The Shock Doctrine of the Left

Shocks, from natural disasters to military catastrophes, have been exploited for years by the state to impose privatisation, cuts and rampant free markets on us. This book argues that the Left can turn this on its head by using those same moments of chaos and some of our own to achieve emancipation.Graham Jones, ‘the radical hairdresser of Deptford’, combines his experience of grassroots activism with ideas from complex systems theory to illustrate how everyone can help to exploit these shocks and bring about a new world of compassion and care. He examines how understanding and controlling chaos and complexity in social movements, and combining mutually reinforcing strategies of ‘smashing, building, healing and taming’, can become the basis of a unified left. Using vivid personal experience to bring his argument to life, he outlines a practical vision for activism, from the scale of the individual body to the global social movement, that is neither timidly reformist nor scattergun and ineffective.Rooted in the latest debates over accelerationism, Universal Basic Income and ‘Fully Automated Luxury Communism’, this bold book is a toolkit for revolution for activists and radical millennials everywhere.