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The Master's Tools

How Finance Wrecked Democracy (And a Radical Plan to Rebuild It)
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Brief Description
Why is democracy so broken and how might it be fixed? Most political commentators point to heads of state, such as the Presidency, and other formal institutions of the state. But in The Master’s Tools, award-winning author Michael A. McCarthy argues the answer lies elsewhere, in... Read More
Format: Hardback
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Finance serves the rich and powerful. We need to democratize it.

Democratic control can make finance a tool to express and carry out the will of the people..

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

Why is democracy so broken and how might it be fixed? Most political commentators point to heads of state, such as the Presidency, and other formal institutions of the state. But in The Master’s Tools, award-winning author Michael A. McCarthy argues the answer lies elsewhere, in the flows of credit and investment bound up with finance capital.

In this groundbreaking work, McCarthy develops a political and social theory of democratic ruptures that argues that democracy is deeply intertwined with the economy itself. He shows how democracy can be deepened and working-class power strengthened by creating new sortition-based institutions of deliberative finance.

His radical proposal, the first of its kind, offers practical steps toward a comprehensive design to create the investment mandates that are needed to fund a just green transition, social housing, and other socially necessary, but privately underfunded, public goods.

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781788730662

Publisher: Verso Books

Format: Hardback

Date Published: 07 January 2025

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Verso Books

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 20.0mm

Width: 153.0mm

Height: 234.0mm

Weight: 427g

Pages: 272

About the Author

Michael A. McCarthy is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Marquette University and former Berggruen Research Fellow at the University of Southern California. His research is on capitalism and democracy. His book Dismantling Solidarity: Capitalist Politics and American Pensions was published in 2017 with Cornell University Press. The book was awarded with the Paul Sweezy Book Award as well as an honorable mention for the Labor and Labor Movements Book Award. He has written extensively for public audiences as outlets such as Boston Review, Jacobin Magazine, Noema Magazine, and The Washington Post.

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