Welcome to your Post-Capitalist futureAre you ready for the change?Tear gas burns the eyes, nose and

Welcome to your Post-Capitalist future

Tear gas burns the eyes, nose and skin. Without access to first aid, there’s not much you can do but run for cover and try to wash it out with water – or cry it out. The air was thick with the acrid gas as the global financial crisis hit Greece in 2008, which set in motion a debt crisis the country is yet to recover from. In December, young Greeks faced off with riot police in Athens’ Syntagma Square and anger towards failed economic policies came to life in billowing plumes of yellowy smoke.
While tear gas may cause temporary sensory deprivation, it can also lead to moments of clarity. Or, so it was for writer Paul Mason. As Mason watched events unfold on the streets of Greece, he cast his mind back to September that year: wandering around with a TV news crew outside the headquarters of the collapsed investment bank Lehman Brothers, as newly redundant employees put their possessions in cardboard boxes and went home for the last time. He thought too about how he’d seen the internet reshaping society since his time as a tech journalist.
Mason began to connect the dots: this crisis isn’t going away. This train of thought led him to his provocative book Postcapitalism: A Guide to our Future. Mason offers a terminal diagnosis of the current order and a glimpse of what a new world might look like – and its seeds are already visible all around us.