This 31 page booklet is a translation into English of five essays, four by Robert Kurz, and the first one, 'Terror of Labour' by Norbert Trenkle. Here, the way in which the work ethic has been internalised, is examined. Work is seen as totalitarian, and coercive. All human activity is subordinated to it, just as all human value is reduced to the cash nexus. As work is produced by machines, and competitive pressure forces multi nationals to cut wages and ship production to the Far East, so unemployment relentlessly expands. The Asian financial crisis of 1997 - 98 is understood as a fore-shock of much worse to come.

This analysis is extended by Kurz in 'The Degradation of Culture'. Trenkle details the 'Terrorism of Labour', while Kurz applies this process to culture. If, post WW2, Keynesianism allowed subsidies to the arts, this to some degree liberated it from the terrors of capitalism. This cushioning has gone now, such that artists and writers are filtered, utterly subordinate to the markets. Artists are now prostitutes, and culture becomes 'miserable'. Science, history and social studies are likewise cut off at source, such that society itself is isolated from self-reflective critique. This, I suppose is one particular aspect of the way dissident voices are being excluded and silenced. Kurz advocates guilds and similar groups to try to save cultural resources from the barbarism of the markets.

In 'Realists and Fundamentalists', the rise of religion as an irrational force is understood as a result of mass misery. 'The End of History' under Postmodernism brings eschatology as a theme; Oklahoma and the Aum cult are the flip side of the basic Calvinism of the free market. This essay ends with a plea for a reformulated socialism. In 'Hysterical Populism' Kurz follows much the same theme, discussing the tendency for liberalism to blame individuals rather than the system, and to scapegoat people and then groups when things go wrong. Various candidates are put up. Gunter Ogger blamed managers, a best selling theme. Everybody hates the boss. Others blamed speculators like George Soros. From there we move up to asylum seekers and paedophiles. Kurz draws an analogy between this process and the Fritz Lang film 'M'. Meanwhile, the financial system crumbles.

The final essay deals with 11th September, and the 'War Against Terrorism'. The global financial system is drawn as a womb, giving birth to mega-terror. All the monsters - Saddam, the Ayatollah, the Taliban and Osama, were born out of western policies, atrocities and actions. This kind of hatred is currently being internalised, eg in US school shootings, and turned against western society itself.

The essays are a response to present concerns and are not a reiteration of the dead dogmas of the past. This said, I noted a tendency to sit within the defined parameters of the system itself. In my opinion, there is a failure to 'think outside the box' here. For example, we have had perhaps 80 - 84 financial crises since the abandonment of Bretton Woods in 1971. 'Crisis' is characteristic, fundamental to global capitalism, but the system just keeps on churning regardless.

Why? An examination of their fundamental assumption here might bring a different angle on their belief that it will eventually collapse. A second assumption here is about mass-misery. Within the system, alienation and mass-misery is doubtless true. I do not find any sense here that escape is possible. (A similar point also applies to their treatment of art.) Yet, I know from my own experience that people can escape from the system, and to some extent live outside it. Yet, these comments / responses aside, this book of essays is readable and topical. They are surprisingly free of dull Marxist jargon. The call to re-examine economics is timely, and justified. This booklet is a welcome addition to the literature.

– Steve Booth

Green Anarchist: Front Page Current Articles First 10 Issues See: uk.indymedia.org for more on the university expansion.

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