Bertolt Brecht famously advised his allies on the left not to “start from the good old things, but the bad new ones”. It is a maxim that has guided various activist-writers over the years, wherever they have sought to identify and expose the latest mutations and dreamworlds of capitalist development. In recent decades, figures such as Naomi Klein and the late Mike Davis have kept this tradition alive, unearthing the “bad new” innovations, ideas and technologies that are restructuring the world around us on behalf of capital. Klein looked to the US policies rolled out in Iraq or post-Katrina New...