All over the world, democracy is in crisis. Liberal political systems are straining under the pressure imposed by authoritarian strong men undermining institutions, the rule of law and the international system that governs relations between countries. Obvious examples include Donald Trump and Boris Johnson, but these issues stretch around the world from Brazil, to Hungary, to the Philippines. People see this liberal collapse stemming from ‘populist’ leaders, working class voters and rogue states. But what if the threat to liberal democracy does not come from the outside, but from within?
Liberal democracy and free market capitalism always go hand in hand – but it is capitalism that is responsible for the crisis of liberalism. In the modern world, democracy and competition have been replaced with oligarchy and monopoly. What we are left with is corporatocracy: societies governed by a tight-knit cartel of big monopolies, financiers, states and international institutions. From technology to food, healthcare to capital, the decisions made by senior execs at the top of the world’s most powerful corporations increasingly determine the conditions of life for everyone else.
In Vulture Capitalism, Grace Blakeley takes on the world’s most powerful corporations by showing how the causes of our modern crisis are a result of our capitalist system. And she shows how it is too full of contradictions for it to even be ‘fixed’ – instead, it must be replaced. Searing, explosive and extremely timely, Vulture Capitalism will upend how we relate to capitalism and the world around us.
