Cameron's Coup: How the Tories took Britain to the Brink


Polly Toynbee - 2015
    Despite coalition compromises, he has turned out to be more radical than Margaret Thatcher. She privatised industries. But he planned to dismantle the welfare state itself - starting with the NHS. The cuts signalled an assault on Britain's post-war social settlement. Children, young people and the poor are bearing the brunt. Social welfare, police, council services, housing and legal aid are under fierce attack. Will it succeed? Writing with their trademark incisiveness and wit, Toynbee and Walker report how a party that failed to win a Commons majority has still been devastatingly effective. Blending analysis and statistics with moving human stories from Sydenham to Sheffield, Cameron's Coup argues that Britain is becoming meaner and harsher. The pressing question now is whether these changes are irrevocable.

Why Not Socialism?


G.A. Cohen - 2009
    There are times, G. A. Cohen notes, when we all behave like socialists. On a camping trip, for example, campers wouldn't dream of charging each other to use a soccer ball or for fish that they happened to catch. Campers do not give merely to get, but relate to each other in a spirit of equality and community. Would such socialist norms be desirable across society as a whole? Why not? Whole societies may differ from camping trips, but it is still attractive when people treat each other with the equal regard that such trips exhibit. But, however desirable it may be, many claim that socialism is impossible. Cohen writes that the biggest obstacle to socialism isn't, as often argued, intractable human selfishness--it's rather the lack of obvious means to harness the human generosity that is there. Lacking those means, we rely on the market. But there are many ways of confining the sway of the market: there are desirable changes that can move us toward a socialist society in which, to quote Albert Einstein, humanity has "overcome and advanced beyond the predatory stage of human development."

Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning


Jonah Goldberg - 2007
    Calling someone a fascist is the fastest way to shut them up, defining their views as beyond the political pale. But who are the real fascists in our midst? Liberal Fascism offers a startling new perspective on the theories and practices that define fascist politics. Replacing conveniently manufactured myths with surprising and enlightening research, Jonah Goldberg reminds us that the original fascists were really on the left, and that liberals from Woodrow Wilson to FDR to Hillary Clinton have advocated policies and principles remarkably similar to those of Hitler's National Socialism and Mussolini's Fascism. Contrary to what most people think, the Nazis were ardent socialists (hence the term -National socialism-). They believed in free health care and guaranteed jobs. They confiscated inherited wealth and spent vast sums on public education. They purged the church from public policy, promoted a new form of pagan spirituality, and inserted the authority of the state into every nook and cranny of daily life. The Nazis declared war on smoking, supported abortion, euthanasia, and gun control. They loathed the free market, provided generous pensions for the elderly, and maintained a strict racial quota system in their universities--where campus speech codes were all the rage. The Nazis led the world in organic farming and alternative medicine. Hitler was a strict vegetarian, and Himmler was an animal rights activist. Do these striking parallels mean that today's liberals are genocidal maniacs, intent on conquering the world and imposing a new racial order? Not at all. Yet it is hard to deny that modern progressivism and classical fascism shared the same intellectual roots. We often forget, for example, that Mussolini and Hitler had many admirers in the United States. W.E.B. Du Bois was inspired by Hitler's Germany, and Irving Berlin praised Mussolini in song. Many fascist tenets were espoused by American progressives like John Dewey and Woodrow Wilson, and FDR incorporated fascist policies in the New Deal. Fascism was an international movement that appeared in different forms in different countries, depending on the vagaries of national culture and temperament. In Germany, fascism appeared as genocidal racist nationalism. In America, it took a -friendlier, - more liberal form. The modern heirs of this -friendly fascist- tradition include the New York Times, the Democratic Party, the Ivy League professoriate, and the liberals of Hollywood. The quintessential Liberal Fascist isn't an SS storm trooper; it is a female grade school teacher with an education degree from Brown or Swarthmore. These assertions may sound strange to modern ears, but that is because we have forgotten what fascism is. In this angry, funny, smart, contentious book, Jonah Goldberg turns our preconceptions inside out and shows us the true meaning of Liberal Fascism.

The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics


Bruce Bueno de Mesquita - 2011
    They start from a single assertion: Leaders do whatever keeps them in power. They don’t care about the “national interest”—or even their subjects—unless they have to. This clever and accessible book shows that the difference between tyrants and democrats is just a convenient fiction. Governments do not differ in kind but only in the number of essential supporters, or backs that need scratching. The size of this group determines almost everything about politics: what leaders can get away with, and the quality of life or misery under them. The picture the authors paint is not pretty. But it just may be the truth, which is a good starting point for anyone seeking to improve human governance.

Reform or Revolution


Rosa Luxemburg - 1898
    Why capitalism cannot overcome its internal contradictions and the working class cannot "reform" away exploitation and economic crises.

How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution


Joel Pollak - 2017
    Now two insiders—Joel Pollak, senior editor-at-large for Breitbart News, eye-witness to the election from his unique position as the only conservative reporter aboard the Trump press plane in the last pivotal weeks of the campaign, and professional historian Larry Schweikart, whose "Renegade Deplorables" group of volunteer analysts supplied the Trump campaign with data the mainstream pollsters didn’t have—reveal the true story of how Trump defied the pundits, beat the polls, and won.Pollak and Schweikart reveal: why only two pollsters got the election even close to right (one of them was working with Larry Schweikart); why working class and rural voters flocked to support a New York City billionaire—and the media completely missed the story; how the "Deplorables" were able to read the early voting data to show that Trump was winning Ohio and Pennsylvania weeks before the election—and were still texting reassurances to his campaign on election night; why the release of the Access Hollywood "sex tape" cost Trump Minnesota and New Hampshire, a four-point lead in the popular vote, and a "yuge" landslide in the electoral college; and how the Clinton Team realized they had lost before Team Trump knew they had won.Find out how Trump really beat the polls, the odds, and the machinations of Hillary Clinton and her willing allies in the media and political establishment. How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution is an absolute must-read from a prescient historian and a reporter with the inside scoop—and great stories from the campaign trail.

Ill Fares the Land


Tony Judt - 2010
    Judt masterfully crystallizes what we’ve all been feeling into a way to think our way into, and thus out of, our great collective dis-ease about the current state of things.As the economic collapse of 2008 made clear, the social contract that defined postwar life in Europe and America – the guarantee of a basal level of security, stability and fairness -- is no longer guaranteed; in fact, it’s no longer part of the common discourse. Judt offers the language we need to address our common needs, rejecting the nihilistic individualism of the far right and the debunked socialism of the past. To find a way forward, we must look to our not so distant past and to social democracy in action: to re-enshrining fairness over mere efficiency.Distinctly absent from our national dialogue, social democrats believe that the state can play an enhanced role in our lives without threatening our liberties. Instead of placing blind faith in the market—as we have to our detriment for the past thirty years—social democrats entrust their fellow citizens and the state itself.Ill Fares the Land challenges us to confront our societal ills and to shoulder responsibility for the world we live in. For hope remains. In reintroducing alternatives to the status quo, Judt reinvigorates our political conversation, providing the tools necessary to imagine a new form of governance, a new way of life.

The Real Right Returns: A Handbook for the True Opposition


Daniel Friberg - 2015
    After decades of humiliation and political failures, the opposition is reorganising, catching up with the times, and getting itself in order. It is none too soon. Europe faces numerous challenges, challenges which the entrenched, incompetent elites of politics, academia, and the mass media are unable and unwilling to confront. Uncontrolled immigration, the mindless waste of resources, and destruction wrought by consumer society upon the very core of Western man — these are problems posing questions which the ‘establishment’ cannot answer.Daniel Friberg, MBA, is CEO of the Swedish mining corporation Wiking Mineral and was a founding member of the Swedish metapolitical think tank, Motpol. He has a long history in the Swedish opposition, and was one of the founders of Arktos.

The Good Fight: Declare Your Independence and Close the Democracy Gap


Ralph Nader - 2004
    Bush,corporate government, and the whole charade of presidential campaigning -- from the last honest man in American politicsRalph Nader -- brilliant visionary, relentless activist -- may be the most honest man left in politics. And yet his presidential campaigns have faced consistent opposition -- mainly from Democrats afraid that competition from an inspiring independent could dent their voting block.Now, in The Good Fight, Nader swings back harder than ever at those who "want to block the American people from having more voices and choices" and have lost touch with the concept that votes must be earned, not inherited or entitled. While taking on corporate-occupied Washington and the government's daily abuse of ordinary citizens, he urges a speedy return to stronger civic motivation. If fed-up citizens don't actively join the fight for better leadership, then ultimately we have no one to blame but ourselves for the inadequate checks on the erosion of our civil liberties.In an era when politicians sell us rhetoric and then sell out our principles, Nader stands as a crucial voice of candor. The Good Fight is a stirring response to politics as usual, one that will captivate readers of all political stripes and help us define what we must do to shape the brightest future for our nation.

Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In


Bernie Sanders - 2016
    In the book, Sanders shares experiences from the campaign trail and outlines his ideas for continuing a political revolution to fight for a progressive economic, environmental, racial and social justice agenda that creates jobs, raises wages, protects the environment and provides health care for all.

Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment


Francis Fukuyama - 2018
    Two years later, his predictions were borne out by the rise to power of a series of political outsiders whose economic nationalism and authoritarian tendencies threatened to destabilize the entire international order. These populist nationalists seek direct charismatic connection to "the people," who are usually defined in narrow identity terms that offer an irresistible call to an in-group and exclude large parts of the population as a whole.Demand for recognition of one's identity is a master concept that unifies much of what is going on in world politics today. The universal recognition on which liberal democracy is based has been increasingly challenged by narrower forms of recognition based on nation, religion, sect, race, ethnicity, or gender, which have resulted in anti-immigrant populism, the upsurge of politicized Islam, the fractious "identity liberalism" of college campuses, and the emergence of white nationalism. Populist nationalism, said to be rooted in economic motivation, actually springs from the demand for recognition and therefore cannot simply be satisfied by economic means. The demand for identity cannot be transcended; we must begin to shape identity in a way that supports rather than undermines democracy.Identity is an urgent and necessary book--a sharp warning that unless we forge a universal understanding of human dignity, we will doom ourselves to continuing conflict.

Ideas Have Consequences


Richard M. Weaver - 1948
    Weaver unsparingly diagnoses the ills of our age and offers a realistic remedy. He asserts that the world is intelligible and that man is free. The catastrophes of our age are the product of unintelligent choice and the cure lies in man's recognition that ideas--like actions--have consequences. A cure, he submits, is possible. It lies in the right use of man's reason, in the renewed acceptance of an absolute reality, and in the recognition that ideas like actions have consequences.

How To Be Poor


Milo Yiannopoulos - 2019
    It's disgusting, and it means God loves me less than He loves you. I know my tragic penury won't last forever, but in case you, too, have been fired for something you said, or deplatformed for something you believe, or were just abruptly cut off from your trust fund, this book will explain how to navigate life when you are unexpectedly yanked from privilege and told to, err, earn a living.Enjoy the hilarious tale of my cataclysmic fall from wealth, grace, and high-end hair salons, but be sure to pay close attention to the tips I've picked up along the way and you might just make it out alive--and with minimal split ends.

Why Marx Was Right


Terry Eagleton - 2011
    Taking ten of the most common objections to Marxism—that it leads to political tyranny, that it reduces everything to the economic, that it is a form of historical determinism, and so on—he demonstrates in each case what a woeful travesty of Marx's own thought these assumptions are. In a world in which capitalism has been shaken to its roots by some major crises, Why Marx Was Right is as urgent and timely as it is brave and candid. Written with Eagleton's familiar wit, humor, and clarity, it will attract an audience far beyond the confines of academia.

Four Futures: Life After Capitalism


Peter Frase - 2015
    In Four Futures, Frase imagines how this post-capitalist world might look, deploying the tools of both social science and speculative fiction to explore what communism, rentism, socialism and exterminism might actually entail.Could the current rise of real-life robocops usher in a world that resembles Ender’s Game? And sure, communism will bring an end to material scarcities and inequalities of wealth—but there’s no guarantee that social hierarchies, governed by an economy of “likes,” wouldn’t rise to take their place. A whirlwind tour through science fiction, social theory and the new technologies already shaping our lives, Four Futures is a balance sheet of the socialisms we may reach if a resurgent Left is successful, and the barbarisms we may be consigned to if those movements fail.