Robert Ovetz – författare

Written by 55 of the richest white men of early America, and signed by only 39 of them, the constitution is the sacred text of American nationalism. Popular perceptions of it are mired in idolatry, myth and misinformation - many Americans have opinions on the constitution but have no idea what’s in it.

This book exposes the constitution for what it is – a rulebook to protect capitalism for the elites. The misplaced faith of social movements in the constitution as a framework for achieving justice actually obstructs social change - incessant lengthy election cycles, staggered terms and legislative sessions have kept those movements trapped in a redundant loop. This stymies progress on issues like labour rights, public health and climate change, projecting the American people and rest of the world towards destruction.

Robert Ovetz’s reading of the constitution shows that the system isn’t broken. Far from it. It works as it was designed to do.

Rumours of the death of the global labour movement have been greatly exaggerated. Rising from the ashes of the old trade union movement, workers'' struggle is being reborn from below.

By engaging in what Karl Marx called a workers'' inquiry, workers and militant co-researchers are studying their working conditions, the technical composition of capital, and how to recompose their own power in order to devise new tactics, strategies, organisational forms and objectives. These workers'' inquiries, from call centre workers to teachers, and adjunct professors, are re-energising unions, bypassing unions altogether or innovating new forms of workers'' organisations.

In one of the first major studies to critically assess this new cycle of global working class struggle, Robert Ovetz collects together case studies from over a dozen contributors, looking at workers'' movements in China, Mexico, the US, South Africa, Turkey, Argentina, Italy, India and the UK. The book reveals how these new forms of struggle are no longer limited to single sectors of the economy or contained by state borders, but are circulating internationally and disrupting the global capitalist system as they do.