Disassembly Required : A Field Guide to Actually Existing Capitalism

Capitalism is a complex, dynamic, and extraordinarily robust way of organizing human life; it is also a system that achieves prosperity for the few, impoverishes the many, and depletes the commons for all. We know that capitalism is a broken system, in desperate need of change. But, to imagine a different system, we first need to understand how capitalism actually exists today —and be able to explain to others how it works, and why change is needed.

Disassembly Required is an attempt to meet these challenges. It offers an anti-capitalist analysis of capitalism, and, even more important, it explains why it is anti-capitalist. It does not stop at claiming that the present way of organizing the “economic” aspects of our lives is politically indefensible and ecologically unsustainable, but digs into the details of capitalist institutions and the economics that justify them. From money and markets to the subprime crisis, it explains the fundamental features of contemporary capitalism and how they contribute, sometimes in surprising ways, to overall capitalist dynamics.