David McNally

As a high school student, David McNally joined the movement against the Vietnam War; on entering university, he organized a campus chapter of the Committee to Free Angela Davis—early steps in a lifetime of activism in global justice, anti-racist, and socialist movements. Along the way, he earned a Ph.D. in Social and Political Thought and became Professor of Political Science at York University, Toronto, where he continues to teach.

David is the author of five previous books: Political Economy and the Rise of Capitalism (1988); Against the Market: Political Economy Market Socialism and the Marxist Critique (1993); Bodies of Meaning: Studies on Language, Labor and Liberation (2001); Another World is Possible: Globalization and Anti-Capitalism (2002; second revised edition 2006); and Monsters of the Market: Zombies, Vampires and Global Capitalism (forthcoming 2011). His articles have appeared in many journals, including Historical Materialism, Capital and Class, History of Political Thought, New Politics, Studies in Political Economy, and Review of Radical Political Economics. He has also contributed to Capital and Its Discontents, edited by Sasha Lilley and published by PM Press.

David actively supports a number of organizations including the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty, No One Is Illegal—Toronto, Faculty for Palestine, the New Socialist Group, and the Greater Toronto Workers Assembly.

David McNally lives in Toronto with his partner, Sue Ferguson, and their children, Adam, Sam and Liam, all of whom indulge (and often share in) his love of jazz, baseball, and surrealism.

Listen to David speak about his contributions to Catastrophism, broadcast on KPFA’s Against the Grain. Listen to it HERE.

Check out David speaking at the 2012 Historical Materialism Conference in London.

• Book events
• Reviews
• More from David

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Praise

“Catastrophism comes at the right moment: 2012, the year of The End proclaimed across the political spectrum from deep ecologists to the Mayan Calendarists. Instead of concentrating on the merits of the claims of the various apocalypticians, Jim Davis, Sasha Lilley, David McNally, and Eddie Yuen examine the political function of these claims and find them to be deeply reactionary. This is a controversial book that challenges many of the unexamined assumptions on the left (as well as on the right). It is a warning not to abandon everyday anti-capitalist politics for a politics of absolute fear that inevitably leads to inaction.”
—Silvia Federici, author of Revolution at Point Zero: Housework, Reproduction, and Feminist Struggle

“Bravo! This is the book that has been sorely needed for so long to reveal the dead-end that a politics founded on catastrophic predictions must lead to in terms of either preventing them or actually changing the world.  Essential reading for all those on the left who are concerned with the question of strategy today.”
–Leo Panitch, coauthor of The Making of Global Capitalism

“I cannot overstate how critically important this volume is. Catastrophism captures a problem that few have seriously grappled with. Anyone who wishes, as I do, for a new kind of (occupied) politics will have to face this formidable array of theoretically-inspired reflections on the politics of apocalypse.”
—Andrej Grubacic, co-author of Wobblies and Zapatistas: Conversations on Anarchism, Marxism and Radical History

“In an age when even Mayan prophecies of the end of the long cycle are turned into prophecies of doom and destruction, this book offers a reasoned and lucid alternative understanding. Definitive and momentous, this book should be mandatory reading for everyone who wishes to comprehend the world we live in and change it for the better.”
—George Katsiaficas, author of Asia’s Unknown Uprisings

“This important book aims to end the politics of The End. The authors of Catastrophism claim that apocalyptic politics, though promising to motivate revolutionary transformation, all too often leads to a fear-induced paralysis and cynicism. This book provides a badly needed boost to our political immunity systems against the apocalyptic claims bombarding us in this purported terminal year for our planet.”
—George Caffentzis author of In Letters of Blood and Fire

“This groundbreaking book examines a deep current—on both the left and right—of apocalyptical thought and action. The authors explore the origins, uses, and consequences of the idea that collapse might usher in a better world. Catastrophism is a crucial guide to understanding our tumultuous times, while steering us away from the pitfalls of the past.”
—Barbara Epstein, author of Political Protest and Cultural Revolution: Nonviolent Direct Action in the 1970s and 1980s

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Praise

“In this book, McNally confirms – once again – his standing as one of the world’s leading Marxist scholars of capitalism. For a scholarly, in depth analysis of our current crisis that never loses sight of its political implications (for them and for us), expressed in a language that leaves no reader behind, there is simply no better place to go.”
–Bertell Ollman, professor, Department of Politics, NYU, and author of Dance of the Dialectic: Steps in Marx’s Method

 “David McNally’s tremendously timely book is packed with significant theoretical and practical insights, and offers actually-existing examples of what is to be done. Global Slump urgently details how changes in the capitalist space-economy over the past 25 years, especially in the forms that money takes, have expanded wide-scale vulnerabilities for all kinds of people, and how people fight back. In a word, the problem isn’t neoliberalism–it’s capitalism.”
–Ruth Wilson Gilmore, University of Southern California and author of Golden Gulag

“Standard accounts of the present crisis blame the excesses of the financial sector, promising that all will be well when the proper financial regulations are in place. McNally’s path breaking account goes far deeper. He documents in great detail how the roots of the crisis are found in the systematic failings of capitalism. At this moment in world history the case for a radical alternative to the capitalist global order needs to be made as forcefully as possible. No one has done this better than McNally.”
–Tony Smith, professor of Philosophy, Iowa State University and author of Globalisation: A Systematic Marxian Account

“McNally has developed a powerful interpretation that sheds a mass of new light… This is a superb book.”
–Robert Brenner, author of The Economics of Global Turbulence on Political Economy and the Rise of Capitalism.

“By exposing the historical and theoretical roots of ‘market socialism’, David McNally demonstrates in a particularly lucid and powerful way the fundamental flaws and contradictions in that concept.”
–Ellen Meiksins Wood, author of Empire of Capital on Against the Market: Political Economy, Market Socialism and the Marxist Critique.

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Book Events

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Reviews

• The New Spirit of Social Movements
• Global Slump: A Z Magazine Review
• Global Slump reviewed in Socialist Studies
• Global Slump on the New Socialist
• Global Slump in Labor Studies Journal
• Global Slump in International Socialism
• Capitalism’s Global Slump
• Catastrophism: A Review
• Catastrophism in EcoEquity
• Catastrophism in Socialist Resistance
• Catastrophism: A Publishers Weekly Review
• Crises Can Be Openings
• Catastrophism: A Review
• Catastrophism: A Review in Socialist Studies
• Dylan, Modest Mouse and the End of the World
• Hoping for the Worst
• The Bankruptcy of Doom and Gloom: Catastrophism in The Brooklyn Rail
• The Left’s Catastrophic Logic
• Catastrophism in Science & Society
• Catastrophism in Socialist Resistance
• Catastrophism in the San Francisco Book Review
• Catastrophism in the Socialist Review
• Catastrophism: A Climate Justice Activist’s Perspective
• Catastrophism: A Review on Left Eye On Books
• Catastrophism in EcoEquity
• Catastrophism — The Apocalyptic Politics of Collapse and Rebirth: A Review
• Catastrophism — Left, Right, and Center

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Interviews

• Toranto Book launch of Global Slump
• Sasha Lilley interviewed in The People’s Press
• Sasha Lilley Interviewed on Radio EcoShock

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Mentions

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Blog

• Night in Tunisia: Riots, Strikes and a Spreading Insurgency
• Mubarak’s Folly: The Rising of Egypt’s Workers
• Like we said, it’s a global slump
• Greek Lessons: Democracy vs. Debt-Bondage
• Follow the Money: Behind the European Debt Crisis Lie More Bank Bailouts
• And They Call This a Recovery?