Living Large - Argonne's First Computer, 1953. Wikicommons/ENERGY.GOV. Some rights reserved.This book is an intellectually exhilarating read. While I have reservations about Mason’s thesis, I would recommend PostCapitalism to anyone interested in history, political thought, the past, present and future of info-tech, and above all, the future of capitalism. Mason draws on thinkers as diverse as Karl Marx, Herbert Marcuse and the management guru, Peter Drucker. In searching for an understanding of how capitalism may progress from here, his book draws on, and spans, a range of disciplines – history, physics (the wave form) engineering (of aircraft turbofans), computer science, economics, and political and social theory.
All this, added to his skill as a writer and his knack of drawing on his own (and his grandmother’s) lived experience in northern working class Britain, results in a book that is passionate, rigorous and challenging. Regrettably he has not included a bibliography. That would have taken up many pages, as the breadth of his sources is remarkable. As a result he has added many volumes to my reading list.
Finally Mason outlines a vision that is not entirely improbable, but could also be defined as utopian. In this unequal and divided world, we need more utopians. So despite my own pessimism about his thesis, I do recommend that you read Mason’s book.
