Description
Book SynopsisCapitalism has become a system of economic revenge, meted out against oppressed populations around the globe.
Trade Review'Perhaps the most theoretically creative radical thinker of the moment'
-- David Graeber, author of 'Debt: The First 5000 Years'
'Max Haiven retraces the roots of the current regression, of the reactionary trend that is driving the world toward a new darkness. These roots are humiliation and revenge. In my opinion, this book is of strategic importance'
-- Franco Berardi, author of 'Futurability: The Age of Impotence and the Horizon of Possibility'
'A deeply learned debt warrior, Haiven lays bare the abject cruelty of financial capitalism, and provides us with a rich supply of sources and arguments for a fightback that gives as good as it takes'
-- Andrew Ross, author of 'Creditocracy and the Case for Debt Refusal'
Table of ContentsList of figures
Acknowledgments
Preface
Introduction: we want revenge
1. Toward a materialist theory of revenge
Interlude: Shylock’s vindication, or Venice’s bonds?
2. The work of art in an age of unpayable debts: social reproduction, geopolitics, and settler colonialism
Interlude: Ahab’s coin, or Moby Dick’s currencies?
3. Money as a medium of vengeance: colonial accumulation and proletarian practices
Interlude: Khloé Kardashian’s revenge body, or the Zapatisa nobody?
4. Our Opium Wars: pain, race, and the ghosts of empire
Interlude: V's vendetta, or Joker's retribution?
5. The dead zone: financialized nihilism, toxic wealth, and vindictive technologies
Conclusion: revenge fantasy or avenging imaginary?
Coda: 11 theses on revenge capitalism
Postscript: after the pandemic – against the vindictive normal
Notes
Index