By Sasha Frere-Jones
The New Yorker
July 5th 2013
What We’re Reading: Summer Edition Volume II
Summer reading plans and aspirations from the New Yorker staff. This second installment follows part one.
…George Caffentzis has been writing as part of what is sometimes called the “anti-capitalist” movement for roughly thirty years. In Letters of Blood and Fire: Work, Machines, and the Crisis of Capitalism is the best available collection of his work. Rooted in Marxist fundamentals, Caffentzis examines how capital has turned forces like “information technology” into newer and more efficient modes of labor exploitation. His tone is less stringent than that of some academics (thought this isn’t a book for anyone scared of theory), and he pokes around into more historical badger holes than other writers in his cohort (the Turing machine pops up).
Calm but furious and meticulously researched, this collection is required reading for anyone other than the Koch Brothers.
