The alibi of capital : how we broke the Earth to steal the future on the promise of a better tomorrow / Timothy Mitchell.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Mitchell, Timothy, 1955- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Capitalism.

Climatic changes.

climate change.

Physical Description:

xi, 388 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

London ; New York : Verso, 2026.

Summary:

Today, extraordinary wealth seems to arrive from nowhere. The trick of conjuring this unearned wealth is, in fact, the key to understanding capitalism's origins and a clue to why the catastrophe of climate collapse is upon us: value is created by consuming the future. The Alibi of Capital explains how this came about through the imperial expansion of the West, encumbering today's generations with repayments on earlier extractions. Timothy Mitchell identifies the forms of capitalisation, credit, and coercion that turn prospective assets into present income. Rejecting the common idea that claims on the future create only financial or fictitious capital, he traces the terraforming projects - the destruction of rivers, the colonising of territory, the expansion of infrastructure, and the burning of carbon - through which the future has been squandered. Terms such as finance, technology, the economy, and growth function as alibis that conceal this devastating form of extraction.

Contents:

Groundbreaking

On rivercide

Capitalism as a detour

Reading the book of the future

Economentality: how the future entered government

The properties of markets

Infrastructures work on time

A better tomorrow? Climate crisis and the alibi of growth.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

ebook version :

ISBN:

9781836742272

1836742274

OCLC:

1570603279

Publisher Number:

CIPO000337485