Inequality and its pernicious effects on culture and democracy

The following is an excerpt from The Age of Insecurity: Coming Together as Things Fall Apart, by Astra Taylor, and published by House of Anansi Press. The book is one of five finalists for this year's Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing.

Astra Taylor: 'How we understand and respond to insecurity is one of the most urgent questions of our moment, for nothing less than the future security of our species hangs in the balance. Insecurity can cut both ways, serving as a conduit to empathy, humility, and belonging—or it can spur defensive and destructive compulsions.'Book cover and author photograph courtesy of House of Anansi Press Inc.

Feature

BY ASTRA TAYLOR

May 6, 2024

Capitalism, as economists from Karl Marx to John Maynard Keynes and Thomas Piketty have understood, is prefaced on producing a profit, which can then be reinvested to make more profit in turn. It is, in philosopher Nancy Fraser’s terminology, “voracious,” relentless in...

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