Hot Money

by Naomi Klein

In twenty short books, Penguin brings you the classics of the environmental movement.

In Hot Money Naomi Klein lays out the evidence that deregulated capitalism is waging war on the climate, and shows that, in order to stop the damage, we must change everything we think about how our world is run.

Over the past 75 years, a new canon has emerged. As life on Earth has become irrevocably altered by humans, visionary thinkers around the world have raised their voices to defend the planet, and affirm our place at the heart of its restoration. Their words have endured through the decades, becoming the classics of a movement. Together, these books show the richness of environmental thought, and point the way to a fairer, saner, greener world.

Genres: Nonfiction, Environment, Politics, Climate Change, Economics, Essays, Sustainability

117 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 26, 2021

About the author

Naomi Klein is a Canadian author, social activist, and filmmaker known for her political analyses; support of ecofeminism, organized labour, and leftism; and criticism of corporate globalization, fascism, ecofascism and capitalism. As of 2021, she is an associate professor, and professor of climate justice at the University of British Columbia, co-directing a Centre for Climate Justice.
Klein first became known internationally for her alter-globalization book No Logo (1999). The Take (2004), a documentary film about Argentine workers' self-managed factories, written by her and directed by her husband Avi Lewis, further increased her profile. The Shock Doctrine (2007), a critical analysis of the history of neoliberal economics, solidified her standing as a prominent activist on the international stage and was adapted into a six-minute companion film by Alfonso Cuaron and Jonás Cuarón, as well as a feature-length documentary by Michael Winterbottom. Klein's This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate (2014) was a New York Times nonfiction bestseller and the winner of the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction.
In 2016, Klein was awarded the Sydney Peace Prize for her activism on climate justice. Klein frequently appears on global and national lists of top influential thinkers, including the 2014 Thought Leaders ranking compiled by the Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute, Prospect magazine's world thinkers 2014 poll, and Maclean's 2014 Power List. She was formerly a member of the board of directors of the climate activist group 350.org.

Reviews

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written, compelling and persuasive, thought-provoking, horrifyingly depressing, but, nonetheless, important and well worth reading.

This pocket/bite-sized essay (or, think of it as a standalone chapter) is volume 2 in the Penguin Green Ideas collection, which, apparently, is not available for sale (in the slipcase collection) in the U.S. (but it's not that difficult to order it from a UK supplier).

Originally published (as part of a larger work) 6-7 years ago, there's a temporal disconnect in that, of course, it was published before the domestic and global disfunction and failure to collectively address the COVID pandemic, which is such an obvious harbinger, case study, warning, squandered opportunity to re-prioritize and build the kind of institutions necessary to address global crises ... and, of course, how little progress we've made - and how far we regressed from 2016-2020 - and how much (valuable) time we've squandered (that we couldn't afford to squander), but, more so, in that it's ... just ... so ... frustrating ... that ... the ... scale ... of ... the ... threat ... is ... well ... known, and ... we ... know ... what ... we ... need ... to ... do, ... and, ... yet ... we ... don't ... appear ... to ... be ... willing ... to ... do ... anything, ... to ... make ... the ... necessary ... sacrifices ... for ... our ... children ... or ... others ... or ....

If this interests you, there's a significant amount of overlap with the more recent, full-length, more academic (and, thus, potentially less accessible) riff, Captialism and the Environment, https://www.goodreads.com/review/show..., which, in addition, is significantly more current (e.g., among other things, in that it follows, rather than precedes, the 2016-2020 climate change dark ages).

[Hanka Jirovská · Rating 5 out of 5]

a must read.

this second book in green ideas consists of three essays: Hot Money on the parallelism between trade and climate change, Public and Paid For on taxes and public spending, and The Leap Years on history of ground-breaking societal changes. these three essays are taken from Klein's book This Changes Everything and they work very well together. firstly, Klein shows why is our current growth-based economic system incompatible with the changes that need to happen in order to limit global warming. secondly, she explains what needs to happen in terms of public spending and taxation in order to allow for these changes. and thirdly, she talks about why a ground-breaking shift in public perspective is necessary to fast-track those changes and if there is a precedent for it.

I loved how concise this was, and there was a great deal of ideas that I haven't come across before. two things to keep an eye out for: This Changes Everything was originally published in 2014, and Klein's perspective is (naturally) very US-focused. neither one is necessarily a bad thing, but I will be on the lookout for a more recent piece about how the pandemic influenced the economical side of things, as well as authors from different countries or indigenous communities (maybe the rest of green ideas will deliver in that respect).

[Jodie Darlow-Stott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible.
Everybody should read this!

A critical yet concise look on how capitalism and our current economic system is detrimental to our planet and preventing climate change. Klein describes thoughtful and logical taxing solutions to combat the issue but more importantly how public perception towards the problem must dramatically shift in order to combat global warming.

Finishing this book was quite daunting because the author clearly lays out what we need to do and its thought-provoking and makes perfect sense. Yet achieving this seems almost impossible, especially today in a world so divided and polarised.

[Alyssa Mawussi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I understand a lot now. i recommend very strongly SHE JUST GETS IT

[Jojo · Rating 4 out of 5]

"A destabilized climate is the cost of deregulated, global capitalism, its unintended, yet unavoidable consequence."

[Brittany (whatbritreads) · Rating 4 out of 5]

*Thanks you to Penguin for sending this copy across to me for review!*

It took me a second to get into this as it was confusing with the language, but as soon as I got into the flow of it I got quite invested. This ended up being so interesting and highlighting how little I really knew about the topic.

It was so well written and researched. It managed to go over so many nuances and discuss things in detail, yet kept it concise. It taught me a lot and made so many valid arguments that have never even crossed my mind - I realise reading this how little I actually know about global warming and the actual problems we’re facing.

Though the narrative felt a bit political and American at times, it tried to be broad and inclusive with what it was saying. I don’t necessarily know if it was put in the most accessible way, as some of the language felt like it could’ve been more plainly. The money talk in general made no sense to me because money as a concept just frustrates me endlessly, but it was logical as much as it could be.

The talk of environmental racism was great here and something I’d really like to read more on. I was interested in how Klein discussed how our capitalism feeds into our environmental issues and how governments are failing us and cleverly shifting blame to make themselves look better as the detriment of communities of colour.

It didn’t just highlight problems though, it offered realist solutions to what we’re facing. A quick but informative read that I enjoyed more than I was anticipating!

[Mark]

'History knocked on your door, did you answer?'

[Melina Topp · Rating 4 out of 5]

This serves as a great introduction to this author and the topic on the whole.

[Abhinav Desor · Rating 5 out of 5]

For a long time, I’ve struggled to organize my thoughts about climate change and how deeply it’s intertwined with capitalism. In my field of work, I often see people looking to technological solutions as fixes for the climate crisis—solutions that, ironically, emerge from the same systems that caused the problem in the first place.

But any serious conversation about climate change must go beyond emissions and carbon footprints. It has to be a conversation about transforming the very foundations of our economic and political systems. Free trade and environmental degradation aren’t separate issues—the former directly fuels the latter.

I’ve also been troubled by the common claim that climate change must take a backseat to more “urgent” economic concerns. The book exposes how deeply we’ve internalized an economic model that values GDP growth above all else—so much so that many have forgotten what truly matters: peace, a decent standard of living, and a sense of future security.

Despite the gravity of the subject, I found the book surprisingly hopeful—not because it promises a miracle, but because it reminds us that societies have undergone massive transformations before. Klein points to moments in history when grassroots movements reshaped the world, and shows how tackling climate change just requires a push in the right direction for these movements to finish what they started.

What stuck with me most was the call to rethink not just our policies, but our worldview. We’ve been conditioned by a dominant ideology to see ourselves as singular, gratification-seeking units, out to maximize our narrow advantage. But merely changing laws is not enough—we need to change patterns of thought. For example, a fight for a minimal carbon tax might do far less good than forming a grand coalition to demand a guaranteed minimum income. Not only would a universal basic income make it possible for workers to say no to dirty energy jobs, but the very act of fighting for a social safety net opens up space for a broader debate: about what we owe to one another, and what we collectively value more than economic growth.

[Harsi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Naomi does a great job of diving into climate history with examples from past catastrophes and where we are headed now. The trades aspect was very well explained

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

some gaps about government austerity but that’s okay since it’s mini

[Catullus2 · Rating 4 out of 5]

No. 2 in Penguin’s Green Ideas series. Well written.

[Rita Guimarães · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad, just dated

[Clara Maassen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quick and easy read, which concisely presented thought-provoking ideas about climate change from an economic perspective. I really liked the connections between this book and some theory I recently learned in Economics and Geography class. Specifically, I liked the section where she discusses the influence of free trade, globalisation and capitalism on our planet. She uses great, diverse examples throughout.

The only thing I have to critique about this book is that it was initially published in 2014 as part of a larger work and so some parts are a bit outdated. Nevertheless, this also highlights how little progress has been made regarding this issue, which I found quite shocking.

Once again a recommendation from Camilla so thank you. I gave it to my dad now because we both know how much he loves a good economics book (100% where I got my passion from).

[Rosie Cunliffe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Clear and concise collection of three essays, taking on an economic perspective to climate change. Whole book is only 80 pages so there’s no beating around the bush and every page packs a punch.
I especially like the last essay ‘Leap Years’ as she focuses on historical social changes and compares this to our current need for change in order to save our planet (spoiler: not easy)

[Clara Ringgaard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ikke som jeg forventede.
Fin, men indeholdt ikke noget man ikke også kan finde på diverse velresearchede aktivisme-grams🌳
Som med så meget andet blev jeg vred over fremhævelsen af US of a$$.

[Aitana Monzón · Rating 4 out of 5]

«History knocked on your door, did you answer?»

[Janina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic by Naomi Klein, as usual. Bite-sized book but comprehensive while driving the important points home. It’s just really gutting how little progress we’ve made since the essay was written.

[Lena Vandegaer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Zaken om serieus over na te denken, of om over te flippen, of om echt zuur van te worden.

[Chris Jones]

always useful to be reminded that capitalism has doomed us all. haha goodreads is owned by amazon end review here

[jini · Rating 5 out of 5]

an important book that everyone should read

[Jade Grippe · Rating 4 out of 5]

super profound & now I am super stressed 😁

[Ally Marrs · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a great summary of the connection between free market capitalism and climate change. If you (like me) are already of the opinion that unregulated capitalism is bad for the climate, but don’t exactly know why (I’ve never taken an economics class in my life) then this book will be very helpful in clarifying that idea. I learned a lot!

Fuck Exxon Mobil 🫵

[Cleo · Rating 4 out of 5]

"These companies are rich, quite simply, because they have dumped the cost of cleaning up their mess onto regular people around the world. It is this situation that, most fundamentally, needs to change."

[Eleanor · Rating 4 out of 5]

The only thing that ever made me wish I’d taken some of the Economic Geography classes at uni even though I have never been interested in Economics. I guess it just illustrated the absolute vitality of talking about money and our global economic system when we talk about the environment and the planet.

I do always like these Penguin Green/Great Ideas books because they’re so digestible.

I only don’t want to give this more than 3 stars because it made me hella depressed but the subject matter will do that to a person.

[Callan Denham · Rating 5 out of 5]

you know what you have to do

[danielle · Rating 4 out of 5]

this was particularly interesting to me bc it married my past area of work in trade with my current area of work in sustainability. i had always known there was a strong link between the two but hadn't known the beginnings of it. this helped me to understand the history and significance of the relationship, and how that has shaped the global economy and political landscape today. some extracts that reflect the essence of the book:

changing the earth's climate in ways that will be chaotic and disastrous is easier to accept than the prospect of changing the fundamental, growth-based, profit-seeking logic of capitalism.

the fact that our most heroic social justice movements won on the legal front but suffered big losses on the economic front is precisely why our world is as fundamentally unequal and unfair as it remains. those losses have left a legacy of continued discrimination, double standards, and entrenched poverty - poverty that deepened with each new crisis.

climate change is our chance to right those festering wrongs at last - the unfinished business of liberation.

it must always be remembered that the greatest barrier to humanity rising to meet the climate crisis is not that it is too late or that we don't know what to do. there is just enough time, and we are swamped with green tech and green plans. and yet the reason so many of us still feel hopeless is that we are afraid - with good reason - that our political class is wholly incapable of seizing those tools and implementing those plans, since doing so involves unlearning the core tenets of the stifling free-market ideology that governed every stage of their rise to power.

because if we are to have any hope of making the kind of civilisational leap required of this fateful decade, we will need to start believing, once again, that humanity is not hopelessly selfish and greedy.

fundamentally, the task is to articulate not just an alternative set of policy proposals but an alternative worldview to rival one at the heart of the ecological crisis - embedded in interdependence rather than hyper-individualism, reciprocity rather than dominance, and cooperation rather than hierarchy. ... because in the hot and stormy future we have already made inevitable through our past emissions, an unshakable belief in the equal rights of all people and a capacity for deep compassion will be the only things standing between civilisation and barbarism.

and the real surprise, for all involved, is that we are so much more than we have been told we are - that we long for more and in that longing have more company than we ever imagined.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Naomi Klein’s Hot Money is the second in Penguin Books’ Green Ideas series, 20 short books designed to “deepen our sense of our place in nature.” It’s the third one I’ve read, after Greta Thunberg and Robin Wall Kimmerer, but the first that was excerpted from a longer work I hadn't read (Thunberg’s volume was a collection of her speeches, and I’d read Kimmerer’s profound Braiding Sweetgrass in 2021). I’d also read Klein’s ambitious and powerful The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism back in 2017, so I had some idea of what I was getting into here—and very much looking forward to it.

Hot Money is nearly 100 pocket-sized pages from This Changes Everything: Capitalism Versus the Climate, published in 2014. It’s urgent, candid, pulls no punches, and, sadly, like everything these days, rounded out a picture for those looking to be informed but certainly changed nobody’s mind who wasn’t open to change going into it. As they say, she was likely preaching to the choir. Nine years later, not much has changed. Sure, we got Biden’s historic climate bill passed into law, but if the scientists Greta Thunberg quotes time and again in her speeches are right, “historic” won’t be enough to matter. If Klein was sounding the alarm nearly a decade ago, Thunberg is right: this house is on fire and we're just sitting here watching it burn.

As for the series thus far, only Kimmerer’s volume has actually delivered on Green Ideas’ mission. When I think about what it means to have my sense of place in nature deepened, I think of Braiding Sweetgrass, I think of Thoreau, Sigurd F. Olson, John Muir, Mary Oliver. I think of timeless writing that draws one into the natural world, brings it to life, makes it sing, and makes one want to sing, too—not urgent, timely books pleading for change before it’s too late. They’re both important, but the latter does not deepen much but my sense of outrage and anxiety. There are 17 in the series to go. I hope, for my sake and the series’, that we get a good deal more of the former.

[Sandra Frans · Rating 5 out of 5]

Buku kecil ini merupakan bagian dari seri Green Ideas oleh penerbit Penguin. Seri inj mengumpulkan esai dan pemikiran terkait dengan krisis iklim di bumi ini. Terlihat dari cover dan halaman yang biasa saja, penguin mempraktikan apa yang bisa mereka lakukan untuk mengurangi emisi dari penerbitan buku.

Ini adalah buku kedua Klein yang saya baca. Argumen Klein masih tetap sama, krisis iklim ini sangatlah terpengaruh dari keputusan politis negara maju, yang mempengaruhi banyak ke kesenjangan masyarakat dunia.

Klein memulainya dengan menceritakan tentang hari lahir dari climate movement di tahun 1988. Seorang ilmuwan NASA membuat suatu statement bahwa bumi yang semakin memanas (padahal belum sepanas sekarang), adalah hasil dari aktivitas manusia. Pernyataan itu, kemudian diikuti oleh gerakan ilmuwan lain, dan perbincangan semakin memanas. Sayang sekali, satu tahun setelah itu meredup perbincangan itu, diikuti dengan aksi politik dunia yang mengambil alih perhatian.

“There is a simple, direct correlation between wealth and emissions - more money generally means more flying, driving, boating, and powering of multiple homes”

Di buku ini Klein banyak menyorot tentang politik perdagangan global yang berdampak banyak ke perubahan iklim.

Sebagai bagian dari satu manusia yang hidup di bumi, take home message untuk saya dari buku Klein ini adalah tentang mengurangi konsumsi. Bahkan Klein mencontohkan di perang dunia pertama, ketika di Inggris, banyak memotong produksi, malah secara keseluruhan, intake makanan di kalangan miskin meningkat, karen peningkatan rasio penyebaran makanan.

Buku yang bagus. Isu perubahan iklim juga satu dari yang saya suka. Bagaimanapun, setelah merasakan betapa kaya pengalaman hidup di bumi, saya juga ingin generasi setelah saya juga merasakan kenyamanan hidup di bumi yang sama.

[Oktaria · Rating 5 out of 5]

My second read of the Penguin Green Ideas series. I bought this book due to my dissatisfaction with my Economics of Environment and Development modules, in order to find better and more convincing ideas for the economy in facing the climate crisis. As I am not trained in economics, I found this short book is smart, straightforward, and compelling. It knocked my senses that when talking about the climate crisis, economics plays an important role, but a systemic change in various layers of life is needed--and it is not impossible to be done.

The selection of chapters included in this book is well-selected. The first chapter introduces how the market, its logic, and the weak states' policies that govern it work to overheat the planet. It is not a green growth/green economy that we need; it is another alternative, degrowth. It requires us, firstly, to not fetishize GDP growth above everything. It asks us to consume less (not consume green), and have better, fair, programs and policies which include the government ensuring its citizen have their basic necessities covered via basic annual income. The second chapter gives practical methods in tax-the-rich and "polluter pays" schemes, in order to put the spotlight on those who are responsible for this crisis.

The last chapter is my favourite because it allows me to imagine a better, alternative future, where the climate movement does not only speak for the climate cause itself. "...any attempt to rise to the climate challenge will be fruitless unless it is understood as part of a much broader battle of worldviews, a process of rebuilding and reinventing the very idea of the collective, the communal, the commons, the civil, and the civic after so many decades of attack and neglect" (p.86).