‘Against Austerity: How We Can Fix the Crisis They Made’ with Richard Seymour

Richard Seymour examines who really benefits from the policy of austerity and what the alternatives might be.

BOOK TALK
‘Against Austerity: How We Can Fix the Crisis They Made’
with Richard Seymour

Wednesday 21st May, 7pm

Entry £3, redeemable against any purchase

Richard Seymour will talk about his new book ‘Against Austerity’ (Pluto Press, 2014), which addresses a puzzling aspect of our current situation, after five years of capitalist crisis, cuts and economic pain across the world: why are the rich still getting away with it? Why is protest so ephemeral? Why does the left appear to be marginal to political life?

In an analysis which challenges our understanding of capitalism, class and ideology, Richard Seymour shows how ‘austerity’ is just one part of a wider elite plan to radically re-engineer society and everyday life in the interests of profit, consumerism and speculative finance.

However, Seymour argues that once we turn to face the headwinds of this new reality, dispensing with reassuring dogmas, we can forge new collective resistance and alternatives to the current system. Following Brecht, ‘Against Austerity’ argues that the good old things are over, it's time to confront the bad new ones.

Richard Seymour is the author of ‘Unhitched: the Trial of Christopher Hitchens’ (2012), ‘American Insurgents: A Brief History of American Anti-Imperialism’ (2012), ‘The Meaning of David Cameron’ (2010) and ‘The Liberal Defence of Murder’ (2008). He writes regularly for the Guardian and runs the popular blog Lenin’s Tomb.

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