Review of Global Capitalism and the Crisis of Democracy by Jerry Harris

ABSTRACT

Jerry Harris’s optimistic book shows how capitalism has remorselessly moved to end Keynesian social justice measures over the globe and consequently destroy opportunities for us moving toward democracy. He shows how class power has moved back from its brief Keynesian respite, falling effortlessly into patterns of neoliberal political, social and economic extremes. He looks for alternatives beyond state-centred experiments as different parts of the global transition of the capitalist experiences. He reviews possible transitional alternatives to continuous capitalism within green alternatives and other alternatives in Italy, Venezuela, Bolivia and Greece, and he finishes by asking questions about what a real post-liberal democracy needs to look like.

KEYWORDS:

• Global capitalism
• crisis
• democracy
• neo-liberalism
• alternatives
• social justice

Notes on Contributor

Georgina Murray is Associate Professor at Griffith University. She teaches Political Economy and has written (or co-written) three books: Financial Elites and Transnational Business: Who Rules the World? (with John Scott, Edward Elgar, 2012); Women of the Coal Rushes (with David Peetz, UNSW Press, 2010); and Capitalist Networks and Social Power in Australia and New Zealand (Ashgate, 2006). She also writes and publishes articles on finance capital, gender and work.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.