Financial Psychedelia and the Commons
$44.51
- Paperback
184 pages
- Release Date
3 September 2026
Summary
This book pays homage to a rock band that has most influenced alternative culture, the Grateful Dead. It critically discusses the evolution of the libertarian spirit in the USA, which was born and developed in the 1960s and merged in the last three decades into a libertarian ideology, based on individual freedom, antistatalism and the primacy of the spirit of the self-made man. Examining how this transition was functional, on the one hand, to high-tech digital innovation and, on the other, to the spirit of new platform capitalism. Andrea Fumagalli suggests that the process of capturing the libertarian spirit for capitalist purposes, which represents one of the clearest examples of “life subsumption”, the acknowledgment that the life of individuals at the very moment that it triggers processes of social cooperation is a potential source of subversive behaviour, and how this can turn into a powerful tool for today’s capitalist valorisation.
Book Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781350413849 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10: | 1350413844 |
| Author: | Andrea Fumagalli |
| Publisher: | Bloomsbury Publishing PLC |
| Imprint: | Bloomsbury Academic |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Number of Pages: | 184 |
| Release Date: | 3 September 2026 |
| Weight: | 200g |
| Dimensions: | 18mm x 136mm x 214mm |
| Series: | In Common |
You Can Find This Book In
Critics Review
‘Financial Psychedelia and the Commons’ is an exceptionally innovative book in the field of social sciences. Andrea Fumagalli places the reader amidst counterculture and cyberculture, evoking the spirit of Grateful Dead’s music and contemporary blows against the Empire that denounce capitalism for exploiting commons through its financial infrastructure. * Stefano Lucarelli, University of Bergamo, Italy *
‘Fumagalli’s fascinating study reveals how traditions of US counterculture and contemporary radical economic projects share left libertarian tendencies. Particularly compelling is his argument that, despite the myriad ways in which digital technologies have been made to serve corporate and military interests, we can and should recuperate liberatory aspects that the utopian digital spirit of the 1990s still has to offer.’ * Michael Hardt, Duke University, USA *
‘Libertarianism is merging into a neo-fascism built by a plutocracy of narcissistic individualism, with a rejection of the fundamental human values of empathy, reviving eugenics as a dystopian political force. This book, derived from the psychedelic music of the Grateful Dead, is an apt warning of the dangers ahead.’ * Guy Standing, SOAS University of London, UK *
Andrea Fumagalli
Andrea Fumagalli is an activist and Professor of Economics and History of Economic Thought in the Department of Economics and Management at the University of Pavia, Italy. He also teaches Eco-Social Economics at the Free University of Bolzano, Italy. He is the co-author of The Crisis of the Global Economy with Sandro Mezzadra (2010) and Cognitive Capitalism, Welfare and Labour (2019) with Alfonso Giuliani, Stefano Lucarelli, and Carlo Vercellone.
Returns
This item is eligible for free returns within 30 days of delivery. See our returns policy for further details.