"Caffentzis is a practical philosopher and a pure teacher. His reasoning even at its most abstract always tends to the political. The street is his classroom. The apothegm becomes the slogan, thought has its telos in action. Or conversely, the slogan (say "No Blood for Oil") becomes the starting point of reasoning which develops with the variation, iteration, and counterpoint of a Bach fugue. Its beauty lies not with the teacher but the student (you and I). This is truly vulgar Marxism, that is, it is a critique by, with, and for the vulgus, or common people (again, you and I)." — Peter Linebaugh, author of The Magna Carta Manifesto
"In this meticulous Marxist analysis of the role of energy within the class struggle, George Caffentzis deployment of both the labor theory of value and detailed historical analysis provides us with vital, indeed, indispensable new insights. A follow-up to Midnight Notes Midnight Oil: Work, Energy, War, 1973–1992, this new set of essays, written over the last two decades, builds on the analysis contained in that earlier volume. The essays deepen and widen our understanding of the connections between capital's efforts to use both our own and natural sources of energy against us and our struggles to refuse both forms of exploitation..." — Harry Cleaver, author of Reading Capital Politically
"The papers in this collection are weapons we use to deconstruct the politics of war and oil, to uncover the multilayered class meaning of contemporary energy policy, and are the treasure that gives us a different sense of alternatives. Caffentzis' critical understanding dissolves the fatalism of peak-oil arguments and posits our struggles to reclaim the commons as the real limit of capitalist use of energy." — Massimo de Angelis, author of The Beginning of History
George Caffentzis is a Marxist theorist whose lifetime of intellectual and political organizing has engaged collectives at the forefront of resistance to neoliberal development. A cofounder of the Zerowork collective, George has been instrumental in the work of the Committee for Academic Freedom in Africa and Midnight Notes amongst others. For many years a professor of philosophy at the University of Southern Maine, George has worked within countless movement struggles and has helped to develop thinking of the commons and commoning for multiple generations of scholars and activists. His previous works include In Letters of Blood and Fire and Clipped Coins, Abused Words, and Civil Government.
