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Inventing the Future (revised and updated edition): Postcapitalism and a World Without Work Paperback – October 25, 2016

by Nick SRNICEK (Author), Alex Williams (Author)

4.3 262 ratings

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This major new manifesto offers a “clear and compelling vision of a postcapitalist society” and shows how left-wing politics can be rebuilt for the 21st century (Mark Fisher, author of Capitalist Realism)

Neoliberalism isn’t working. Austerity is forcing millions into poverty and many more into precarious work, while the left remains trapped in stagnant political practices that offer no respite.

Inventing the Future is a bold new manifesto for life after capitalism. Against the confused understanding of our high-tech world by both the right and the left, this book claims that the emancipatory and future-oriented possibilities of our society can be reclaimed. Instead of running from a complex future, Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams demand a postcapitalist economy capable of advancing standards, liberating humanity from work and developing technologies that expand our freedoms.

This new edition includes a new chapter where they respond to their various critics.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“A conceptual launch pad for a new socialist imagination.”
—Mike Davis, author of Planet of Slums

“Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams’ project dares to propose a different way of thinking and acting. Given the fizzling of the Occupy moment, a radical rethinking of the anarchic approach is badly needed but just not happening. This book could do a lot of work in getting that rethink going.”
—Doug Henwood, author of Wall Street

“Inventing the Future may be the shrewdest, sanest pipe dream of a book published since the recession.”
—Nathan Heller, New Yorker

“A powerful book: it not only shows us how the postcapitalist world of rapidly improving technology could make us free, but it also shows us how we can organise to get there. This is a must-read.”
—Paul Mason, author of Postcapitalism: A Guide to Our Future

“Srnicek and Williams demonstrate how a sustainable economic future is less a question of means than of imagination. The postcapitalist world they envision is utterly attainable, if we can remember that we have been inventing the economy all along.”
—Douglas Rushkoff, author of Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now

“Neoliberalism and austerity seem to reign supreme—the idea of a society not run for profit seems impossible. Or does it? The fascinating Inventing the Future by Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams argues for a radical transformation of society.”
—Owen Jones, New Statesman books of the year 2015

“I love the way [Srnicek and Williams] talk about a basic income as something really transformative.”
—Caroline Lucas, British Member of Parliament

“A future free from work might seem unrealistic, but it is actually the elephant in the room that [David] Cameron et al. would rather you ignored. Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams’ fabulous study opened my eyes to the role technology might play in making society possible again.”
—Peter Fleming, author of the Mythology of Work, from the Times Higher Education Supplement

“Inventing the Future is unapologetically a manifesto, and a much-overdue clarion call to a seriously disorganized metropolitan left to get its shit together, to start thinking—and arguing—seriously about what is to be done … It is hard to deny the persuasiveness with which the book puts forward the positive contents of a new and vigorous populism; in demanding full automation and universal basic income from the world system, they also demand the return of utopian thinking and serious organization from the left.”
—Los Angeles Review of Books

“In Inventing the Future, Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams take on the two key questions of the left, if I can characterise them broadly: why are we so bad at saying stuff, and do we have anything to say? Their diagnoses of the shortcomings of what they call ‘folk politics,’ are perceptive, clear, brutal, but respectful. Their prescription for the future can seem vertiginously sudden—you’ll need to either get on board with a basic citizen’s income, or form a better refutation than ‘it sounds expensive,’ and fast. But critically, they identify our urgent task: to own modernity.”
—Zoe Williams, Guardian

“Inventing the Future is exactly what we need right now. With immense patience and care, it sets out a clear and compelling vision of a postcapitalist society. Equally importantly, it lays out a plausible programme which can take us from 24/7 capitalist immiseration to a world free of work.”
—Mark Fisher, author of Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative?

“Most important book of 2015.″
—Aaron Bastani, co-founder of Novara Media

“Inventing the Future offers an ambitious, thoughtfully creative and meticulously researched blueprint for a new strategy toward building a mass global movement to counter the hegemony of neoliberal capitalism … Srnicek and Williams offer a profoundly thoughtful, meticulously analyzed contribution to this body of work. Most importantly, they offer a glimmer of hope that the future is something that might still be invented by us, not imposed from above.”
—PopMatters

“Accessible and original.”
—Nicholas Korody, Archinect

“As well as books such as Guy Standing’s The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class and Paul Mason’s Postcapitalism, one recent text is talked about more than most among people interested in UBI. Inventing the Future was published last year and has already created significant buzz in leftwing circles,”
—John Harris, Guardian

“They argue that, in the future, the workplace won’t exist in anything like the form we have now, and in any case it will have very few permanent workers. Assuming this position, they ask: What would be the social vision appropriate to a jobless future?”
—n+1

“This is a book I’ve been waiting for … The purpose of neo-liberalism is to cancel the future, where tomorrow looks exactly like today only with more stuff and more debt. To hell with that! Our lives are too short and too precious to exist in this Matrix. Please read the book, tell others to read it and let’s invent our future.”
—Neal Lawson, Compass

“In 2015, [Srnicek and Williams] expanded the manifesto into a more concrete book, Inventing the Future … The book attracted more attention than a speculative left-wing work had for years.”
—Andy Beckett, Guardian

“Srnicek and Williams have courageously drafted a call to re-imagine left politics from top to bottom.”
—Fred Turner, Public Books

About the Author

Nick Srnicek is a lecturer at City University. He is the author of Platform Capitalism and the forthcoming After Work: What's Left and Who Cares? (with Helen Hester).

Alex Williams is a lecturer in the sociology department at City, University of London. He is the author of the forthcoming Hegemony Now (with Jeremy Gilbert).

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Verso; Revised, Updated ed. edition (October 25, 2016)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 272 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1784786225
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1784786229
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.1 x 0.68 x 7.7 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #255,881 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #12 in Utopian Ideology
- #271 in Theory of Economics
- #716 in Political Philosophy (Books)

Customer Reviews:
4.3 262 ratings

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Nick Srnicek
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Nick Srnicek is a Senior Lecturer in Digital Economy at King's College London. His books include After Work: A History of the Home and the Fight for Free Time (Verso, 2023 with Helen Hester), Platform Capitalism (Polity, 2016), and Inventing the Future: Postcapitalism and a World Without Work (Verso, 2015 with Alex Williams).
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Alex Williams
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Customers find the book insightful and thought-provoking. They describe it as an engaging read with a provocative analysis.

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16 customers mention "Reading quality"14 positive2 negative

Customers find the book insightful and thought-provoking. They describe it as an excellent read with a smart and hopeful perspective. The book offers a bold vision for the future of work and how it might be politically.

"...the Future” by Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams offers both a practical strategy and hopeful vision of life beyond neoliberalism...." Read more

"An incredibly playful, sobering book...." Read more

"...But the authors here have a smart take that make me optimistic view of how we get from here to there...." Read more

"This is a stimulating and bold vision for the future of work and how it might be politically achieved...." Read more

8 customers mention "Readability"8 positive0 negative

Customers find the book engaging and thought-provoking. They describe it as playful yet sobering.

"An incredibly playful, sobering book...." Read more

"...Still, an interesting read." Read more

"This is a stimulating and bold vision for the future of work and how it might be politically achieved...." Read more

"Incredibly though-provoking and lucidly written...." Read more

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Malvin
An extraordinary opportunity awaits humanity
Reviewed in the United States on December 20, 2015
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“Inventing the Future” by Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams offers both a practical strategy and hopeful vision of life beyond neoliberalism. The book is a collaboration between Mr. Srnicek, who is a progressive thinker, educator and author with Mr. Williams, who is a brilliant PhD student. The author’s breakthrough analysis suggests that a post-capitalist future is possible.

Srnicek and Williams critique the “folk politics” of today’s Left for its failure to offer a systemic challenge to capitalism. The authors believe an equivalent to the Right’s Mont Pelerin Society is needed to articulate an expansive Leftist vision for a better future. An astute analysis supports the author’s contention that a Euro-centric capitalism must necessarily yield to a new, more encompassing concept of humanity whose “synthetic freedom” will know no boundaries.

Fortunately, Srnicek and Williams offer a strategy to achieve a “post work consensus”. The key components of the strategy include: full automation (to free labor from routine work); a sharply reduced work week; and a universal basic income (UBI). The authors recognize that consensus-building must focus on persuading the media, academia and business of the necessity for change.

On that point, I found Srnicek and Williams’ discussion of the world’s surplus population to be very informative. Capital has no solution to intractable unemployment in the global south that has been caused by a process of proletarianization in an era of post-industrialism. However, the looming prospect of “full unemployment” spreading to the north should be welcomed: humanity has an extraordinary opportunity to break the work ethic and the suffering religiosity of its primitive past. With the benefits of technology freely shared amongst a humanity that has been freed of brutality, greed and competition, one cannot help but be excited about the new horizons that might finally open up for us.

I highly recommend this excellent book to everyone.

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33 people found this helpful

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StepHen P Healy
An incredibly playful, sobering book. The sobering part ...
Reviewed in the United States on March 17, 2017
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An incredibly playful, sobering book. The sobering part is the forces that conspire to make work disappear--of course automation affecting manufacturing, transport and now service sector jobs at all levels but also in equal measure a recognition that rates of economic growth are slowing down--there is simply too much capacity. What dies in that slow down is the promise of an integrative globalization, but what have we lost, most of us were not true believers. so far what the end of globalization seems to have produced is wide spread isolationist/right-wing/populism, but there's a chance for that to change.

The author's formulate a theoretical and practical response to our present circumstances--laying claim to this abundance in the form of a demadn for a universal basic income. The end of work as we know it is coming (and really has long been here in one way in Detroit and another in the informal-economy cities of the so-called developing world). What we have with the concept of a basic income is to re-create the terms of this ending into a liberation, rather than the conditions of a new servitude.

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4 people found this helpful

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Alex
Intriguing read
Reviewed in the United States on May 18, 2022
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I havebt been able to get the concept of post-capitalism out of my head after this book. A lot of moments of intense repeatability; the author puts in logical terms many thoughts I haven't been able to articulate before.
This is a concept that should be more prevalent in schools, not just in star trek.

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J. Edgar
A Source for Hope
Reviewed in the United States on March 5, 2016
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When I was reading this, lying in bed my wife asked me what I was reading now – the format of the book is enough that it shook her out of the idea that it was just another book and instead made her ask.

I told her it might be the most important book I ever read. So many books that strike a criticism of the existing world and a future that can come through the mechanisms recommended in the book just have so many holes and they leave me feeling hopeless. But I keep reading them, both in the “Destroy Capitalism” and the “Reform Capitalism” genres. But the authors here have a smart take that make me optimistic view of how we get from here to there. We need a party moving forward the invented future. We need emancipation, a universal income, and we need to watch the rise of the robots. But we need to leverage that rise. The program is incomplete, but it is a foundation. And it is a source for optimism. The kids are all right.

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11 people found this helpful

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David Vassallo
An interesting analysis of the problem of technological unemployment. ...
Reviewed in the United States on September 26, 2016
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An interesting analysis of the problem of technological unemployment. However, I think there suggestions are a little muddled and they make some jumps that I don't think are as well supported as they think. Additionally, has a bit too much of a "viva la revolution" feel for me. Still, an interesting read.

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4 people found this helpful

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Anya Verkamp
This is a stimulating and bold vision for the future ...
Reviewed in the United States on May 2, 2017
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This is a stimulating and bold vision for the future of work and how it might be politically achieved. The arguments are not always without gaps or faults, but this can be forgiven for its ambition. The definition of 'folk politics' in the book will help any engaged citizen think critically about if the actions of their NGO or movement.

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Verified Customer
Insightful, but
Reviewed in the United States on August 27, 2017
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The principle flaw in this and many other studies is that they treat work as a means of getting income. They fail to address the issue that a person's sense of who they are is tied to their "work".

The book needs a strong editor. The author's ideas are buried in their "hesitancy" and thus the text's redundancy and questions whether this might be best presented in an abridged form.

The extensive references and footnotes are an academic approach for validating what has been some careful thought. But amplify the lack of confidence or the paranoia of academic peer review. The pop ups on the kindle version are a nice technical touch but add little clarity to the text.

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2 people found this helpful

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diskrete kunst
top
Reviewed in Germany on September 15, 2023
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prima schnelle lieferung eines tollen buches

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Bruno
Inspiring
Reviewed in Spain on May 13, 2019
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It has been a very interesting lecture because it proposes a new path (at least for me, it did) for the left political thinking and action.

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Tony Sutherland
Seriously Important
Reviewed in Australia on December 2, 2017
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The authors wear their politics on their sleeves and great credit to them for doing so. This is an important work to engender some serious thinking about how YOU want your future to be. Don't leave it to others - you can start designing your own future now, and while you are at it, co-design with those around you.

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Amazon Customer
Great Book, excellent read.
Reviewed in Canada on September 10, 2016
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A very good read! Insightful and thought provoking.
Imagine a world without the stress and the drudgery of work. A world in which humanity is truly free. Free to pursue their dreams, whatever they might be, with focus and intent and no worry.
But; there is a lot of work to do before we can get there. We first have to shed the shackles of the "human condition", that quagmire that is the struggle of humans between our instinct and our intellect. It all have to do with our evolution as a species. The instinct was there long before the intellect arrived. The struggle continues! Jeremy Griffith's book: FREEDOM: The end of the human condition... gives excellent insight. Check it out.
Technology may very well prove to be the savior of the human race. You know, this planet really don't care if we survive as a species or not. That is up to us.

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Lya Alvarado
You need to read this book!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 21, 2016
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This is the most important book I have read in many, many years. It explains so many things! It explains what is wrong with the world of work, with the labour market and with capitalism in its current form in general. It also explains why the left is in such a dismal state and why it is failing. This is the type of books I love: a book that explains clearly and concisely many ideas that have been in my mind for a long time but I was unable to formulate clearly. In addition to that, and most importantly, this book provides a battery of solutions for the ills of capitalism in its current form. The proposals, which are clearly and concisely explained in the book, are radical, but not revolutionary. They are sensible and feasible. With political will they all could be implemented in a couple of years. Implementing them would not bring about the end of capitalism but would bring about a form of capitalism that should be far more humane, rational, and better for the environment. What is needed is to show more and more people that there is a way forward, that it is not true that "there is no alternative." You need to read this book and tell everybody you know to read it as well. A better future starts today!

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