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Anti-Fascist Economics

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What to expect

What would it mean to create an economics that guarantees dignity for all?

For decades, we were told that free markets would safeguard democracy. Instead, we are now living in an age of emergencies as the cost of living rises, democratic institutions weaken and the far right gains ground across the world. But it doesn't have to be this way. Drawing on history, political economy and her own experience at the centre of recent inflation debates, economist Isabella Weber argues that the rise of today's authoritarian movements is not an accident. It is rooted in an economic order that has treated livelihoods as expendable while elevating markets above democratic choice.

This book offers a bold alternative. Recovering the forgotten post-war ambition of an economics committed to ‘never again’, Weber argues that governments should secure affordable essentials, guarantee dignified work and build resilient economies capable of confronting climate change, technological disruption and geopolitical conflict. In place of market fundamentalism, she sets out a practical programme for an economy organised around human dignity rather than profit fundamentalism.

Both a clear-eyed diagnosis of our age and an inspiring blueprint for renewal, Anti-Fascist Economics shows that the future of democracy depends on choosing an economy that serves all of us.

© Isabella Weber 2026 (P) Penguin Audio 2026

Critics Review

Weber’s bold ideas are helping shift the economic paradigm
Elizabeth Warren, TIME100 Next
Isabella Weber can make a good claim to being one of the more influential economists of the past few years, and certainly one of the most prescient
Prospect, The World's Top Thinkers 2024
One of the twenty-first century’s most exciting economic thinkers comes down from the mountain with a program to restore democracy that will resonate on every continent—a wonderful book by a marvelous mind
Zachary Carter
For all their problems, our troubled times have one merit: they force us to challenge orthodoxy, reconnect with history, and invent new models for the future. In this page-turning book, blending the history of ideas with economic analysis, Isabella Weber maps out her vision for a new economic model centred on the conditions for a dignified life. A must-read
Gabriel Zucman
Isabella Weber’s excellent new book makes an urgent case that defending democracy is, at its heart, an economic question. Recognizing that markets alone cannot secure a dignified life for all, she cuts through the false dichotomy between taming inflation and protecting livelihoods to offer a bold alternative: an economics of essentials that treats access to housing, food, energy, and care as the material foundation of freedom—and of democracy itself. Anti-Fascist Economics is a well-written and necessary book for anyone who believes the economy must deliver for the benefit of all
Mariana Mazzucato
This great book from the extraordinary Isabella Weber sets a course for positive economic change and will do so for many years. Indeed the effects are already being felt, from New York City to Germany and many points between. There has been nothing quite so clear, on-point, and powerful for at least a generation
James K. Galbraith
As a public intellectual, Isabella Weber has already shifted the Overton Window on progressive economic policy, making previously taboo policies thinkable. In this book, she recounts her experiences as a fearless insurgent in a conservative field and outlines a transformative program responsive not to the corporate bottom line but to people’s everyday needs
Quinn Slobodian
In Anti-Fascist Economics, Isabella Weber restores to economics its role in promoting dignity, arguing that markets should serve humans rather than rule over them. Written with the rigour of the scholar and the passion of the activist, the book is historically nuanced, showing how fascism was enabled by the collusion between economic elites and a hierarchical mindset hostile to democratic development, with free-market dogmatism degenerating into the rule of the fittest. But it is also forward-looking, and, strangely, hopeful. Anti-Fascist Economics shows us the path not just away from all too familiar horror but toward a feasible, different, better world
Lea Ypi
We are at a crossroads. As the tyranny of neoliberal market absolutism has produced staggering social inequality and widespread economic insecurity, it has undermined central pillars of democratic governance. Professing answers to this crisis, a new crop of right-wing extremists are beginning to reshape the world. Yet, as Isabella Weber shows in her brilliant, and faced-paced analysis, another future is possible. Her wake-up call is an openings salvo in an urgently needed conversation: How to build a future of freedom, prosperity and democracy on the ruins of the neoliberal edifice. A must read for anyone concerned with our economic and political future, the book we need at this moment
Sven Beckert
In this extraordinarily timely and brilliant book, Isabella Weber warns us about blindly accepting subordination to other people in politics or to the markets in economics. An economy organized around affordable provision of essential goods for all is the practical program on which, Weber argues, new anti-fascist economics should be built
Branko Milanovic
Author Isabella Weber
Narrator Hillary Huber
Duration 11 hours and 7 minutes
Release Date
ISBN 9781837316861
Format Audiobook
Publisher Penguin Books Ltd
Genre Economic theory and philosophy, Political economy, Political ideologies and movements, Political structure and processes, Popular economics
Availability AU, GB, IE

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