This is the third book in the Radical Future series, written by a collective of young activists and campaigners looking for ways to challenge the dominant political order. This book is available to buy as a print book and
free as a pdf.
The young generation aren’t apathetic. We’re disenfranchised, under or unemployed, insecure and anxious. But we’re also angry. We know there are alternatives to the political consensus, but voices calling for comprehensive radical changes are ignored. We urgently need new forms of collective organisation.
Mainstream politics has failed the young: our political system is fundamentally bankrupt. Growing numbers identify with the Left, but the institutions that once supported it are old, stagnant, and sectarian. When we do manage to create mass resistance, we come up against the state through the police: physically and legally. It’s easy to lose the belief we can create change.
The Radical Future collective here take up the continuing challenge of making politics matter to young people. Bringing together contributors from different fields and perspectives means that we don’t all argue for the same thing. But the question that we are all asking is: How can we fight back?
Preface – Ben Little
Introduction: What the fuck is to be done? – Ray Filar
Work
1. Crisis as opportunity: re-imagining the future of work – Rhiannon Colvin
2. Young people and employment: challenging Workfare and dead end jobs – Craig Berry
3. Plan F and the care crisis: why we need feminist economics – Polly Trenow
Activism
4. Community organising after the London Riots – Wail Qasim
5. A crisis in housing: co-operatives in Edinburgh and Birmingham – Mike Shaw and Sean Farmelo
6. Focus E15 mums and the Aylesbury occupation – Izzy Köksal
Participation
7. Scotland’s referendum and the politics of the future – Niki Seth-Smith
8. Breaking the rule of generation Y – Adam Ramsay
9. What would a better democracy look like? – Sarah Allan
Environment
10. What the frack? Resurgent environmentalism in the UK – Robbie Gillett
11. Securing the environment’s future – Matt Adam Williams
Media
12. Going mainstream: counterculture and alternative media – Deborah Grayson
13. The selfish generation: anxiety and belonging in a digital world – Noel Hatch
14. Who groks Spock? Emotion in the neoliberal market – Matthew Cheeseman
