PostCapitalism
A Guide to Our Future
Book Edition Details
Summary
In a world teetering on the edge of profound transformation, "Postcapitalism" by Paul Mason delves into the seismic shifts reshaping our economic landscape. This isn't just a recount of capitalism's historic resilience through cycles of boom and bust; it's a daring exploration into whether this time, the system is evolving into something entirely new. At the core of this evolution lies the digital revolution, dismantling old norms and birthing novel economic practices like parallel currencies and self-managed online spaces. Mason paints a vivid picture of an emergent society where traditional market rules are defied, creating fertile ground for a socially just and sustainable future. As the dust of the 2008 financial crisis settles, Mason presents a compelling vision: we stand at the threshold of a postcapitalist era, empowered to not only witness but actively shape this unfolding reality.
Introduction
The global economic system stands at a critical juncture where traditional market mechanisms are being fundamentally challenged by the rise of information technology. While mainstream economics continues to operate under assumptions of scarcity and price-driven markets, a new reality is emerging where information goods can be reproduced at zero marginal cost, collaborative production networks operate outside conventional market structures, and the relationship between work and value creation is being radically transformed. This transformation represents more than a technological shift; it signals the potential emergence of an entirely new economic paradigm that could transcend capitalism itself. The analysis employs a materialist approach grounded in long-wave economic theory, labor value analysis, and network theory to demonstrate how information-based production creates fundamentally different dynamics than those governing industrial capitalism. Rather than presenting utopian speculation, this examination grounds itself in observable trends and concrete examples of how technology is already reshaping production and distribution in ways that prefigure a fundamentally different economic order. The investigation proceeds through systematic examination of capitalism's structural contradictions, detailed analysis of information technology's unique properties, and practical consideration of how societies might navigate the transition to postcapitalist arrangements that prioritize human flourishing over profit maximization.
The Convergence of Neoliberal Crisis and Information Revolution
Neoliberalism has reached a state of functional breakdown, sustained only through unprecedented monetary intervention and debt accumulation that masks deeper structural contradictions. The 2008 financial crisis revealed fundamental flaws in a system that promised market efficiency while delivering unprecedented inequality, financial instability, and economic stagnation. Central banks have created over twelve trillion dollars in new money through quantitative easing, yet economic growth remains anemic, wages stagnate, and financial instability continues to threaten global stability. This represents more than cyclical downturn; it signals the exhaustion of a model dependent on financialization and debt-driven consumption. The historical pattern of fifty-year economic cycles provides crucial insight into this breakdown. Each long wave typically follows a pattern of technological innovation, economic expansion, crisis, and eventual transformation into a new paradigm. However, the fourth long wave beginning after World War II has been uniquely disrupted. Unlike previous cycles where working-class resistance forced capitalism to adapt through higher productivity and wages, the defeat of organized labor since the 1980s allowed the system to extend itself through wage suppression and financial manipulation rather than genuine innovation. Simultaneously, information technology has begun transforming the fundamental basis of economic value creation. Digital goods exhibit zero marginal reproduction costs, collaborative production models generate value outside traditional market mechanisms, and network effects create winner-take-all dynamics that concentrate power while making information increasingly abundant. The collision between stagnant market mechanisms and exponentially advancing information capabilities creates unprecedented contradictions that suggest capitalism cannot indefinitely contain or direct these technological forces. This convergence of crisis and technological transformation creates conditions where postcapitalist alternatives become not merely possible but increasingly necessary for addressing urgent challenges of climate change, inequality, and social coordination that market mechanisms have proven incapable of resolving effectively.
Why Information Goods Fundamentally Challenge Market Pricing Mechanisms
Information technology possesses unique characteristics that distinguish it from all previous forms of technology and make it fundamentally incompatible with market mechanisms based on scarcity and competitive pricing. Unlike physical goods, information can be reproduced at virtually zero marginal cost once the initial development investment is made, creating what economists call non-rivalry where one person's use does not prevent another from using it simultaneously. These properties undermine the scarcity assumptions upon which market pricing depends, forcing capitalism to create artificial scarcity through intellectual property laws and monopolistic business models. The labor theory of value provides essential insights for understanding how information goods challenge traditional economic relationships. According to this framework, commodities derive their exchange value from the socially necessary labor time required for their production. Information technology disrupts this system by creating products that, once developed, can be reproduced with minimal additional labor input. Software, digital media, and database systems represent crystallized human knowledge that can be copied and distributed at costs approaching zero, creating a fundamental contradiction within capitalism's profit extraction mechanisms. Meanwhile, collaborative production models have emerged that operate entirely outside market mechanisms while producing some of the most successful and widely-used technologies in the world. Wikipedia demonstrates how complex products can be created through voluntary collaboration, while open-source software like Linux powers the majority of web servers and Android dominates the smartphone market. These examples prove that high-quality goods can be produced without traditional employment relationships or profit motives, suggesting alternative organizational principles for coordinating economic activity. The network effects inherent in information technology amplify these tendencies by creating exponential returns to scale while reducing coordination costs. The value of a network increases exponentially with the number of users, creating natural monopolies that further undermine competitive market dynamics while simultaneously enabling new forms of distributed collaboration that can operate at scales previously impossible without hierarchical management structures.
From Industrial Workers to Networked Collaborators as Change Agents
The traditional working class, which Marxist theory identified as the agent of revolutionary change, has undergone fundamental transformation in the information age that requires reconceptualizing the social forces capable of driving postcapitalist transition. While the global workforce has expanded dramatically, the conditions that created working-class solidarity and revolutionary consciousness in the industrial era no longer exist. Modern workers are increasingly fragmented, precarious, and individualized, making traditional forms of collective organization difficult to sustain through conventional union structures or party politics. However, this apparent weakness masks the emergence of networked individuals who derive their identity and capabilities from connection to global information systems rather than from their position in industrial production. These individuals possess unprecedented access to knowledge, communication tools, and collaborative platforms that enable new forms of social organization and resistance. They represent what management theorist Peter Drucker called the universal educated person, capable of working with abstract knowledge and adapting quickly to changing circumstances while maintaining global connections that transcend local economic dependencies. The political movements that have emerged since 2011, from the Arab Spring to Occupy Wall Street to various European protest movements, demonstrate the potential of networked individuals to challenge existing power structures through horizontal networks rather than hierarchical organizations. These movements use social media and digital tools to coordinate action while focusing on issues that transcend traditional class boundaries, such as financial system reform, democratic participation, and ecological sustainability. While they have not yet achieved the systematic political victories of earlier working-class movements, they have demonstrated new forms of collective action that prefigure postcapitalist social organization. The transformation of work itself involves both the elimination of necessary labor time through automation and the blurring of boundaries between production and consumption, work and leisure. Users of social media platforms simultaneously consume entertainment and produce valuable data, contributors to open-source projects work voluntarily on products that compete with commercial alternatives, and participants in sharing economy platforms provide services while using collaborative coordination mechanisms that operate outside traditional employment relationships.
Building Postcapitalist Institutions Within and Beyond Current Systems
The transition beyond capitalism cannot be achieved through revolutionary rupture or gradual reform alone, but requires a strategic approach that builds postcapitalist institutions within and alongside existing structures while addressing urgent crises of climate change and social inequality. This process must be guided by principles of ecological sustainability, democratic participation, and the maximization of human potential rather than profit maximization, recognizing that postcapitalism will emerge through the interaction of technological possibilities, social movements, and institutional innovation rather than through predetermined blueprints. Key transitional elements include socializing finance to redirect investment toward long-term social needs rather than short-term speculation, implementing universal basic income to decouple survival from employment as automation advances, and creating legal frameworks that favor collaborative production and commons-based resource management over extractive private ownership. Energy systems must be rapidly decarbonized through public ownership and planning that can coordinate massive infrastructure investments without relying on profit incentives that systematically undervalue long-term environmental costs. The state plays a crucial transitional role, not as the ultimate owner of economic resources but as a facilitator of postcapitalist development, similar to how Wikipedia's staff maintain infrastructure while allowing collaborative content creation to flourish. This requires abandoning neoliberal privatization drives and instead using public resources to nurture cooperative enterprises, support commons-based production, and ensure that technological advancement serves broad social purposes rather than concentrating wealth and power among platform monopolists. Technology development must prioritize open standards and social benefit over proprietary control, while automation's capacity to eliminate necessary labor should be harnessed to dramatically reduce working hours while maintaining or improving living standards. The technical capacity exists to achieve these goals, but realizing this potential requires overcoming institutional structures designed to maintain full employment and profit maximization rather than human flourishing and ecological sustainability within planetary boundaries.
Summary
The convergence of information technology's transformative potential with capitalism's structural crisis creates both unprecedented dangers and extraordinary opportunities for human societies seeking sustainable and democratic forms of economic organization. Information's tendency toward abundance directly contradicts market systems based on artificial scarcity, while automation's capacity to eliminate necessary labor challenges employment-based distribution mechanisms that have defined modern economic life since the Industrial Revolution. These technological forces, combined with urgent ecological constraints and mounting social pressures, make the transition beyond capitalism not merely desirable but necessary for human survival and flourishing in the twenty-first century. The path forward requires building collaborative institutions that can harness technology's productive potential while ensuring democratic control over economic development, environmental stewardship, and the direction of technological change itself, creating conditions where human creativity and ecological sustainability can flourish beyond the constraints of profit-driven market competition.
Related Books
Download PDF & EPUB
To save this Black List summary for later, download the free PDF and EPUB. You can print it out, or read offline at your convenience.
By Paul Mason
