New Deal just over a year ago. There are serious issues and difficulties surrounding these policy proposals, so presenting them at the end of the book as if they are simple and uncomplicated answers to the problems highlighted beforehand is disingenuous and suggests a lack of seriousness.
It doesn't help that some of the writing is pretty muddled - for example, the author (erroneously) suggests at one point that the Conservative Party is in charge of monetary policy, which is either a very subtle point about fiscal-monetary co-ordination or a lapse into outright conspiracism, but reads like bad drafting. There is also a tendency to ascribe problems to vaguely defined institutions or even whole economic systems rather than specific causes (e.g. "capitalism" in general is held responsible for low growth in the post-crisis years rather than the austerity policy agenda mentioned several times earlier in the chapter).
A further shortcoming is a worrying inability to analyse the actions of actors in financial markets as anything other than conscious attempts to maintain a given system. For example, investors who flee a country that is proposing capital controls are not trying to avoid having funds stuck in an illiquid investment, they are disciplining the country in question, or bilateral lenders who do not wish to write off developing economy debt in the middle of a credit squeeze are doing so to maintain neoimperialism, rather than simply not junking potentially saleable assets in the middle of a crisis. This simplifies the problems that the book is trying to solve, but at the expense of the applicability of the solutions it proposes.
The book does get some things right - I don't disagree that we require a globally co-ordinated focus on green infrastructure investment of the kind argued for in a Green New Deal or that widespread debt forgiveness is likely to be beneficial to developing countries and to the world as a whole. It is also refreshing to see a leftist analysis of the economy which explicitly recognises the shortcomings of MMT-type arguments about government deficits in periphery countries. However, you can make a case for all of these things in the liberal social democratic tradition and therefore avoid having to argue for full-scale state planning of the economy or some of the more overtly conspiracist assumptions made throughout the argument about the actions of agents within the economy.
This book makes these assumptions, but doesn't effectively argue for them, and is therefore less convincing. I suspect that such a social democratic case wouldn't be treated as radical and therefore wouldn't get the author as much attention as one marketed as a Marxist approach to the crisis, but it would at least be more consistent and would find its arguments better supported than the case put forward in this book. It may even be more effective at convincing those not already committed to the proposed measures, which is surely what anyone who is committed to these policies would aim to do.

[Pete Work · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is an obvious domestic and global case for sustained state investment in a green new deal in a post-corona world (especially with the well researched knowledge that the risks of more pandemics are significantly raised by continued, unsustainable environmental destruction), however it's sadly clear already that the current UK Gov plans for an austerity led recovery right now. Blakeley points out that opposition from the left should not only be directed at anti-austerity campaigns, but an entire restructuring of political economies which challenges monopolistic financial capitalism with democratically managed economies... Along the lines of eco-socialism. The challenges in the way of this are huge, but as everyone is aware by now the consequences of 'business as usual' are far, far worse and costly.

[Colin Cox · Rating 4 out of 5]

Grace Blakeley's The Corona Crash ponders what the novel coronavirus will mean to the future of capitalism. Her diagnosis does not inspire confidence. According to Blakeley, "Central bankers and politicians have staged unprecedented economic interventions, not to help the most vulnerable through this crisis, but to save capitalism from itself. The beneficiaries will be big business, big banks and powerful political interests" (xiii). State intervention to save capitalism is far from new, but Blakeley's point emphasizes the size and the scale of this intervention. In this way, the coronavirus has inverted for the wealthiest among us one of Ronald Reagan's most popular witticisms: "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help." For the wealthy, the government is, in fact, here to help.

The problems inherent to these massive interventions are multi-faceted. Still, Blakeley emphasizes how, once again, the state (i.e., taxpayers) assumes the risk and debt while the capitalist class (i.e., elites) accumulates the profits of the state's generosity. She writes, "The risks of running an investment-grade business have been socialised, while the gains have remained private" (xiv). While Blakeley directs her specific critique in The Corona Crash at the financial (speculation) and energy sectors, her larger point is one quite familiar to readers of Marx: the consolidation of resources, influence, and profit sit with a capitalist oligarchy.

Although it is far from a new one, one of Blakeley's more insightful points highlights how capitalism needs crises and catastrophes to function correctly. Near the conclusion of The Corona Crash, she writes, "Economic crises, and the market concentration and ruling class cooperation they engender, are not avoidable kinks in the system but an inherent feature of any version of capitalist accumulation: you cannot have capitalism without crisis, without centralisation or without cronyism" (75). This point is so crucial and self-evident that it requires no additional elucidation, but if anyone needs additional evidence, consider this: Jeff Bezos, founder and president of Amazon, enjoyed the largest single-day increase to his net worth ($13 billion) on July 20, 2020. This point about Bezos is precisely why Blakeley writes about the next inevitable crisis, climate change, while we endure this one. The coronavirus has not stopped capitalism. If anything, the coronavirus was and will continue to be a boon to capitalists like Bezos. But with the next crisis, the effects of climate change, we, Blakeley argues, have a chance to reverse the effects of state-sponsored capitalism with initiatives like The Green New Deal. While programs like The Green New Deal are state-sponsored, they are, as Blakeley suggests, democratic in nature. She writes, "a global Green New Deal [is] a huge package of state investment built around democratically decided public priorities" (63). Such a program would widen "democratic public ownership" (63) and make clear who bears responsibility for the lion's share of carbon emissions: the wealthy. Furthermore, a global Green New Deal (and "global" matters because the efforts of the U.S. or the U.K. mean nothing without equal support from China, India, and the rest of the world) would put an end to liberal hand-wringing about personal responsibility because "climate justice can only be brought through systems change, not individual behavioural change" (67).

While early returns do not look good, massive catastrophes like the coronavirus are opportunities to reimagine a world beyond capitalism. "Over the long term," Blakeley suggests, "the public must become engaged in the rational planning of economic activity" (77). Let us hope a catastrophe like this coronavirus helps push us beyond capitalism because if it fails to do so, we may not survive the next one.

[Viandika Eko Pradipta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Buku ini berisi analisis dampak Pandemi Covid-19 terhadap laju ekonomi dunia. Ketika dunia saat sebelum Pandemi menghantam belum mampu untuk keluar secara penuh dari krisis yang melanda pada tahun 2008.
Ekonomi kapitalisme yang memang rapuh dalam berbagai hal hingga mengakibatkan krisis sekarang diuji oleh Pandemi.
Banyak perusahaan kapital yang merugi dan tidak mampu untuk membayar hutang nya akibat dari diberlakukannya pembatasan kegiatan, sehingga peran negara adalah untuk menyelamatkannya dan menasionalisasikan perusahaan tersebut di bawah negara. Maka terciptalah yang dinamakan Kapitalisme monopoli negara.
Terdapat perbedaan kebijakan yang dilakukan antara global utara yang sebagian besar adalah negara-negara kaya dan maju dengan global selatan yang sebagian besar terdiri dari negara dunia ketiga yang berkembang. Dampak pandemi bagi global selatan sangat berat dengan tidak terbayarnya utang negara dan depresiasi mata uang negara tersebut.
Bantuan dari organisasi dunia sangat dibutuhkan seperti pengampunan hutang dan bantuan investasi.
Secara garis besar ekonomi dunia sedang mengalami kemacetan yang cukup serius bahkan bukan hanya dari masalah Pandemi namun juga dampak serius dari masalah iklim yang sedang terjadi.
Green New Deal adalah salah satu langkah yang bisa ditempuh untuk mengatasi hal ini.
Seringkali dikatakan bahwa, di tengah-tengah sebuah krisis, setiap orang akan menjadi sosialis.

[Justin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This installment from Verso's Coronavirus pamphlet series contains a great primer on the advancement of neoliberalism and finance capitalism.

Blakely then covers the likely impacts of Coronavirus on the global economy, with some specific examples from the UK where she is based. The emphatic message I got from this is that any recovery from this crisis that meaningfully addresses climate change and growing inequality must be global in nature. This would include but wouldn't be limited to a debt jubilee, and for the longer term pushing back against the World Bank and IMF's strategy of imposing neoliberal reforms on debt-laden states.

Blakely also points out that privatisation doesn't decrease central planning (corporations are centrally planned after all), it just decreases democratic oversight of crucial areas of the economy. For more on this topic I would recommend The People’s Republic of Walmart: How the World’s Biggest Corporations are Laying the Foundation for Socialism.

All in all, this is a quick read with some good insights.

[Rohan Crickmar · Rating 4 out of 5]

A strong short essay on where the Corona Virus may be leading the United Kingdom and the wider globalised world. Blakeley is very much of the opinion that with a state monopolistic capitalist structure in place, and a greater concentration of wealth and power, among fewer corporations, the outlook is potentially perilous. The incentives are toward making a new austerity pitch, one which is solely geared at protecting the interests of the elites, both corporate and political. Most disappointingly for Blakeley the government's Corona Virus economic response in the UK, will likely be viewed as a move toward some kind of State Socialism, when in actual fact it is merely a sly way of propping up market interests and market concerns.

Her hope is that Covid will awaken people to the far bigger crisis looming, namely that of climate. A green new deal may be a way of moving toward more meaningful labour markets and a better equilibrium between government, electorates and business. Tacking against the trend of ever greater complicity between legislators, banks and corporations over the financialisation of society. A decent politically left take on the calamity and opportunity of the Covid moment, as well as how we got here.

[George L · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very important read right now. Free-market economics is the great illusion in the economics of the global North; The economic regime we suffer under is one of state-sponsored capitalism - zombie firms are propped up, inefficiencies ignored - big banks, big businesses not allowed by the state to accept the consequences the risks they have taken on. The Coronavirus pandemic is an echo of the 2008 crash, and like 2008, states will get more involved in protecting big businesses (with asset purchasing and cheap liquidities) and small and medium businesses going bankrupt to the detriment of competition and the advantage of the corporate elite. The Corona Crash argues a democratization of the economy, which is becoming more and more political. Power needs to be vested back in the people, especially now - where quick transferals of powers are being made to the elite.

[Tibby]

I think this book had a lot of interesting analysis of the economy over the past two decades and specifically during the past year. But I felt like I needed a lot more background knowledge about economics to understand what was being said. I skimmed a lot of this. There was a lot of jargon and it assumed you knew what it meant and that you have a pretty good handle on economics and capitalism from a technical standpoint. I just don't have that so most of the book was over my head. The other thing I noticed is that this book is now a year old and a lot has happened with our economy since then so it already feels a little dated. I don't think that means there isn't value and interest here, just that the impact of the pandemic on the economy continues to evolve and that's not encapsulated here.

[Andy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great little primer on why we are where we are economically and politically speaking. For it's short length it strikes a good balance between setting the historical basis for why we are where we are on the one hand and on the other hand laying out what has happened so far during the Coronavirus pandemic, what is happening now, and what may happen depending which road we collectively go down.

Also I want to add as a final note, that I really appreciate a book on economics so easily sliding onto the topic of climate change and climate breakdown, something that should never be separated from economic discussion in general as the two are invariably tied.

[Robert Hill · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great little book giving relevant history on economics pre-Corona and how it relates to now. Including much-needed segments on the different effects on The Global South, it argues the division between politics and economics is fabricated and increasingly untenable. The state has had to intervene on a mass scale essentially centralizing large parts of the Economy and that this should be done democratically and in the interests of the people, not Finance and Corporations.

"Socialism does not just mean expanding the size of the capitalist state. Socialism means taking power away from the ruling classes - senior politicians, business owners and handing it back to the people"

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really strongly written book by Grace Blakeley. She clearly explains what is wrong with the contemporary economic and political system and gives clear examples on how it can move towards an improved system for all, especially for the less fortunate people amongst us.
Grace is strong in her analysis and can explain difficult systems in a thorough manner. Therefore, I definitely recommend this book!

[Mallory · Rating 5 out of 5]

A short overview of the global economic situation, in light of the current pandemic. Blakeley argues that the most useful response to the crisis would be a global Green New Deal, a massive international program that would also respond to the ongoing climate crisis and the international system's long history of immiserating the global South.

[Denis Southall · Rating 3 out of 5]

Short but effective explanation of financialised capitalism and how we got here. Examines the impact of the pandemic, how this has and will affect captialism and the need for a green new deal, different priorities and democratisation of financial systems and business and public ownership of key parts of the economy to tackle the devastating effects of climate change.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a brilliant short read on the state of things both pre- and post-COVID (fucked!) and the reasons why (neoliberalism and financialisation and monopoly capitalism!). In short: 'normal' is capitalism in crisis. Crises are the new normal, and state support is determined by the needs of capital, not the interests of the people.

[Fraser · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book - only 77 pages long! It sometimes feels as though things "just happen", this is a very good and concise look at why they do. Nicely split into 4 sections covering the pre-covid economy, changes that are happening post-covid, how this relates to differences in the global north/south, and what should/might happen to resolve the crisis.

[Hershel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great summary of capitalism and economics in the post-covid times. Hilariously some of what was discussed was happening in real time because of the GameStop Reddit event. We need reform more than ever to keep the finance subclass, Wall Street and the never ending need for more profit from killing us all.

[Hilma Nakambale · Rating 5 out of 5]

Blakeley's take on capitalism in the context of the pandemic is illuminating. It is intriguing that those who hate government intervention in economies are usually quiet when it's time to feast on the benefits of the interventions they so distaste. The pandemic has reassured us that markets will never be efficient. Great read!

[Jeni Miles · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a really eye-opening book, however I was yearning to to see more insights into exactly what can be done next.

The ending of the book also felt quite abrupt, but this is likely due to its brevity and quick turnaround given the timeliness of the topic.

[Callum McCulloch · Rating 3 out of 5]

“In the midst of a crisis, everyone’s a socialist”; I do really hope that public consciousness has shifted and we can acknowledge that state intervention is not just eminently possible but necessary.

I do wish I was clever enough to understand more of this book though.

[ff𓂃 ☠︎︎ ၴႅၴ · Rating 4 out of 5]

woah grace blakely was busy during lockdown while everyone else was making banana bread or whatever. Was hard for me to get into, but once i did - really concise and interesting analysis, research + critique

[Juan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Capital begets capital