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Arundhati Roy

Capitalism: A Ghost Story Paperback – May 6, 2014

by Arundhati Roy (Author)

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From the poisoned rivers, barren wells, and clear-cut forests, to the hundreds of thousands of farmers who have committed suicide to escape punishing debt, to the hundreds of millions of people who live on less than two dollars a day, there are ghosts nearly everywhere you look in India. India is a nation of 1.2 billion, but the country’s 100 richest people own assets equivalent to one-fourth of India’s gross domestic product.

Capitalism: A Ghost Story examines the dark side of democracy in contemporary India, and shows how the demands of globalized capitalism has subjugated billions of people to the highest and most intense forms of racism and exploitation.

Print length

136 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Haymarket Books
Publication date

May 6, 2014
Dimensions

5.2 x 0.4 x 7.4 inches
ISBN-10

1608463850
ISBN-13

978-1608463855
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Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Courageous and clarion Roy (Walking with the Comrades, 2011) continues her analysis and documentation of the disastrous consequences of unchecked global capitalism. She investigates India’s “Gush Up” capitalism and how it is reinforcing a caste system that benefits the elite while wreaking cruel havoc on the greater population and the country’s invaluable natural resources. Roy reports on collusion between New Delhi and multinational corporations that results in the corruption and dysfunction of local governments and brutal initiatives, disguised as security measures, in which people are forced off their land to make way for highways, airports, dams, mines, and factories. While violence is used against the poor, the middle class is covertly coerced by way of what Roy calls the “exquisite art of Corporate Philanthropy.” She cites eye-opening examples of how the support by well-established international foundations of admirable cultural projects and NGOs also insidiously engenders privatization and the infiltration of grass-roots movements against corporate pillaging. As Roy observes, “The algebra of infinite injustice works in mysterious ways.” Precise and revelatory, Roy gives us an awful lot to think about. --Donna Seaman

Review

Capitalism feels like straight reportage from the front lines of a war. In every part of the world, the rich few keep getting richer on the backs of a population that continues to work harder and grow poorer for it. And Roy keeps sending these furious, intelligent bulletins to alert us to what's going on. More people than ever are listening to her." ―The Stranger

Praise for Arundhati Roy's Field Notes on Democracy:

"Gorgeously wrought . . . pitch-perfect prose. . . . In language of terrible beauty, she takes India's everyday tragedies and reminds us to be outraged all over again." ―Time

"In her searing account, Roy asks whether our shriveled forms of democracy will be 'the endgame of the human race'―and shows vividly why this is a prospect not to be lightly dismissed." ―Noam Chomsky

“The scale of what Roy surveys is staggering. Her pointed indictment is devastating.” ―The New York Times Book Review

“An electrifying political essayist... So fluent is her prose, so keen her understanding of global politics, and so resonant her objections to nuclear weapons, assaults against the environment, and the endless suffering of the poor that her essays are as uplifting as they are galvanizing.” ―Booklist

Capitalism feels like straight reportage from the front lines of a war. In every part of the world, the rich few keep getting richer on the backs of a population that continues to work harder and grow poorer for it. And Roy keeps sending these furious, intelligent bulletins to alert us to what's going on. More people than ever are listening to her." —The Stranger

Praise for Arundhati Roy's Field Notes on Democracy:

"Gorgeously wrought . . . pitch-perfect prose. . . . In language of terrible beauty, she takes India's everyday tragedies and reminds us to be outraged all over again." —Time

"In her searing account, Roy asks whether our shriveled forms of democracy will be 'the endgame of the human race'—and shows vividly why this is a prospect not to be lightly dismissed." —Noam Chomsky

“The scale of what Roy surveys is staggering. Her pointed indictment is devastating.” —The New York Times Book Review

“An electrifying political essayist... So fluent is her prose, so keen her understanding of global politics, and so resonant her objections to nuclear weapons, assaults against the environment, and the endless suffering of the poor that her essays are as uplifting as they are galvanizing.” —Booklist

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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Haymarket Books (May 6, 2014)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 136 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1608463850
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1608463855
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 4.8 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.2 x 0.4 x 7.4 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #142,152 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #7 in 20th Century Canadian History
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179 ratings

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Carl

Non-Profit Industrial Complex (oxymoron)

Reviewed in the United States on September 16, 2015

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Non-Profit Industrial Complex (oxymoron)

Capitalism: A Ghost Story by Arundhati Roy.

Chapter 1 isn’t about India; it’s about the entire world and corporate philanthropy.
“Corporate Philanthropy”, two conflicting words.

Don’t Read the whole book. Just read pages 21 to 46.

Chapters 2 thru 6 are kind of depressing. They’re about India’s poverty and how capitalism is making it worse. What’s new?

I bought this book because of Chapter 1. It is the heart and soul, and almost half (41%) of the book. This chapter reveals the deceptive nature of Corporate Charity, the Non Profit Industrial Complex (NPIC) and Non Government Organizations (NGOs). It shows the role they play in suppressing dissension or misdirecting grass roots movements. Not just in India, but, the entire planet. Arundhati explains how it is possible for the entire population to remain complacent (apathetic) while the atrocities in chapters 2 thru 6 take place.

MOST corporate charities do MORE HARM THAN GOOD.

Roy names specific corporations and their links to specific Grass Roots organizations. She discusses Bretton Woods, the IMF, the World Bank, the CFR, RAND, the CIA, the Ford & Rockefeller Foundations, Nelson Mandela & the ANC, Steve Biko, MLK, The Black Panthers, Bill Gates, Oprah, Memorandums Of Understanding (MOU) and much more; all within these 40 pages. I have not read a book this concise and understandable, since “Green Eggs and Ham” (minus the repetition).

To get an idea of what Chapter 1 is about, below is a statement by Malcolm X (not in the book). He’s referring to MLK and his Nobel Peace Prize.
"He got the peace prize, we got the problem.... If I'm following a general, and he's leading me into a battle, and the enemy tends to give him rewards, or awards, I get suspicious of him. Especially if he gets a peace award before the war is over." Malcolm X
Ask yourself why Malcolm never got a peace prize?
And, why is there no Malcolm X Day?

I recommend Chapter 1 of this book to anyone seeking the truth as to how the world works. It will help them bypass a lot of useless, misleading, disinformation.
This book has 128 pages: 31 pages of index & footnotes, 57 pages for chapter 2 thru 6, 40 pages for chapter 1.
Since this book is concise, I also recommend that you supplement it with the following:
Bill Blum’s “Rogue State” & “Killing Hope”.
Noam Chomsky’s “Understanding Power”.
Lance Selfa’s “The Democrats: A Critical History”.
MLK speech “Beyond Vietnam (1967,04,04)”.
Malcolm X speech “Message to the Grass Roots (1963,11,10)”.
Or the following DVD’s & You Tube Videos:
Margaret Flowers (Flowers, Hochfeld & Huntington - Talking Healthcare, Jan. 29, 2011).….
The Corporation- Manufacturing Consent….
“Baraka - Dead Can Dance - The Host Of Seraphim [HD - 1080p]"…
John Pilger….. Vandana Shiva…
Zmagazine.org
___________________________________________
I saw Roy in a video with Howard Zinn (A People’s History). This led me to a video of her reading Chapter One of this book. That video was posted on You Tube by Non Profit - “Wrong kind of Green”. It can also be found at “OutlookIndia” and of course at “Haymarket Books”.

39 people found this helpful

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IAK

Depressing and enlightening

Reviewed in the United States on March 20, 2018

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If all this book contained was Arundhati Roy's analysis of the role NGO's have come to play in the world, it would still be worth every penny. This book and Walking with the Comrades lays bare the conditions of millions of downtrodden and marginalized people in India in a manner that rarely makes it through the corporate media/PR haze. Given the range of Indian politicians and celebrities who simply loathe this woman means she must be doing something right.

7 people found this helpful

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Karen J. Dahood

Troubling

Reviewed in the United States on September 4, 2017

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Arundhati Roy is angry and rightfully so. She turns on the United States as the flawed model of Democracy that India reveres. Hence we have flawed democracy in her home country: just as in the U.S., a few people have most of the wealth and unquestioned development is killing the natural resources of India. Poor people are dead or desperate, desperate enough, perhaps, to join protests against ruinous capitalism. She calls on Americans of the Occupy movement to join forces. She touches raw places in our American skin, but reading this in 2017 makes me sad more than angry, tired more than energized.

7 people found this helpful

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Jiminy

Great, then tiresome

Reviewed in the United States on July 23, 2020

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She writes well and makes a superb case that money is what is used by the masters to control the world, and how they work among themselves. It appears very credible.
But after a while it reads like the full CNN coverage of the Democrat senators speeches to persuade the senate to allow witnesses in the Senate for impeachment.
On this 7/23/2020 I really do wish DT had been forced out. Ms. Roy makes me wish a number of people were forced out, and this is global. And I'm basically conservative.

One person found this helpful

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Kool58

Powerful, scholarly, poetic and short read on the truth about failings of indian democracy

Reviewed in the United States on June 7, 2020

Verified Purchase

I recently discovered this journalist and author and very proud that the torch bearers like her who speak truth to power, though small in numbers, refuse to be silenced. She is the goddess who cares for the poor and uneducated who are being rendered homeless and suffering from state and corporate violence. Many a journalists who are not as well known have been killed or jailed on fake charges. I pray for her safety. If you really want t o know what really goes on and reported by the corporate mass media, read her scholarly work, and watch her speeches on youtube. If you value human rights and social justice, you should read this.

Helpful

Charles E. Coulter

A radical masterpiece

Reviewed in the United States on August 6, 2015

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Collections of essays are often uneven -- one or two essays stand out above the rest -- but Arundhati Roy's work is of high quality throughout. The afterword alone is worth reading the book. If you have any interest in a region that could produce our first full-scale nuclear war, if you want to see how capitalism has ravaged yet another country, or if you just need some motivation to keep the dream of true equality throughout the globe, read this book. It should be required reading for every member of the U.S. Congress.

4 people found this helpful

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B. Sund

Evils of unregulated Capitalism

Reviewed in the United States on November 15, 2020

Verified Purchase

This book will make you very aware of why we must control Capitalism.

Reviewed in the United States on August 18, 2019

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GREAT Perspectives

One person found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Kindle Customer

Hi jinks

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 22, 2018

Verified Purchase

Roy describes a phase of crony capitalism we like to think that we've left behind, but that seems rather to be spreading, firstly from the U.S. to south and east Asia and then in its turn colouring the character of western capitalism as the influence of Asian corporations grows. She draws parallels between what's happening in India and the enclosures of common land, specifically in Britain though similar takes can be told throughout the West. The Maoists in India seek to halt 'program's in its tracks, no doubt there are others who see modernization as a necessary historical phase but the question for all of us is how do we stop the Juggernaut at a global level?

Andrew Macdonald Powney

Better than Orwell? 'Funding has fragmented solidarity in ways repression never could.' (p.37)

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 13, 2020

Verified Purchase

There is a beautiful variation in Roy's sentence structures. The second part is moralistic but the first part has given a trenchant argument to justify that. The whole makes fewer than one hundred pages. This is masterly polemic.

The book's subtitled 'A Ghost Story' not just because of the spectre of communism but because the poor have been ghosted. Written before Modi's re-election in 2019, and on the eve of the 2014 elections in which he won the first majority in the lower house since 1984, it looks at what 'good governance' in line with Bretton Woods may mean in practice. Even before Modi's Digital India, Roy is writing here about digitalisation as a 'version of the Enclosure of the Commons' and a surveillance state. Events usually reported as police actions using troops, or as aspects of foreign policy, are seen by Roy in the context of multinationals' investments. Those who resist the privatisation of natural resources (which means the sale of land rights and the displacement of people by state governments) are denounced as Maoists or jihadis. Roy presents it as a tragi-farcical repeat of primitive accumulation.

The book's afterword is a transcript of a call from Roy for an end to privatised natural assets and the inheritance of real wealth, as well as for a ban on cross ownership over different economic sectors and for universal rights to health care, education and shelter. Cross ownership means not only that the richest 100 people own assets equivalent to a quarter of GDP in a country of 1.2 billion: it means a re-creation of 'company towns' on the simply vast scale of the 'Special Economic Zones'. No 'trickle down' occurs because financialisation has broken any link that might have been between 'gush up' and job creation, so privatisation creates vacuums for NGOs that in Roy's view are themselves the creatures of connected foundations like Ford and RAND. Roy has concluded that 'corporate philanthropy began to replace missionary activity' and NGOs are 'global finance's way of buying into resistance movements'; a repressive tolerance (p.29).

This analysis endures so far. Modi has come to power since the book was written on an anti-corruption, people-versus-politicians, majoritarian ticket, but his investigations into NGOs go alongside an actual liberalisation of direct investment rules and are part of his authoritarianism and 'perception management' (p.17). Pages 51 to 52 on the irrelevance of the Jan Lokpal Bill to a poor person's circumstances could be read alongside Modi's subsequent currency and further World-Bank-style 'reforms'. Roy warns us as well that the zombie economy and investment paralysis are still happening in 2014 (though they are likely now to be blamed on COVID19). On pages 36 to 42 she makes a profound attack on the Left for the chauvinism, sexual and otherwise, among its own activists that drove certain constituencies into line with the NGOs' agendas and their 'important, but in the long run stagnant' identity politics. It is the Good Old Cause made topical; it is like Tom Mann trying to unite the Catholic dockers and Protestant carters. Model writing.

Sarim

... Roys' charismatic style of writing is once again reflected beautifully in the book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 4, 2018

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Arundhati Roys' charismatic style of writing is once again reflected beautifully in the book. Not only does she categorically scrutinizes the downsides of a fundamentalist form of capitalism, she also captures readers attention towards recent trend aimed at systematic influencing of artists/creators thereby channeling their views towards supporting capitalist practices. Highly recommended.

Graham Gladman

Temptation and Capitalism

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 11, 2015

Verified Purchase

When democracy has an ethical foundation we might imagine it to be the best choice of political system. However all such systems can become degenerate when avarice and lack of initiative lure government representatives into corruption. Arundhati Roy explores this human fallibility and counts the cost to vulnerable citizens, particularly when they engage in trying to restore the human rights of persecuted individuals.

3 people found this helpful

Peter B

Still working, still fighting!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 3, 2015

Verified Purchase

How can you not support Arundhati Roy? She is a fearless exposer of corruption and cant in India, and there are so few voices that manage to be heard.

4 people found this helpful

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