Global Civil War is an exciting new study by scholar and activist William Robinson that provides a big-picture account of how the coronavirus pandemic and new digital technologies have drastically transformed capitalism and the entire global economy and society. Analyzing the concentration of power and control in the hands of corporate conglomerates, tech giants, megabanks, and the military-industrial complex, the book documents the extent of unprecedented global inequalities as the mass of humanity faces violent dispossession and uncertain survival. Enabled by digital applications, the ruling groups will continue to ratchet up the global police state to contain the global revolt unless mass pressure from below pushes them to change course. The book issues a dire warning against the emergence of a dystopic digitalized dictatorship but also finds great hope and inspiration in the burgeoning social movements of the poor and the dispossessed as humanity descends into global civil war. At once deeply analytical and theoretically sophisticated, it is also eminently accessible to a wider public and is destined to become a companion text to those struggling on the frontlines for global social justice and a more hopeful future.
What People Are Saying
“William I. Robinson elucidates the terrifying configurations of a new type of global dictatorship, that imposed by transnational capital. By seizing control of national economies and imposing the most sophisticated forms of surveillance in human history these transnational entities are cementing into place a dystopian world that serves the interests of a global elite at the expense of liberty, freedom of expression, democracy and economic security. This is the future, unless we rise up to wrest power back from our corporate overlords.” Chris Hedges, author of America: The Farewell Tour
“As an axis of rampant capital and wondrous technology grows by the day and liberal democracy sheds its last illusions, William I. Robinson describes a true enemy of humanity that is close to home. And yet nothing is inevitable. Read this urgent book.” John Pilger, journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker
“A novel and important analysis of how global capitalism is being transformed by the pandemic. Robinson skillfully maps out how expanding digitalization, growing government intervention, and emerging movements across the political spectrum, all reflect and reshape ongoing capitalist crises.” Nick Srnicek, program director, MSc Digital Economy, King’s College London, and author of Platform Capitalism
“Globalization’s first episode in the history of our species was the out-migration of homo sapiens from Africa to the rest of the planet. Today’s globalization builds on the out-migration that resulted in colonialism and neocolonialism, imperialism, and neoliberalism. Those who once cheered the colonialist onslaught are now reeling from what neoliberalism is bringing to their bodies: literally a war for survival that takes place in their own bloodstream. Thus, the rapacious greed that put a banker between a student and a professor wants to turn health professionals into ‘agents of repression.’ From the 2001 Dark Winter bio terror war game to the 2010 Lockstep report that presaged today’s coronavirus pandemic, to 2019’s Event 201 to 2021’s Cyber Polygon, agents of global capital have been unequivocal about what is in store for us. The true question is, ‘What are we prepared to do to stop them?’ Professor Robinson is clear that there are many possible futures; readers of this book will also understand that they have the power to reject reformist ‘revolutions from the top’ that include ‘Inclusive Capitalism’ within a global police state. Now is the time for the people to organically reject the ‘offers’ of the global capitalist class and make real the revolution of our values; that is, one of truth, justice, peace, and human and earth dignity.” Cynthia McKinney, author, activist, and six-term member of the US Congress
About the Author
William I. Robinson is Distinguished Professor of Sociology, Global Studies, and Latin American Studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara. Among his many books are Global Capitalism and the Crisis of Humanity (2014); Into the Tempest: Essays on the New Global Capitalism (2018); and The Global Police State (2020).