Apocalypse Capitalism : Economic Visions after Nuclear War.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Preston, John.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Nuclear warfare.

Economic security.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (209 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Bristol : Bristol University Press, 2026.

Summary:

Available open access digitally under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.Is it easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism? Drawing on extensive archival research in the UK and the US, this book uncovers how Cold War planners planned to keep capitalism alive even after a nuclear apocalypse. Through scenario planning, US officials.

Contents:

Front Cover

Half Title

Copyright Page

Table of Contents

About the Author

Acknowledgements

Preface

1 The Economics of Apocalypse: Imagining Capitalism After the End of the World

Introduction

Someone once said 'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism'

Is global nuclear war an 'end to the world'?

Chrono-​economics

Economics as a technique of neutralization

Classical and pre-​classical economics

Orthodox economics

Disaster economics

Neo-​classical and Austrian (Hayekian) economics

Apocalypse Capitalism: the spatio-​temporal-​legal fix

Primitive accumulation

The spatio-​temporal-​legal fix

Critiques of primitive accumulation and accumulation by dispossession in the context of Apocalypse Capitalism

Disaster capitalism, gore capitalism and Apocalypse Capitalism

Apocalypse Communism: spatio-​temporal-​revolutionary fissures

Structure of the book

2 Contracting Out the Unthinkable in the Late Cold War

Doing nightmare labour

Apocalypse in context: economics and nuclear geo-​politics in the 1970s and 1980s

The long boom to the 1970s

Monetarism and free markets in the 1980s

Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) in the 1970s and 1980s

Summary

Apocalypse in the archives

Research ethics

Archival sources, citation and conventions

Analysis

Conclusion: Politics, archives and the personal

3 United Kingdom Plans for Reconstructing Capitalism After a Nuclear War: Proto-​Capitalism, Immiseration and Ruling Class Survival

Introduction: Agony and dictatorship?

Modelling the post-​nuclear UK economy

The 'Survival Model': APOCALYPSE, Input-​Output analysis and beyond (1958-​86)

REGENERATE 1982-​84: economic wargaming and the influence of consultants.

GLAWARS (Greater London Area War Risk Study) 1986-​87: academics and market ideas

Industry and industrial modelling: 1980-​89

The primacy of planning: was there a 'Thatcherite' shift in the 1980s?

Preserving class

Ruling class survival

Bullionism: money, banking and gold

Working-​class immiseration

Conclusion: Proto-​capitalism in the postattack UK

4 United States Plans for Reconstructing Capitalism After a Nuclear War: Preserving Property Rights and Markets

Introduction: Commitment to postattack recovery and reconstruction

Postattack economic modelling

Economic stabilization and Input-​Output analysis (1952-​79)

FEMA and dynamic models (1979-​90)

Markets and property rights in reconstruction: the Reagan shift

Markets, liberty and corporations in economic recovery: pre and post-​Reagan

Prohibiting planning

Bringing private consultants into the heart of FEMA: 'FAB' (FEMA Agency Advisory Board)

Private banking for the private sector

Property rights

Continuity of Government: 'islands of survival' and private property rights

The working class: maintaining work 'role' in recovery

Conclusion: The US planned to survive a nuclear war as a capitalist economic system

5 Apocalypse Capitalism in Practice: The Spatio-​Temporal-Legal Fix

Comparing UK and US plans for capitalist reconstruction after a nuclear war in the 1970s and the 1980s

Apocalypse Capitalism in the 1970s and 1980s: preserving capitalism through spatio-​temporal-​legal fixes in the UK and the US

The spatial fix

The temporal fix

The legal fix and the state

Existential threats, Silicon Valley and authoritarian capitalism

Conclusion: The limits of spatio-​temporal-​legal fixes

The organic and ecological limit

Capitalist crisis as limit

Class conflict as limit.

6 Apocalypse Communism: Spatio-​Temporal-​Revolutionary Fissures

Barbarism, capitalism and silence

Spatio-​temporal-​revolutionary-​fissures

The inevitable return to class conflict

Spatial fissures: edge economies, twilight struggles and survivalism

Temporal fissures

Revolutionary fissures: Posadism as a living alternative to Apocalypse Capitalism

Conclusion: Apocalypse Capitalism, Apocalypse Communism and reimagining the end of the world

References

Index.

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Part of the metadata in this record was created by AI, based on the text of the resource.

Other Format:

Print version: Preston, John Apocalypse Capitalism

ISBN:

9781529248784

OCLC:

1612731363