Wayne Antony – författare

Power and Resistance debunks the dominant neoliberal, hyper-individualist approach to society’s problems that sees poverty as a result of laziness, environmental crises as a result of market demands for products that pollute, and Indigenous Peoples’ struggles as a result of not assimilating. We argue that it is social inequality and oppression that are the underlying causes of social problems. In a society like ours, powerful groups make choices that benefit them and force those choices onto others, creating life problems for others and society as a whole. The powerful also have influence over what is and is not called a “social problem.” Solving social problems requires changing the structures of inequality and oppression. For example, industrial corporate agriculture has created huge profits for a few gigantic food corporations but left much of the world hungry. But farmers and their allies are pushing back through agroecology — an agriculture based on local, small-scale, ecologically sustainable farming that brings eaters and growers closer to one another. The seventh edition of Power and Resistance includes new chapters on anti-Black racism in schools, Indigenous people and mental health, food security and sovereignty, and work in the gig economy.

The so-called New Economy, based on huge advances in information and communication technologies, economic globalization and neoliberalism, promised to expand economic opportunities and growth, provide stimulating and well-paid jobs, reduce inequalities and develop the Third World. But the experiences of the past two decades have hardly been positive for workers and their families. While there have been significant economic and workplace changes, these changes have not been the boon to working people that was predicted. In fact, as the authors of this book show, there is significant unemployment and underemployment, including for knowledge workers. Management strategies continue to be authoritarian, and work presents new dangers to our health. Meanwhile, social services have been ripped apart. “New Economy” is simply the name being given to current attempts to reboot a very old and exploitative economic system. However, there are signs a truly new economy is possible, as trade unions, working people and progressive social movements continue the struggle for social justice.