Latest in campus cultural critique (CCC)

Cool Capitalism

by Jim McGuigan (Pluto Press, £15.99)

Tuesday 23 February 2010

by Roger Fletcher

Despite the title's mimicry of the ubiquitous Coca-Cola logo, the capitalism detailed in Jim McGuigan's latest book is the real one of very hot and - where it deems it necessary - incandescent capitalism.

So it is fortunate that McGuigan introduces us to the origins of "cool" before his comprehensive study begins.

As one who insists, quite mischievously, on the original meaning of the word I found this introduction both invaluable and entertaining.

There follow just under 300 pages examining not only superficial details but many of the underlying principles of the capitalist system with McGuigan exposing the ostensibly equitable "fair day's wage" lie as concealing "a systematically unequal relation between capital and labour."

Fairly, and accurately, this truth is attributed to Marx.

McGuigan is professor of cultural analysis at Loughborough University and that is evident in his detailed catalogue of modern critics of capitalism.

Recent developments of an anti-capitalist trend in Latin America are dealt with honestly.

But some might want to take issue with reporting in the Guardian and New Statesman on that region being described as "left of centre."

That's a judgement which some readers of this paper might reasonably jibe at.