Book Review: Capital and Its Discontents: Conversations with Radical Thinkers in a Time of Tumult by Sasha Lilley
"Capital and Its Discontents" is an absolute mess of a book: a potpourri of verbosity that embodies most of the problems the so-called "left" has had in articulating its message for the past 30 years. It fails to edify or illuminate and that is tragic.
In the introduction, author Sasha Lilley makes it clear what the book is not: "This is not, however, a book of prescriptions. No glorious blueprint for the left resides within its pages." Instead, the author affirms that "[t]he way forward is to be found by arming ourselves with unsparing analysis of the predicament we find ourselves in, while having the fortitude to once again think ambitiously about broad emancipatory [sic] change." In other words, "Capital" is not a handbook on how to occupy Wall Street but rather is a work that focuses on "the remarkable durability of capitalism, the serpentine contours of neoliberalism [sic], and the multifarious reasons for the ebbing of the left."
The biographical information on the author is curiously thin.
The jacket simply describes her as a writer and radio broadcaster, citing her as a co-founder of a radio show entitled "Against the Grain." The absence of writing credits on a book jacket is not always the kiss of death.
Every author has to have a first book after all. And given that the focus of the book is supposed to be on the ideas of well-known writers such as Noam Chomsky and Tariq Ali -- thinkers whose intellectual and leftist bona fides are unassailable -- it seems that the book would be at last marginally useful and thought provoking. Unfortunately this is not the case.
The book's format proves to be the main culprit of "Capital." Lilley has chosen to present the book as a series of "conversations." However, rather than true conversations, the back and forth is one of the author posing questions to her subjects and writing down their answers.
This type of interlocutor style has a long history in philosophy and can work quite well to render complex subjects understandable.
Unfortunately, it requires a questioner who knows how to frame questions in simple terms. Sadly, this is not Lilley's strong suit, as this question put to Marxist scholar Ellen Meiksins Wood demonstrates. "You distinguish empires of capital -- capitalist imperialism -- from at least two other kinds of imperialisms that have existed, and, to some extent flourished, in the past for a time. You regard the Roman Empire and the Spanish Empire in Latin America as conforming to the latter. What defined these empires?"
Faced with a question as long-winded and open-ended as this, it is the rare respondent who can come up with a clear and concise answer.
One of the few exceptions to the labyrinthine nature of most of the interviews is her conversation with Noam Chomsky. Perhaps it's because he has been at it longer than most of the other interviewees or maybe it's because so many of his books have been presented in just this question-and-answer format. Regardless, Chomsky definitely seems more comfortable in his answers than most of the other writers. A good example is this exchange between Chomsky and the author on the topic of postmodernism:
SL: "Since the 1970s, postmodernism has had a great deal of influence on at least part of the left of this country. It has been characterized, among other things, as quite critical of science and the Enlightenment tradition. I wonder if you could talk about your view of postmodernism and whether you think its influence is waning?"
NC: "I have to say that a lot of postmodern work I just don't understand, so I can't comment on it. It seems to me to be some exercise by intellectuals who are talking to each other in very obscure ways and I can't follow it and I don't know if anyone else can."
Given that that the conversation immediately preceding Chomsky's is entitled "Postmodernism and the Politics of Expression," it would seem that the old left is trying subtly to tell the new left to do a little less analyzing and a little more occupying.
"Capital" is disappointing on a number of levels.
As I said at the beginning, it is just the type of paralysis by analysis that keeps the left from unifying behind a common message and acting upon it.
It is not that the conversations aren't interesting from an intellectual perspective. But talking about "Commodification, Enclosure, and the Contradictions of Capitalism," (the title of Part II of the book) when the unemployment rate is in double digits, home foreclosure rates are rising, and protesters are being tear-gassed and shot in the streets with rubber bullets, just doesn't seem very, well, relevant.
If one truly wants to feel a part of the new left, I suggest passing on this book and picking up a copy of Matt Taibbi's "Griftopia."
Or better still, reach in your closet for a blanket or a pair of warm socks and give them to one of the growing number of unemployed people on the streets who truly have a reason to be discontented with capitalism.