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Communications Unbound
by Helen Davitt (Author) ©2020, Monographs, XX, 360 Pages LinguisticsA mini source-book on the roots and prevailing features of the contemporary capitalist political economy, Class Talk – Communications Unbound outlines the alternative of economically viable, politically robust and socio-culturally inclusive democratic socialism fit for the 21st Century and beyond. Tracing politico-economic and socio-cultural exploitative behaviours to historical antecedents of feudalism, slavery and colonialism, it defines the age of capitalism, examines the dismantling of the Post-Second World War politico-economic consensus, outlines shareholder control of the corporate, banking and communications systems and details the global privatization of public services and the worldwide burgeoning of commercial rentierism.
The book makes visible the web of connections between matters of immense public concern: climate catastrophe and capitalist profiteering, foreign policy and terrorism, the housing crises and the global banking cartel, education systems and politico-economic divisiveness. It signposts the discussions, debates, solidarity and organisational activism in which the poor and workingclass majority must engage if societies are to be built and maintained for the common good.
Born in Glasgow, Helen Davitt left school at fifteen; emigrated at seventeen to California where she worked as head cashier in a loan company and was sacked for refusing to sell dud car insurances on car loans. She returned to the UK, worked full time and did a degree at Birkbeck College, University of London for four nights a week over four years. She taught in inner-city schools, worked as a schools’ inspector and then as a civilian education officer for the schools abroad for UK servicemen and women.
«At a personal level, this book unhinged me in a way few have in recent years, and I think that was because of the courageous nature of the book, and the invisibilities it made transparent. That, in my view, is the hallmark of good scholarship.» (John Smyth, University of Huddersfield, co-author of Living on the Edge – Rethinking Poverty Class and Schooling)
«This book offers a wide-ranging and thought-provoking review of the overwhelming evidence about inequality and its devastating consequences in our society. Eschewing unnecessary jargon or concepts, it provides a compelling survey of the extent, causes and pernicious outcomes of our class structure.» (Peter Golding, Emeritus Professor, Northumbria University, UK)
«Helen Davitt’s experiences of working in the real economy mean she hasn’t fallen into a silo mentality. In Class Talk she carefully demonstrates the links between the socio-economic systems we rely upon and explains why they have gone awry. Many of us intuitively feel something has gone badly wrong in our communities, but we haven’t put all the pieces together to understand how we got here. Class Talk clearly explains the causes and effects of predatory neoliberalism and warns that unless we all work to take democratic control of our economy and society we will end up where we are we are headed.» (Ross Ashcroft, Host of Renegade Inc at RT)
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