Publishers Weekly
01/22/2024
“There is a deep contradiction between the belief that we are free and the reality of living under capitalism,” according to this fiery treatise. Blakeley (The Corona Crash), a staff writer at Tribune magazine, argues that contrary to free market doctrine, capitalist economies rely on planning by bankers, large companies, and states. The capitalist imperative of constant growth leads big businesses to become monopolies that wield their power to circumvent market dynamics, Blakeley contends, noting how Amazon artificially depresses workers’ wages by dominating regional economies in which residents have few other employment options. Successful businesses can even rival state power, as when in the early 1900s the United Fruit Company, whose banana plantations were based in Guatemala, assumed control of the country’s postal service and propped up the presidential candidacy of autocrat Jorge Ubico, who “handed over tracts of land to the UFC” once in power. Blakeley makes a persuasive case that “corporations are political institutions” unaccountable to the employees, customers, and community members most affected by their decisions, and she details fascinating experiments that show what alternatives might look like (in the 1980s, a small Andalusian village won collective control of local land and continue to make decisions as a group about how to use it and what to do with the profits it generates). Impassioned and provocative, this will challenge readers’ understanding of the fundamental forces that govern economic markets. Agent: Chris Wellbelove, Aitken Alexander Assoc. (Mar.)Correction: The author’s last name was misspelled in an earlier version of this review.
Naomi Klein
A galvanizing takedown of neoliberalism’s ‘free market’ logic, one rooted as much in history as it is in current events. Blakeley’s argument is well researched, clear, and devastating. Most important of all, she charts a path forward based in hope, democracy, and liberation.
Booklist
Readers will appreciate this well-researched book on a complex topic.
Ash Sarkar
If you've ever wondered why you (and everyone you know) feel so out of control of the world around you, this book will give you the answer. Grace Blakeley brilliantly reveals that, for elites, economics is a weapon. This book wrests that power out of their hands.
Rob Delaney
Blakeley's magnificent book is frightening, yes, but it brilliantly gives the lie to the concept that the (man-made) ties that bind us cannot be undone. It arms the reader with detailed knowledge of the history we're normally discouraged from looking into, lest we organize, fight, and very likely win the freedom and peace we deserve. It's the sort of book that will help us make a better world.
Malcolm Harris
Vulture Capitalism is a guide through the dissipating mist of neoliberal thought. Grace unmasks the fiction of an automatic market and reveals that it's been economic planning all along.
Yanis Varoufakis
Aneurin Bevan once quipped that the greatest success of wealth was to persuade poverty to use its political freedom to keep wealth in power. Grace Blakeley’s excellent new book brings up to date Bevan’s insight. Capitalism, she shows by means of pertinent case studies, is the mortal enemy of freedom and democracy. A must-read for anyone keen to put the demos back into democracy.
Ha-Joon Chang
In this trenchant book, Grace Blakeley shows how it is the logic of ultra-monopoly capitalism, rather than greed of the elite or money politics, that is at the root of our socio-economic problems. Using sharp theoretical arguments and instructive real-life examples, she tells us that only greater collectivism and a democracy that goes beyond the ballot box will allow us to create a system that can restrain that logic and make society better. Read this book if you want to make fundamental changes to the world.
Caroline Lucas
Urgent and necessary, Vulture Capitalism brilliantly exposes the lie at the heart of capitalism – that there is no alternative – and systematically demolishes the myths that bolster its power. Rigorous and forensic, this ultimately hopeful book hands us the keys to redesign our own destiny. Another world is possible – and Grace Blakeley expertly charts the roadmap to reach it.
Kirkus Reviews
2023-12-26
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.
