The Global Police State

Regular price $ 22.95

by William I. Robinson

Pluto Press (UK)

8/20/2020, paperback

SKU:  9780745341644

 

As the world becomes ever more unequal, people become ever more 'disposable'. Today, governments systematically exclude sections of their populations from society through heavy-handed policing. But it doesn't always go to plan. William I. Robinson exposes the nature and dynamics of this out-of-control system, arguing for the urgency of creating a movement capable of overthrowing it.

The global police state uses a variety of ingenious methods of control, including mass incarceration, police violence, US-led wars, the persecution of immigrants and refugees, and the repression of environmental activists. Movements have emerged to combat the increasing militarization, surveillance and social cleansing; however many of them appeal to a moral sense of social justice rather than addressing its root - global capitalism.

Using shocking data which reveals how far capitalism has become a system of repression, Robinson argues that the emerging megacities of the world are becoming the battlegrounds where the excluded and the oppressed face off against the global police state.

Reviews:

'Robinson gives powerful theoretical coherence to everyone's fear that the fascism is being reborn, but adds the important twist that repression itself has grown into an essential engine of accumulation' -Mike Davis, author of 'Planet of Slums' and co-author of Set the Night on Fire: Los Angeles in the Sixties

'Karl Marx aspired to a world in which our animal needs would be satisfied and our human needs could be addressed. It is a realistic possibility now, as William Robinson outlines - or the alternative that is taking shape before our eyes: a "global police state" controlled by narrowly concentrated capital with "surplus humanity" left to survive somehow on its own. The choice is in our hands. There could hardly be a more compelling one' -Noam Chomsky, Institute Professor Emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and author of Who Rules the World?

About the Author:

William I. Robinson is Professor of Sociology, Global Studies, and Latin American Studies, at the University of California-Santa Barbara. Among his many award-winning books are Global Capitalism and the Crisis of Humanity (CUP, 2014) and We Will Not Be Silenced (Pluto, 2017).