livestream: Nothing To Lose But Our Chains by Jane Hardy
Thursday 23rd September
livestream - 7pm - free entry
Register your interest by getting your free ticket for this author talk, instructions to join will be emailed shortly afterwards. For your security and ours, you cannot attend this talk without registering in advance first.
Join Jane Hardy via ZOOM to hear her optimistic exploration into the power of the working class.
Since capitalism began, British workers have always fought for their rights. Today it's no different.
Capitalism is a dynamic system, continually adapting itself to exploit workers in new ways. In Britain today, the gig economy is its newest form, expressed through precarious contracts and the supposed atomisation of workers. In this book, Jane Hardy argues that despite capitalism’s best efforts to stop us, we can always find ways to fight it.
Through a range of case studies, from cleaners to university lecturers, Hardy looks at how workers are challenging employers’ assaults in the neoliberal workplace, comparing these new actions to a long history of British working class struggle. She explores the historic role of migrants in the British workforce, from the Windrush generation to more recent arrivals from the European Union, as well as placing womens’ collective action centre stage. Analysing the rise of robotics and artificial intelligence, she refutes claims that we are entering a post-capitalist society.
Nothing to Lose but our Chains is an optimistic exploration into the power of the working class, showing that no matter what tools capitalism uses, it can always be resisted.
Jane Hardy was Professor of Political Economy at the University of Hertfordshire. She is now an independent writer and researcher. Her new book, Nothing to Lose But Our Chains: Work and Resistance in Twenty-First-Century Britain is out now via Pluto Press. She has published widely on the restructuring of the Polish economy, including her book Poland’s New Capitalism. She is a member of the Editorial Board of International Socialism.
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