Description
The Tragedy of Our Time
Book Summary
In The Tragedy of Our Time, Andrés Piqueras Infante offers a rigorous analysis of the terminal crisis of capitalism. The book argues that the fundamental categories of the system—wage labor, value, and capital—have entered an irreversible dynamic of self-destruction. Through a historical explanation, the author unveils how the combination of automation, financialization, and dispossession is eroding the social and ecological foundations of civilization. An essential work for understanding the current contradictions of the economic model and its impact on society and the environment.
What is it about?
The work examines the process of "self-phagocytosis" or internal colonization that capitalism undertakes to sustain itself. Piqueras Infante explains that the sluggish growth of core economies is not the result of a recovery, but of the progressive destruction of the pillars that supported "regulated" mature capitalism. The text breaks down how the triad of automation-financialization-dispossession is undermining inherited forms of society, eliminating jobs, stripping populations of their rights and resources, and exhausting the planet's energy bases. In doing so, the system undermines its own conditions of existence, precipitating a civilizational crisis of global proportions.
Main themes
- Structural crisis of capitalism and its fundamental categories (wage labor, value, and capital).
- Processes of automation, financialization, and dispossession as engines of the social and ecological crisis.
- Self-phagocytosis or internal colonization of capitalism over society and the environment.
- Depletion of the energy and material bases of subsistence in the current economic system.
- Transformation and destruction of the forms of society inherited from regulated capitalism.
Who is it recommended for?
This book is aimed at readers interested in political economy, sociology of work, social history, and the critique of contemporary capitalism. It is especially useful for students, academics, and social science professionals seeking a deep and updated analysis of the contradictions of the global economic system. It is also recommended for anyone concerned about the ecological and social crisis who wishes to understand its structural roots.
What this book offers
- A solid theoretical framework for understanding the deep-seated causes of the current crisis of capitalism.
- A historical analysis that connects the evolution of the system with its destructive effects on society and nature.
- A clear explanation of how automation, financialization, and dispossession feed back into each other to erode the inherited social order.
- A critical perspective that invites reflection on possible alternatives to civilizational collapse.
Technical specifications
- Author: Piqueras Infante, Andrés
- Publisher: Anthropos Editorial
- Language: Spanish
- Subject: LITERARY ESSAYS, SOCIAL AND CULTURAL HISTORY, SOCIOLOGY OF WORK AND LABOR, ENVIRONMENTAL ECONOMICS, POLITICAL ECONOMY, ECONOMIC SYSTEMS AND STRUCTURES
- Collection: CUADERNOS A
- Binding: Paperback
- Publication date: October 2017
- Number of pages: 208
- Weight: 388 g
Editorial review
The Tragedy of Our Time presents itself as a reference work for those seeking a lucid and well-documented analysis of the current systemic crisis. Andrés Piqueras Infante manages to articulate complex concepts of political economy and sociology into an accessible yet rigorous discourse. His focus on the self-phagocytosis of capitalism provides an original interpretative key that connects the economic crisis with the ecological and social ones. Without a doubt, a book that invites debate and critical reflection on the future of our societies.