The wake of the financial crisis has inspired hopes for dramatic change and stirred visions of capitalism's terminal collapse. Yet capitalism is not on its deathbed, utopia is not in our future, and revolution is not in the cards. In Capitalism on Edge, Albena Azmanova demonstrates that radical progressive change is still attainable, but it must come from an unexpected direction.
Azmanova's new critique of capitalism focuses on the competitive pursuit of profit rather than on forms of ownership and patterns of wealth distribution. She contends that neoliberal capitalism has mutated into a new form-precarity capitalism-marked by the emergence of a precarious multitude. Widespread economic insecurity ails the 99 percent across differences in income, education, and professional occupation; it is the underlying cause of such diverse hardships as work-related stress and chronic unemployment. In response, Azmanova calls for forging a broad alliance of strange bedfellows whose discontent would challenge not only capitalism's unfair outcomes but also the drive for profit at its core. To achieve this synthesis, progressive forces need to go beyond the old ideological certitudes of, on the left, fighting inequality and, on the right, increasing competition. Azmanova details reforms that would enable a dramatic transformation of the current system without a revolutionary break. An iconoclastic critique of left orthodoxy, Capitalism on Edge confronts the intellectual and political impasses of our time to discern a new path of emancipation.
The wake of the financial crisis has inspired hopes for dramatic change and stirred visions of capitalism's terminal collapse. Yet capitalism is not on its deathbed, utopia is not in our future, and revolution is not in the cards. In Capitalism on Edge, Albena Azmanova demonstrates that radical progressive change is still attainable, but it must come from an unexpected direction.
Azmanova's new critique of capitalism focuses on the competitive pursuit of profit rather than on forms of ownership and patterns of wealth distribution. She contends that neoliberal capitalism has mutated into a new form-precarity capitalism-marked by the emergence of a precarious multitude. Widespread economic insecurity ails the 99 percent across differences in income, education, and professional occupation; it is the underlying cause of such diverse hardships as work-related stress and chronic unemployment. In response, Azmanova calls for forging a broad alliance of strange bedfellows whose discontent would challenge not only capitalism's unfair outcomes but also the drive for profit at its core. To achieve this synthesis, progressive forces need to go beyond the old ideological certitudes of, on the left, fighting inequality and, on the right, increasing competition. Azmanova details reforms that would enable a dramatic transformation of the current system without a revolutionary break. An iconoclastic critique of left orthodoxy, Capitalism on Edge confronts the intellectual and political impasses of our time to discern a new path of emancipation.
Preface
Introduction: “How Come?” Asked the Befuddled Left
1. The Crisis of Capitalism, Almost
2. Capitalism Under Scrutiny: From Concept to Critique
3. Ideologies for the New Century
4. The Life and Times of Democratic Capitalism
5. Precarity Capitalism
6. What Is Ailing the 99 Percent?
7. Getting Unstuck: Overcoming Capitalism Without Crisis,
Revolution, or Utopia
Conclusion: The Radical Pragmatism of Bidding Capitalism
Farewell
Appendix: Summary of Theoretical Framework
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Albena Azmanova teaches political and social theory at the University of Kent’s Brussels School of International Studies. She is author of The Scandal of Reason: A Critical Theory of Political Judgment (Columbia, 2012) and coeditor of Reclaiming Democracy: Judgment, Responsibility, and the Right to Politics (2015). She has also been a policy adviser to the United Nations, the Council of Europe, the European Parliament, the European Commission, and Transparency International.
Once in a long while a new book comes along that challenges
prevailing patterns of progressive social and economic thought in a
way that is both deep and far-reaching, yet still evidently
originating from within the critical left, so as—potentially—to
prove persuasive to thoughtful and open-minded progressives.
Capitalism on Edge is such a book.
*Democracy: A Journal of Ideas*
Albena Azmanova’s book Capitalism on Edge provides a stark wake-up
call for Critical Theory to not only take the critique of political
economy seriously again, but also face up to new social realities:
‘Twentieth-century civilization has collapsed’.
*Journal of Classical Sociology*
This is a thought-provoking, absorbing and original book, in tune
with changes in precarity capitalism and its politics.
*European Journal of Social Theory*
Indeed, a significant strength of the book is that, while
conceptually highly sophisticated, Azmanova suggests that the
reader can skip over the theoretical chapter and refer to the
useful glossary of terms as the need arises. This will undoubtedly
help broaden the accessibility of this intervention and ensure that
the book influences public as well as scholarly debates.
*Philosophy & Social Criticism*
This provocative book will be useful to those in critical studies
programs.
*Choice*
Ambitious . . . potentially subversive.
*Domani*
Azmanova’s book represents critical theory at its best, seamlessly
integrating philosophical, sociological, and political perspectives
and debates to produce a compelling account of the (non)crisis of
capitalism and the current conditions of social change.
*Constellations*
As soon as I started reading the Introduction, I was gripped by the
lucidity of ideas and clarity of the prose. For an academic text
written from the perspective of Critical Theory, this is a
wonderfully direct, incisive and insightful book. One does not need
to agree with all the details of the analysis to find reading it a
rewarding experience.
*3 Quarks Daily*
This is the big-think book of our time. It is a rare successful
effort to define the next iteration of capitalism – precarity
capitalism – as the successor to neoliberalism.
*Project Syndicate*
With great insight, Albena Azmanova gives us a new way of
understanding modern capitalism: through profit-driven corporations
generating endless insecurity. But rather than despair, Azmanova
finds reason for hope in a potential political coalition of
unlikely partners. Thoroughly researched, powerfully argued.
*Robert B. Reich, Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy,
University of California, Berkeley, and former U.S. Secretary of
Labor*
In her revolutionary book, Albena Azmanova offers a new conceptual
toolbox for the radical critique of capitalism and ultimately,
radical change. Forget who owns what. Everyone, rich or poor,
capitalist, managers or worker, suffers from capitalism's
relentless competition for profit, more than ever as precarity
capitalism now reigns supreme. This is thus where radical policies
by public authorities and radical actions by the rest of us must
strike. Let us forge new alliances, she suggests, to subvert
capitalism from within. Let us multiply new practices inspired by
our daily experiences of injustice—from job sharing to
citizenship-based social insurance, to reinventing the social
meaning of education, health care and the arts. Let us usher in a
new politics of trust. Do not despair, dear reader. Azmanova offers
us nothing less than a new realist prophecy for our collective
emancipation from all forms of social domination and thus from
capitalism itself. Profoundly innovative and inspiring.
*Kalypso Nicolaïdis, author of Exodus, Reckoning, Sacrifice:
Three Meanings of Brexit*
Capitalism on Edge is mature, insightful, and elegant in its focus
on the fragility and structural crises of today's capitalism and
its legitimacy, as well as the possibilities of finding a way out
for us as a polity and society. It is not a nostalgic look back but
a very critical and somber insight into systemic decay, and this
angle is very original. To many readers, Azmanova's argument may be
unsettling. Traditionally, in academic and intellectual debates,
discussions of the crises of and in the system are framed around
two very different narratives. On the one hand, the advocates of
the current system tend to discuss prospects of where capitalism
may take us next (prioritizing economic, technological and
ideational forces of 'universal' capitalism in overcoming the
failures of the model). On the other hand, critics have spent
decades writing about the need to abandon capitalism altogether and
build an alternative system, usually represented by socialism.
Azmanova appears to be in neither of those camps, which is why the
book may rattle some readers and provoke debates and even fierce
criticism.
*Anastasia Nesvetailova, author of The End of the Great
Illusion: Financial Alchemy in Crisis and Sabotage: The
Hidden Nature of Finance*
Typically, critics of capitalism identify its ills primarily with
greater inequality, and propose redistributive reforms to alleviate
it, but in Capitalism on Edge, Albena Azmanova takes a refreshingly
different view. She takes aim at the way today's capitalism,
subject to automation and globalization, has created greater
insecurity and uncertainty. What she calls 'precarious capitalism'
threatens the white-collar office worker as well as blue-collar
factory operative. Azmanova, who grew up during the death throes of
Eastern European socialism, doesn't see socialism as an
alternative, but instead a set of radical measures that would
create what she calls a 'political economy of trust.' These reforms
would subvert rather than destroy capitalism. With Europe's major
parties in disarray and the two American parties at loggerheads,
hers is a welcome commentary on how the left and the 99 percent can
address the growing concern that many feel about their futures
under global, postindustrial capitalism.
*John B. Judis, author of The Nationalist Revival: Trade,
Immigration, and the Revolt Against Globalization*
In her ambitious yet transparent and accessible treatise on the
nature of present-day capitalism and its demise, Azmanova
highlights the dark side of the competitive production of profit.
This consists of the lived experience of uncertainty, insecurity,
injustice, risk, and fear that affects the vast majority of people
in Western societies. For them, capitalism is a game that consists
of the blaming of victims, losers, and the structurally
disempowered. Rather than invoking the revolutionary action of some
strategically privileged class, a terminal crisis of capitalism, or
a utopia of 'socialism,' the author explores and advocates for the
potential of a radical subversive pragmatism. People simply want to
do other things than give in to the pressure to enhance their
employability in a treadmill of jobless non-growth. And policies,
she demonstrates, can help to achieve such post-capitalist desires.
A daring yet encouraging message.
*Claus Offe, author of Europe Entrapped*
![]() |
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
![]() |