The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power704 pp, PublicAffairs, 2019In his 1944 classic, The Great Transformation, the economic historian Karl Polanyi told the story of modern capitalism as a “double movement” that led to both the expansion of the market and its restriction. During the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, old feudal restraints on commerce were abolished, and land, labor, and money came to be treated as commodities. But unrestrained capitalism ravaged the environment, damaged public health, and led to economic panics...…The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power704 pp, PublicAffairs, 2019In his 1944 classic, The Great Transformation, the economic historian Karl Polanyi told the story of modern capitalism as a “double movement” that led to both the expansion of the market and its restriction. During the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, old feudal restraints on commerce were abolished, and land, labor, and money came to be treated as commodities. But unrestrained capitalism ravaged the environment, damaged public health, and led to economic panics...WW…

Americans are waking up to how badly they have been served by the people sworn to protect their lives and safety. This article appears under the title “A National Failure to Protect” in the Prospect’s July-August issue.One crisis this year has been followed by another, the COVID-19 pandemic by the crisis over police violence and Black lives. But a single theme unites them. Call it the failure to protect—the failure of American institutions to perform the first and most fundamental requirement of a government, to protect its citizens from unnecessary suffering and death.In the immediate case...…Americans are waking up to how badly they have been served by the people sworn to protect their lives and safety. This article appears under the title “A National Failure to Protect” in the Prospect’s July-August issue.One crisis this year has been followed by another, the COVID-19 pandemic by the crisis over police violence and Black lives. But a single theme unites them. Call it the failure to protect—the failure of American institutions to perform the first and most fundamental requirement of a government, to protect its citizens from unnecessary suffering and death.In the immediate case...WW…