VULTURE CAPITALISM

A jeremiad against conventional “free market” wisdom and its reliance on oppressive, covert planning.

British economics writer Blakeley offers a passionate argument that the interconnected crises of our time are “driven by a toxic melding of public and private power,” resulting in profits and impunity for elites and in precarity for others. She connects these circumstances to the fact that “free market capitalism has never been as unplanned as its advocates have suggested.” The author meticulously unpacks this secret history of planning, noting how principles of competition and innovation have become illusory, meaning “today’s megafirms are barely constrained by the pressures of market competition.” Blakeley connects the metastasizing social immunity of massive corporations with the gradual political triumph of neoliberalism. She then argues for transformative “democratic planning,” citing attempts at alternative communities or reworked corporate structures “based on the democratic production of socially useful commodities,” featuring worker input, which corporate managers abhor. Such plans were countered by politicians like Margret Thatcher to “ruthlessly reassert the power of capital over labor.” Blakely concludes by proposing larger-scale organizing efforts, though she acknowledges that the few examples—e.g., Allende’s Chile—suggest that “any attempt to democratize an economy will encounter massive resistance from capital.” Nonetheless, the author’s tone remains optimistic. “When we frame our political project in terms of collective empowerment,” she writes, “we show that politics can’t be reduced to elections—it’s something we all do every day.” This is a complex discussion, and Blakeley’s structure alternates among dramatic flashpoints (e.g., the corporate debacles involving Enron and WeWork), narratives about disrupting public-private malfeasance, and arguments about economic theory that engage the views of many significant figures. Though these strands can seem abstract or repetitive, the author writes knowledgeably about the variety of intricacies involved.

Engaging, occasionally unwieldy meditations on the relationship between social governance and late-stage capitalism.