Focusing on the UK and New Zealand television markets, this book offers a unique geographical perspective on the interplay of power within the international television economy, particularly in relation to U.S. media corporations. It explores how power, knowledge, and geography intertwine, emphasizing their crucial role in the accumulation of media capital and the broader dynamics of television's global landscape.
How public land has been stolen from us. Much has been written about Britain's trailblazing post-1970s privatization program, but the biggest privatization of them all has until now escaped scrutiny: the privatization of land. Since Margaret Thatcher took power in 1979, and hidden from the public eye, about 10 per cent of the entire British land mass, including some of its most valuable real estate, has passed from public to private hands. Forest land, defence land, health service land and above all else local authority land- for farming and school sports, for recreation and housing - has been sold off en masse. Why? How? And with what social, economic and political consequences? The New Enclosure provides the first ever study of this profoundly significant phenomenon, situating it as a centrepiece of neoliberalism in Britain and as a successor programme to the original eighteenth-century enclosures. With more public land still slated for disposal, the book identifies the stakes and asks what, if anything, can and should be done.
All hail the new masters of Capitalism: How asset managers acquired the world
How did Britain’s economy become a bastion of inequality? In this landmark book, the author of The New Enclosure provides a forensic examination and sweeping critique of early-twenty-first-century capitalism. Brett Christophers styles this as ‘rentier capitalism’, in which ownership of key types of scarce assets—such as land, intellectual property, natural resources, or digital platforms—is all-important and dominated by a few unfathomably wealthy companies and individuals: rentiers. If a small elite owns today’s economy, everybody else foots the bill. Nowhere is this divergence starker, Christophers shows, than in the United Kingdom, where the prototypical ills of rentier capitalism—vast inequalities combined with entrenched economic stagnation—are on full display and have led the country inexorably to the precipice of Brexit. With profound lessons for other countries subject to rentier dominance, Christophers’ examination of the UK case is indispensable to those wanting not just to understand this insidious economic phenomenon but to overcome it. Frequently invoked but never previously analysed and illuminated in all its depth and variety, rentier capitalism is here laid bare for the first time.
This compelling contribution to contemporary debates about the banking industry offers a unique perspective on its geographical and conceptual placement . It traces the evolving links between the two, revealing how our notions of banking productiveness have evolved alongside the shifting loci of banking activity.
John Booth Good and the Confluence of Cultures in Nineteenth-Century British Columbia
Focusing on Anglican missionary efforts in nineteenth-century British Columbia, the book explores various dimensions including local ethnographic literature, historical accounts of contact and conflict, and the theological and sociological aspects of missions. It also engages with contemporary critical discussions surrounding European colonialism, providing a comprehensive analysis of the impact and legacy of these missionary activities in the region.
"Standard theories of the causes of climate breakdown will not survive this book. Readers will be all the wiser." —Andreas Malm, author of How to Blow Up a Pipeline Why the market will never solve the climate crisis What if our understanding of capitalism and climate is back to front? What if the problem is not that transitioning to renewables is too expensive, but that saving the planet is not sufficiently profitable? This is Brett Christophers' claim. The global economy is moving too slowly toward sustainability because the return on green investment is too low. Today's consensus is that the key to curbing climate change is to produce green electricity and electrify everything possible. The main economic barrier in that project has seemingly been removed. But while prices of solar and wind power have tumbled, the golden era of renewables has yet to materialize. The problem is that investment is driven by profit, not price, and operating solar and wind farms remains a marginal business, dependent everywhere on the state's financial support. We cannot expect markets and the private sector to solve the climate crisis while the profits that are their lifeblood remain unappetizing. But there is an alternative to providing surrogate green profits through subsidies: to take energy out of the private sector's hands. An essential intervention, The Price Is Wrong is as politically far-reaching as it is factually illuminating.