Escape From Capitalism

Name: Escape From Capitalism
Brand: Penguin UK
Price: 42.75 AUD
Availability: PreOrder

Economics is Political, and Other Liberating Truths

By: Clara E. Mattei

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Hardcover | 28 April 2026 | Edition Number 1

At a Glance

Format
Hardcover

Dimensions(cm)
22.3 x 14.4 x 2.4

Hardcover

RRP $55.00

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Available: 28th April 2026

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A path-breaking polemic reveals how economics is political, and the route towards liberation

Economics is sold as pure and apolitical: scientific, neutral, exact. This urgent book exposes its true role: to convince us there’s no alternative to capitalism. We live in a world dominated by the dogma that austerity is necessary, unemployment natural, endless wars inevitable and central banks all-powerful. It doesn’t have to be this way.

In her bold, ground-breaking manifesto, economist Clara E. Mattei tears the mask off our economic system. She unpacks key concepts like growth, inflation, unemployment and balanced budgets to show how they’re weaponized to enforce market dependence, not freedom, stripping us of the power to shape the democratic decisions that govern our daily lives. Enduring problems such as poverty and inequality are not accidents or bugs in the economy, but core features – justified with pseudoscientific models to support a system that unfairly rewards people with the most resources.

Why should we accept this? Capitalism, Mattei argues, isn’t inevitable, scientific, or natural – it's a relatively young system that can be replaced. Inspired by a lineage of political resistance, Escape from Capitalism calls for us to challenge the broken economics of our times, and pave the way towards liberation.

About the Author

Clara E. Mattei is Professor of Economics at The University of Tulsa. She is the Founding President of FREE, the Forum for Real Economic Emancipation, and the author of The Capital Order (University of Chicago Press), which was praised by the Financial Times as one of the ten best economics books of 2022 and has been translated into over a dozen languages.

Industry Reviews

Clara Mattei has written a powerful plea for the return of economics to what it was, and should be: an art and science for the improvement of lives of ordinary people not a seemingly non-political and technocratic instrument for the enrichment of the few

Branko Milanovic

A compelling and insightful book on austerity that, through meticulous research and historical documentation, unveils the deep political forces behind economic decisions and offers essential tools for understanding today’s world

Thomas Piketty

A brilliantly illuminating book that reveals how political power is encoded within the very structure of economic theory

Adam Tooze

The increasingly dysfunctional capital order we live in is neither inevitable nor permanent. Clara Mattei brilliantly shows this order was built by design and provocatively challenges us to imagine new, genuinely democratic ones in its place

Daniela Gabor

A book for the times. Mattei takes aim at the notion that the forces which regulate market and social outcomes are socially neutral

Anwar Shaikh

Mattei concisely and elegantly runs through common claims in capitalism’s favour… Readers will come away ready for change

Publishers Weekly

One of the brightest voices of a coming generation, Clara Mattei here offers an impassioned plea for new and wider economic and political horizons

James K. Galbraith

A brilliant and lucid exposé of how capitalism actually works, and the myths that economists have spun to hide that reality

William Davies

Capitalism seems invincible and inevitable. It is neither. Clara Mattei's new book illustrates brilliantly its fragility and, in so doing, restores hope that everything could be different

Yanis Varoufakis

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