Reclaiming the Future
A Beginner's Guide to Planning the Economy
Economics for the people
In a world gripped by endless crisis and climate breakdown, the demand to reshape our economic system has never been more urgent. Reclaiming the Future by Simon Hannah is a beginner's guide to planning the economy, taking readers on a transformative journey towards a radically democratic society, where the power and control over our lives are firmly in our hands.
Decades of right-wing scaremongering has tried to consign economic planning to the dustbin, but the need for it is greater than ever - it might be the only thing that can save us from climate catastrophe. In this myth-busting and accessible guide, Hannah lays the building blocks for a grassroots economy that aligns our economy within human needs and environmental limits.
Simon Hannah is a writer, activist, and trade unionist living in South London. He is an assistant branch secretary in UNISON and has written several books, including A Party With Socialists In It: A History of the Labour Left, which was a Guardian Book of the Day.
John McDonnell is a British Labour Party politician who was appointed the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer in September 2015. He became the Member of Parliament (MP) for Hayes and Harlington at the 1997 general election, and has retained his seat from then onwards.
'A convincing case for socialist democratic planning as the only way to meet the needs of billions of humans without destroying the planet and other species. And it offers a political strategy for how you can fight for such a world.'
- Michael Roberts, economist and author of Capitalism in the 21st Century'A sober and engaging assessment of the most urgent problem of our generation: how to transcend capitalism in order to build a real democracy, peace, environmental sustainability, and social justice in an ecosocialist society based on the principle of solidarity, rather than inequality and exploitation. Hannah dissects on the drawbacks of capitalism, and outlines how to build an actual, functioning socialist society on that basis. An excellent book that deserves to be read widely.'
- Alfredo Saad-Filho, University of Johannesburg'Simon Hannah emphasises the urgent need for a vision of a utopia that reclaims ecosocialist and democratic futures, through critical analysis of past socialist experiences that failed to achieve this. Drawing on real struggles for environmental and social justice, Reclaiming the Future is a radical theoretical and concrete criticism of the capitalist short-term profit-oriented logics, offering a major contribution to the growing debates on post-capitalism.'
- Catherine Samary, researcher in political economy, co-editor of Decolonial Communism, Democracy and the CommonsIntroduction
PART I - THE FIGHT FOR AN ECOSOCIALIST PLAN
1. How Does Capitalism Work?
2. A Living Movement for Socialism
3. The Post-capitalist Society
PART II - DEBATES
4. Arguments Against Socialism: Human Nature and Knowledge
5. Debates within Socialism; Automation, UBI and Market Socialism
6. Green New Deal, Ecosocialism and Degrowth
Conclusion
eBook ISBN: 9780745350219
129mm x 198mm