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nickjagged's review against another edition
Clear Bright Future is a definite step down for Mason, following his work in Postcapitalism. Both are somewhat scattershot, but where he displays a solid grasp of economic analysis with respect to labor and automation in the earlier work, the broader scope of Clear Bright Future reveals a wholly inadequate grasp of history and culture.
One aspect of this is the way he constructs his arguments. He leans on some pretty basic appeals to culture-war common sense (gangster rap as a moral boogeyman, for instance) to convince the reader that the neoliberal order is flawed/unjust on "moral" grounds, which reveals a couple of things. One, he doesn't recognize these appeals to common sense as reflecting the logic of the neoliberal order. Two, he views arguments against the neoliberal order based on rigorous historical and theoretical analysis as unconvincing to the general public. When you put these together, it strongly resembles outreach done by the "anti-woke left", which assumes that you can gain support for economic equity through meeting people halfway on their bigotry. This strategy, to put it bluntly, causes more problems than it (thinks it) solves, and the echoes of it in Mason's writing cast doubt on his ability to synthesize a viable solution.
Even if you don't object to the strategy identified above, Clear Bright Future has some serious issues caused by its format. The direct quotations and quantitative data that formed the bedrock of Postcapitalism is nowhere to be found, and in its place is a continuous stream of clumsily paraphrased journalism from outlets such as the Financial Times, the Guardian, and the Atlantic.
These issues, combined with a weird fixation on "debunking" postmodernism (to combat fake news and the eventual Final Boss of irrational thought???), remove any hope of momentary coherency extending to something usable. Dropped at 44% in the audiobook, around the beginning of Chapter 9.
One aspect of this is the way he constructs his arguments. He leans on some pretty basic appeals to culture-war common sense (gangster rap as a moral boogeyman, for instance) to convince the reader that the neoliberal order is flawed/unjust on "moral" grounds, which reveals a couple of things. One, he doesn't recognize these appeals to common sense as reflecting the logic of the neoliberal order. Two, he views arguments against the neoliberal order based on rigorous historical and theoretical analysis as unconvincing to the general public. When you put these together, it strongly resembles outreach done by the "anti-woke left", which assumes that you can gain support for economic equity through meeting people halfway on their bigotry. This strategy, to put it bluntly, causes more problems than it (thinks it) solves, and the echoes of it in Mason's writing cast doubt on his ability to synthesize a viable solution.
Even if you don't object to the strategy identified above, Clear Bright Future has some serious issues caused by its format. The direct quotations and quantitative data that formed the bedrock of Postcapitalism is nowhere to be found, and in its place is a continuous stream of clumsily paraphrased journalism from outlets such as the Financial Times, the Guardian, and the Atlantic.
These issues, combined with a weird fixation on "debunking" postmodernism (to combat fake news and the eventual Final Boss of irrational thought???), remove any hope of momentary coherency extending to something usable. Dropped at 44% in the audiobook, around the beginning of Chapter 9.
redkennedy's review against another edition
4.0
Even more than Mason's Postcapitalism, Clear Bright Future feels as though it is unable to contain and follow the myriad thoughts and tangents spinning through Mason's brain. Some parts are essential reading to understand our present predicament and the highly fragile nature of liberal democracy. Mason leans heavily on the work of Hannah Arendt, who I would recommend anyone who enjoyed this book check out first hand, if only to gain a greater appreciation of the psychological state of those involved in 20th C fascism.
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