Wageless Life

A Manifesto for a Future beyond Capitalism

2020
Authors:

Ian G. R. Shaw and Marv Waterstone

Drawing up alternate ways to “make a living” beyond capitalism

Wageless Life is a manifesto for building a future beyond the toxic failures of late-stage capitalism. Daring to imagine new social relations, new modes of economic existence, and new collective worlds, the authors provide skills and tools for perceiving—and living in—a post-capitalist future.

This lucid and penetrating study not only lays bare the critical features of our decaying social order and its historical roots, but also provides valuable guidelines for the task of ‘seizing our autonomy back’ in a world of justice, freedom, communal life, and human dignity. Perceptive and enlightening, and a ray of light in dark times.

Noam Chomsky

To live in this world is to be conditioned by capital. Once paired with Western democracy, unfettered capitalism has led to a shrinking economic system that squeezes out billions of people—creating a planet of surplus populations. Wageless Life is a manifesto for building a future beyond the toxic failures of late-stage capitalism. Daring to imagine new social relations, new modes of economic existence, and new collective worlds, the authors provide skills and tools for perceiving—and living in—a post-capitalist future.

Ian G. R. Shaw is lecturer in human geography at University of Glasgow. He is author of Predator Empire (Minnesota, 2016).

Marv Waterstone is professor emeritus in the School of Geography and Development at University of Arizona.

This lucid and penetrating study not only lays bare the critical features of our decaying social order and its historical roots, but also provides valuable guidelines for the task of ‘seizing our autonomy back’ in a world of justice, freedom, communal life, and human dignity. Perceptive and enlightening, and a ray of light in dark times.

Noam Chomsky

Contents

Introduction: The Coming Storm

Capital’s Morbid Symptoms

Surplus Populations

Ground Zero

A Worldless Planet

The Geographies of Surplus Life

The Wretched of the Earth

Sites of Radical Praxis and Survival

Reclaiming Desire

The Right to the World

Alter-Worlds: A Manifesto

Last Thoughts: The Alienated

Acknowledgments

Works Cited