Description
Book SynopsisThe young generation aren't apathetic. We're disenfranchised, under or unemployed, insecure and anxious. But we're also angry. We know there are alternatives to the political consensus, but voices calling for comprehensive radical changes are ignored. We urgently need new forms of collective organisation. In the run up to the 2015 General Election, this third book in the Radical Future series looks at young peoples' resistance to what passes for politics. Mainstream politics has failed the young: our political system is fundamentally bankrupt. We have much to stand against, but little to vote for. The coalition government openly prioritises economic gain for the few above the lives of the many, allowing UKIP to repurpose frustration from rising inequality into racist bigotry. Instead of providing structural opposition, the Labour Party tear themselves apart in their failure to do anything different. Growing numbers identify with the Left, but the institutions that once supported it are old, stagnant, and sectarian. When we do manage to create mass resistance, we come up against the state through the police: physically and legally. It's easy to lose the belief we can create change. In this climate, the vital protest movements of recent years seem long gone. The message is clear: the neoliberals have won. In our third book, on the cusp of an election that feels like an irrelevance, the Radical Future collective take up this thread. Each author's chapter seeks to re-engage with radical alternative politics: values like social justice, liberation and collectivity. Bringing together contributors from different fields and perspectives means that we don't all argue for the same thing. But the question that we are all asking is: How can we fight back?
Table of ContentsContents: 1. Introduction 2. The selfish generation - Noel Hatch 3. Scotland's referendum and the politics of the future - Niki Seth-Smith 4. Power and a participatory democracy - Sarah Allan 5. A crisis in housing: co-operatives in Edinburgh and Birmingham - Mike Shaw and Sean Farmelo 6. Community organising after the London Riots - Wail Qasim 7. Crisis as opportunity: re-imagining the future of work - Rhiannon Colvin 8. Workfare: how jobs exclude young people - Craig Berry 9. Plan F: why we need feminist economics - Polly Trenow 10. Breaking the rule of generation Y: don't join anything - Adam Ramsay 11. Securing the environment's future - Matt Adam Williams 12. Going mainstream: counterculture and alternative media - Deborah Grayson 13. Who groks Spock? Logic and the market - Matthew Cheeseman 14. Conclusion
