Owning the Future: Power and Property in an Age of Crisis

Description

The question of ownership is the critical fault line of our times. During the pandemic this issue has only become more divisive. Since March 2020 we have witnessed the extraordinary growth of asset manager capitalism and the explosive concentration of wealth within the hands of the already super-rich. This new oligarchy controls every part of our social and economics lives. In the face of crisis, the authors warn that mere redistribution within current forms of ownership is not enough; our goal must be to go beyond the limits of the current system, dominated by private enclosure and unequal ownership. Only by reimagining how our economy is owned and by whom can we address the crises of our time - from the fallout of the pandemic to ecological collapse - at their roots. Building from this insight, the authors argue the systemic change we need hinges on a new era of democratic ownership: a reinvention of the firm as a vehicle for collective endeavour and meeting social needs. Against the new oligarchy of the platform giants, a digital commons that uses our data for collective good, not private profit. In place of environmental devastation, a new agenda of decommodification - of both nature and needs - with a Green New Deal and collective stewardship of the planet's natural wealth. Together, these proposals offer a road map to owning the future, and building a better world.

Adrienne Buller is a Senior Research Fellow at Common Wealth. Adrienne's writing and work has appeared in the Guardian, Jacobin, The New Statesman, New Left Review and the FT, among others; she is also an experienced media performer, appearing regularly on both TV and radio. Mathew Lawrence is founder and Director of Common Wealth, a think tank that designs ownership models for a democratic and sustainable economy. He is the co-author of Planet on Fire. Mathew's writing and work has appeared in the Guardian, the Nation, The Economist, The New Statesman, and the FT, among others; he is also an experienced media performer, on both TV and radio.

However queasily anxious it makes the political class, the question of who should own what in our economy still hangs in the air, unanswered. This pacy and accessible book unpacks the issues and offers solutions with a welcome dash of imagination and optimism. -- Aditya Chakrabortty, Senior Economics Commentator, The Guardian Owning the Future offers a vision for a future beyond capitalism. It will require nothing less than a radical democratization of ownership. An ambitious book that should inspire many to help workout the details of a much needed transition. -- Katharina Pistor, author of The Code of Capital: How the Law Creates Wealth and Inequality Amid a growing divide between those who own assets and those who don't, Owning the Future offers an essential guide to the shifting landscape of property, politics, and power today, from the enclosure of knowledge in vaccine IP to the outsized power of massive asset managers. Seamlessly blending social theory and case studies, Adrienne Buller and Mathew Lawrence lucidly diagnose the pathologies of private ownership across a range of sectors - housing, data, ecosystems - and make a powerful case for the necessity of public and democratic alternatives. -- Alyssa Battistoni, co-author of A Planet to Win A must-have guide for anyone interested in reimagining ownership in our age of compounding crises. Lawrence and Buller map out how we can escape from a world of escalating competition over dwindling assets towards a future where the inherent value of every person is recognised. Read this if you want to maintain any hope in a different vision of the twenty-first century. -- Kojo Koram, author of Uncommon Wealth Buller and Lawrence imagine a world where corporates are democratized, the stock market loses its power, and the state invests in a common fund for citizens and makes real and substantial investments in decarbonization. This is no fever dream. It is a well-reasoned plan of action and far more possible than we think. -- Mark Blyth, author of Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea You will finish this gripping book equipped with the tools to rethink what property means, ready to reimagine and transform ownership so that we can effectively redistribute power, decommodify the provision of essential goods and services, and expand the meaning of the commons. A powerful expose of how, together, we can own the future on an habitable planet. -- Isabelle Ferreras, author of Firms as Political Entities Praise for Planet on Fire * : * This clear and incisive book starts from the immensely important insight that we cannot understand climate breakdown outside of the capitalist social relations that produced it. Planet on Fire reminds us that climate breakdown is intimately linked to all the overlapping crises humanity faces - from the rise of the far right, to growing socioeconomic inequality, to the COVID-19 pandemic - and that ecosocialism is the only route to an equal and sustainable world. -- Grace Blakeley Eloquent, clear-sighted and erudite... an important analysis of the interlocking political and economic forces driving us towards ecological catastrophe, and a credible route-map towards an alternative -- Will Davies Offers blueprints, rally-points for energies, and chronicles of useful pasts for a decarbonized future. In the end, the climate crisis, they remind us, is not about individual morality or scientific authority but power and politics. This is a handbook for the fights to come. -- Quinn Slobodian The authors' vision of the path to climate justice is an antidote to disaster politics in so many ways, not least because it is both fair and unexpectedly luxurious. Each page is absolutely brimming with ideas as they meticulously take us through every important sector of the economy and reveal carefully thought through recommendations for reform. By focusing on power and who wields it they correctly identify the levers for change and who must now be empowered to push them. -- Michelle Meagher