Stolen: How to Save the World from Financialisation

The Political Education Committee is co-hosting author Grace Blakeley in conversation with Sarah Jaffe.

“Grace Blakeley is one of the sharpest of a new generation of economic and political thinkers, with a gift for clearly and eloquently explaining how we got to the crisis point we’re in, and why only radical transformation will get us out. A must-read for today’s activists on both sides of the Atlantic.” — Sarah Jaffe, author of Necessary Trouble: Americans in Revolt

Stolen is a must-read polemic about why the 'recovery' from the 2007-08 crash mostly benefited the 1%, and how democratic socialism can save us from a new crash and climate catastrophe.

For decades, it has been easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. In the decade leading up to the 2008 financial crisis, booming banks, rising house prices and cheap consumer goods propped up living standards in the rich world. Thirty years of rocketing debt and financial wizardry had masked the deep underlying fragility of finance-led growth, and in 2008 we were forced to pay up.

The decade since has witnessed all kinds of morbid symptoms, as all around the rich world, wages and productivity are stagnant, inequality is rising, and ecological systems are collapsing.

Stolen is a history of finance-led growth and a guide as to how we might escape it. We've sat back as financial capitalism has stolen our economies, our environment and even the future itself. Now, we have an opportunity to change course. What happens next is up to us.

About the Author

Grace Blakeley is an economics commentator for the New Statesman and a member of the National Policy Forum for the UK Labour Party. She regularly appears on national radio and TV in the UK as a critic of neo-liberalism and advocate for democratic socialism.