Rentier Capitalism - Who Owns the Economy, and Who Pays for It?

In this landmark book, the author of The New Enclosure provides a forensic examination and sweeping critique of early-twenty-first-century capitalism. Brett Christophers styles this as 'rentier capitalism', in which ownership of key types of scarce assets - such as land, intellectual property, natural resources, or digital platforms - is all-important and dominated by a few unfathomably wealthy companies and individuals: rentiers. If a small elite owns today's economy, everybody else foots the bill. Nowhere is this divergence starker, Christophers shows, than in the United Kingdom, where the prototypical ills of rentier capitalism - vast inequalities combined with entrenched economic stagnation - are on full display and have led the country inexorably to the precipice of Brexit. With profound lessons for other countries subject to rentier dominance, Christophers' examination of the UK case is indispensable to those wanting not just to understand this insidious economic phenomenon but to overcome it. Frequently invoked but never previously analysed and illuminated in all its depth and variety, rentier capitalism is here laid bare for the first time.

About the author

Brett Christophers is professor of human geography at Uppsala University's Institute for Housing and Urban Research

Summary

How did Britain's economy become a bastion of inequality?

Report

In praise of The New Enclosure:

With his carefully crafted and meticulously researched study, he has made an essential contribution to our understanding of politics and government in modern Britain. Adam Tooze Financial Times

Product details

• Authors: Brett Christophers
• Publisher: Verso
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 17.11.2020
• EAN: 9781788739726
• ISBN: 978-1-78873-972-6
• No. of pages: 512
• Subjects: Social sciences, law, business > Political science > Political science and political education; POLITICAL SCIENCE / Political Economy, POLITICAL SCIENCE / History & Theory, POLITICAL SCIENCE / Commentary & Opinion, Political science & theory, United Kingdom, Great Britain, Political Economy, Political science and theory, Socialism & left-of-centre democratic ideologies, Left-of-centre democratic ideologies and movements