MICK MCSHANE is roused by a band whose socialism laces every line of every song with commitment and raw passion
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Like ‘dinner with Caligula’
Sugar Daddy Capitalism exposes the grim reality of many who come into contact with neoliberal authoritarianism at work or in their private life, says ANDY HEDGECOCK
New releases from Mountain, Soul Asylum and Michael McDermott
ALEX HALL is disgusted by the misuse of ‘emotional narratives’ to justify uninformed geo-political prejudice
SUE TURNER welcomes a thoughtful, engaging book that lays bare the economic realities of global waste management
JOHN GREEN welcomes an insider account of the achievements and failures of the transition to democracy in Portugal
SIMON PARSONS applauds an imaginative and absorbing updating of Strindberg’s classic
PETER MASON is enthralled by an assembly of objects, ancient and modern, that have lain in the mud of London’s river
Sugar Daddy Capitalism: The Dark Side of the New Economy
by Peter Fleming
(Polity, £15.99)
SUGAR Daddy Capitalism by Peter Fleming is an autopsy on the creed of Friedrich von Hayek, Milton Friedman and their Chicago School disciples, figures now dismissed by serious economists as relics of the cold war.
But, as Fleming points out, the demise of neoliberal economics in terms of academic credibility has not hampered its corrosive impact on jobs, health, dignity and culture.
He suggests that the economy has been reshaped in the image of the sex industry. It commodifies and exploits us, turning us into pimps and hustlers — a powerful metaphor for capitalism’s arbitrary cruelties, but there are cases in which it is literally true.
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