Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The Player and the Played: From Gamed Capitalism to 21st-Century Fascism

The Player and the Played: From Gamed Capitalism to 21st-Century Fascism

Haiven, Max

Paperback

General Political ScienceGeneral Sociology

PREORDER - Expected ship date September 15, 2026

ISBN10: 0262056046
ISBN13: 9780262056045
Publisher: MIT Press
Published: Sep 15 2026
Pages: 292
Language: English
A provocative examination of the ways our economy has been rigged by financialization, and the importance of games to our dangerous political moment.

In an age when capitalism feels like an unwinnable game, extreme reactionary ideas and politics are on the rise. The Hunger Games, Game of Thrones, Squid Game and much of reality TV are cultural reflections of a society of relentless, lonely competition, where each of us must become a player a savvy risk-taker, a miniature corporation of one. But in a gamed economy we players feel played, and new forms of fascism promise harsh justice and revenge. This book theorizes the connections between the financialization of the capitalist economy, the gamification of our lives, and the rising threat of a uniquely twenty-first century form of fascistic politics.

From vicious online swarmings to the QAnon conspiracy fantasy, from the siege of the US Capitol to the abuse of free speech, The Player and the Played analyzes the playgrom as a new form of extremist violence. Max Haiven explores how derivative fascisms both repeat and reinvent the terrors of the past in a financialized form. How have we learned to love the cheats who have power but loathe the cheats without it? It unpacks the worldbuilding (and world-destroying) urge of Silicon Valley. And it poses the urgent question: what is the antifascist game?

Also from

Haiven, Max

View All

Also in

General Sociology

View All