New Books in Critical Theory

Stealing the future and concealing the theft—capitalism’s method, as examined by the author of the acclaimed Carbon Democracy Today,
extraordinary wealth seems to arrive from nowhere. The trick of
conjuring this unearned wealth is, in fact, the key to understanding
capital­ism’s origins and a clue to why the catastrophe of climate
collapse is upon us: value is created by consuming the future. In The Alibi of Capital: How We Broke the Earth to Steal the Future on the Promise of a Better Tomorrow
(Verso, 2026), Professor Timothy Michell explains how this came about
through the imperial expansion of the West, en­cumbering today’s
generations with repayments on earlier extractions. Timothy Mitchell
identifies the forms of capitalisation, credit, and coercion that turn
prospective assets into present income. Rejecting the common idea that
claims on the future create only financial or fictitious capital, he
traces the terraforming projects – the destruction of rivers, the
colonising of territory, the expan­sion of infrastructure, and the
burning of carbon—through which the future has been squandered. Terms
such as finance, technology, the economy, and growth function as alibis
that conceal this devastating form of extraction.
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False Idols: How Diversion is Destroying Democracy (Vernon Press, 2024) examines how modern forms of diversion shape civic life and weaken democratic responsibility. Drawing on the ancient Roman idea of “bread and circuses,” Kurt Warner explores how contemporary society is saturated with distractions that keep citizens focused on what is immediate, pleasurable, profitable, or spectacular, rather than on what is politically and socially meaningful.

The conversation introduces listeners to the book’s central concern: how celebrity culture, consumerism, economic pressures, sports, politics, art, music, literature, the internet, social media, and video games can become “false idols.” These forces do not merely entertain us; they influence how we think, what we value, and how we understand our responsibilities to one another.

A key point of discussion is the book’s comparison between ancient Rome and the contemporary United States. Warner uses “bread and circuses” to consider how societies become complacent when citizens are absorbed by basic needs and entertainment while civic duty fades into the background.

The episode also explores the book’s opening narrative, which follows an ordinary man, Chris, through a day filled with advertising, media, branding, and social pressure. This scene illustrates one of the book’s central arguments: distraction is often woven into everyday life before people have noticed its influence.

Warner’s background in psychotherapy adds an important dimension to the discussion. 'False Idols' connects personal awareness with civic awareness, asking how people can recognize the forces directing their attention and reclaim the ability to think critically.

Ultimately, this episode invites listeners to reflect on the relationship between attention and democracy. 'False Idols' asks what it would mean to wake up from the collective daze of distraction and choose more meaningful forms of civic, ethical, and social engagement.

Key Themes and Context:

“Bread and circuses” in the modern world - One of the book’s central ideas is that Juvenal’s famous phrase “bread and circuses” remains relevant today. Warner uses it to examine how entertainment, consumption, and everyday distraction can draw citizens away from civic responsibility.

The many forms of diversion- The book considers a wide range of modern distractions, including celebrity worship, money, sports, politics, art, music, literature, the internet, social media, and video games. Together, these examples show how distraction can operate across culture, politics, economics, and everyday life.

Democracy and civic duty - At the heart of the book is a concern with democracy. Warner argues that distraction becomes dangerous when it weakens civic engagement and allows people to avoid the difficult work of political and ethical responsibility.

Critical thinking as resistance - The later chapters of 'False Idols' focus on critical thinking as a way of resisting manipulation and recovering agency. The book invites readers to examine not only what they consume, but also how their attention, values, and judgments are shaped.

The psychological dimension of distraction - Warner’s background in psychotherapy informs the book’s attention to emotion, avoidance, and self-awareness. Distraction is presented not only as a social or political problem, but also as something that affects how individuals relate to themselves and others.

Vernon Press – Bridging Scholarly Ideas and Global Readership

Vernon Press stands out as a bilingual independent publisher of scholarly books in the humanities and social sciences. Their mission is crucial — to provide a home for ideas of international importance and to embrace scholarship from underrepresented voices and perspectives. Through its diverse catalog, Vernon Press engages with global readers, contributing to academic and public discourse.

Dessy Vassileva, the Marketing & Design expert at Vernon Press, brings a 360º multidisciplinary approach to her work at Vernon Press.
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This episode featured a conversation with Rahul Sonpimple, founder of the All-India Independent Scheduled Castes Association. Our conversation began with Rahul’s conception of Indian history and the place of anti-caste struggle within it. We delved further into Rahul’s own understanding of “anti-caste” as deeply rooted in Ambedkar’s own argument about the necessity of force in emancipatory social transformation. Rahul was especially forthright about the political cost of elevating meekness as a moral condition, a choice that he associates with the rise of a Dalit middle class focused primarily on securing its own representational authority. This took us to a discussion of the need for an independent and consolidated Dalit politics rooted in the lives of the Dalit poor with sufficient leverage to negotiate terms with the state. The last part of the episode focused on Rahul’s critique of both Ambedkarites and Indian Marxists for their disregard of caste as a material question. He spoke at particular length about the failure of Indian Marxists to advance a materalist critique of caste and how their analytical separation of caste and class has played into the hands of the Hindu Right. We ended the episode with Rahul laying out his own definition of Ambedkarism as a material and spiritual politics that recognizes the Dalit poor as a revolutionary class with the potential to rebuild society.

Read the transcript here

Guest

Rahul Sonpimple is author and founder of the All-India Independent Scheduled Castes Association.

References

B.R. Ambedkar, The Buddha and his Dhamma, 1957.

B.R. Ambedkar, Small Holdings in India and their Remedies, 1918.

B.R. Ambedkar, Buddha or Karl Marx, 1956.

B.R. Ambedkar, “Mr. Russell and the Reconstruction of Society,” 1916.

Rahul Sonpimple, “Against Hindu Rashtra: Ambedkar’s Buddhist Rashtra as Nation,” The Ambedkarian Chronicle, May 4, 2026.

Rahul Sonpimple, “Remembering Babasaheb Ambedkar: The Unfinished Task of Burying Manu,” The Ambedkarian Chronicle, April 14, 2026.

Rahul Sonpimple, “Kanshi Ram Sahab: Beyond Bureaucratic Dalit Passivity,” The Ambedkarian Chronicle, March 15, 2026.

Rahul Sonpimple, “Spontaneity in Ambedkar: Beyond the Passivity of Popular Dalit Discourse,” The Ambedkarian Chronicle, April 16, 2025.

Rahul Sonpimple, “The End of Independent Ambedkarite Dalit Politics?” Round Table India, July 12, 2024.

Rahul Sonpimple, “Dalit conversions: An act of rebellion against caste supremacy,” Al Jazeera, 14 June 2018.

Himsa and ahimsa are foundational ethical concepts in Buddhism. Himsa refers to injury, harm, or violence and ahimsa to non-harming, non-violence, or compassion. Ambedkar critiqued extreme, blanket doctrines of ahimsa as unworkable and often hypocritical.

Chokhamela was a saint-poet from Maharashtra, India who belonged to the Mahar caste and was a devotee of Vitthala.

Bhakt: devotee

Vitthala: Hindu deity worshipped mainly in the states of Maharashtra and Karnataka as an avatar of Vishnu.

Kabir and Ravidas: medieval poet-saints who were part of the Bhakti movement (7th-17th century), which emphasized devotion to a personal god, rather than rituals and scriptural knowledge, as the path to spiritual liberation.

Samata Sainik Dal: a social organization founded by B. R. Ambedkar in 1927 with the objective of safeguarding the rights of all oppressed sections of Indian society.

Bhima Koregaon: a village in Maharashtra that was the site of an 1818 battle between the army of Peshwa Baji Rao II and an East India Company force comprised mainly of Mahars, a Dalit caste. This battle has attained legendary status for Dalits who view it as a victory of Mahars over the Brahminical Peshwas.

Baniya: refers to mercantile castes primarily from the states of Rajasthan and Gujarat.

Kanshi Ram: Indian social reformer and politician who founded the All India Backwards and Minorities Communities Employees' Federation (BAMCEF) in 1971 and the Bahujan Samaj Party in 1984.

Jogendra Nath Mandal: Bengali politician and Dalit leader who held the law portfolio in the 1946-47 Interim Government of India and served as the Minister of Law and Labor in Pakistan from 1947-50.

Rajah: M.C. Rajah was a Tamil politician and Dalit leader who served on the Madras Legislative Council in the 1920s and founded the All India Depressed Classes Association in 1925.

Kamble: B.C. Kamble was a Marathi politician and Dalit leader who led the Republican Party of India for decades.

BAMCEF: All India Backwards and Minorities Communities Employees' Federation

UGC Bill: officially the University Grants Commission (Promotion of Equity in Higher Education Institutions) Regulations, 2026, is a set of regulations aimed at ending discrimination against marginalized communities in higher education. Following widespread protests and a public interest litigation (PIL), the Supreme Court of India stayed the regulations in January 2026.

Bhagwa kapda: saffron clothing

Scheduled Caste Federation: a political organization founded in 1942 by Dr. B. R. Ambedkar dedicated to advocating for the rights and political self-representation of the Dalit community.

Republican Party of India: a political party established by Dr. B. R. Ambedkar in 1956.

PESA: Panchayats Extension to Scheduled Areas (PESA) Act, 1996 is a landmark legislation enacted by the Government of India to ensure self-governance for tribal communities living in Fifth Schedule Areas.

Manusmriti: a text that served as a foundational legal and societal framework in ancient India.

EWS: refers to the Economically Weaker Section, a government classification referring to those within the unreserved (general) category eligible for a 10% quota in government jobs and educational admissions.

Karan Johar: an Indian filmmaker, producer and television personality.

Dharavi: a residential area in Mumbai (Bombay) considered one of the world’s largest slums.

Adani: Gautam Adani is an Indian billionaire and chairperson of the multinational conglomerate, the Adani Group.
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What does the JKF assassination mean to us now? In ⁠The Umbrella Man and Other Stories: What We Talk About When We Talk About the JFK Assassination⁠, (Biteback Publishing, 2026) ⁠Martin Fitzgerald⁠
explores the lives and stories of the people present on that day in
Dallas at Dealey Plaza. In doing so, the book examines cultural memory,
artistic representations, history, conspiracy theory and the global
impact of the event. Drawing on personal reflections, rich archival
sources, and contemporary interviews, the book offers a brilliant and
compelling narrative that goes beyond the circumstances of 1963 to the
present day. The book will be of significant interest to a range of
humanities scholars as well as to anyone interested in the ongoing
legacy of one of the twentieth century’s defining events.
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In the spirit of Hannah Arendt's natality principle (that new things are always and should always be being born, each one unique and endowed with limitless potential) we at RTB love it when a new podcast appears. Especially one as thoughtful and original as The Caste Pod, which assembles scholars and activists to make sense of what caste is, how it's experienced and how it has travelled globally.

Join us to discuss and share an extended excerpt is its widely published (check out her earlier books!) founder Ajantha Subramanian, Professor of Anthropology at CUNY Graduate Center, and producer (with Lori Allen) of the “Violent Majorities” series here at RTB.

John and Ajantha delve into the founding of the podcast, and then enter into the business end of the series, which is to explore the complex interplay between caste, race and class as organizing features of economic inequality and its corresponding features of cultural discrimination and oppression.

Ajantha's extended conversation with Prachi and Ram of Savera, a multiracial, interfaith, anti-caste coalition of Indian Americans from The Caste Pod episode 10 lays bare its premise: to put scholars and activists into conversation and opens a space engineered for each to learn form the other.

Before introducing the Savera excerpt, Ajantha frames the topic by way of Isabel Wilkerson's influential (if problematic) book Caste and its neglect of class and economic issues, and also the case against Cisco for caste discrimination in California that in significant ways internationalized the fight around caste's role in perpetuating economic and political inequity.

Listen and Read Here.
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