"Our entire lives, he argues, have been economified. The ruling narratives of work and commerce hypnotise us into thinking of our very selves as micro-businesses, so that it becomes ever harder to imagine life outside the paradigm of capital investment, productivity and profit. [...] Fleming offers an excellent historical analysis of the associated idea of 'human capital', according to which each employee really is a little entrepreneur, investing in his or her skills. This amounts, Fleming thinks, to a deliberate atomisation of the workforce and a hollowing-out of education itself. [...] What, then, is to be done? Fleming doesn’t buy the Paul Mason fantasy that voluntary cooperation on the model of Wikipedia or open-source software will somehow scale up to rebuilding society along more equitable lines. He also disapproves of the death drive he perceives in 'accelerationism' (full speed ahead with rampant wreckage capitalism so as to hasten its inevitable implosion), and the misanthropic eco-fanatic’s desire to dismantle civilisation for the sake of the worms and the mosquitoes. Instead he favours a 'radical de-privatisation of the public sphere', some version of universal basic income and a fellowship of the precarious to demand universal workers’ rights [...] the nicest thing about his book is its avoidance of despair: it is often hilariously angry, but the stylish expression of outrage can itself be a positive and optimistic act."

"In this book, Peter Fleming introduces us to the ways in which homo economicus as a construction of the neoclassical economic project has fallen apart today. [...] Fleming claims that ‘extreme capitalism is primarily for those without capital, while the political and financial elite enjoy a softer socialistic existence in which homo economicus would seem out of place and unwelcome’ (p. 99). As examples of being unwelcome or incapable to survive in the new dark ages, each chapter presents stories of homo economicus dying from loss of social connection, suicide as a way of escape, or overwork. In some other cases, we are told about homo economicus going nuts at work, or protesting, or even killing out of anger. Although they may seem marginal, when brought together, these cases in fact demonstrate that there is a pattern related to neoliberalism’s ‘worst excesses rolling back through’ (p. 3) our societies, and the book successfully addresses how such excesses become normalised in the Zeitgeist of post 2008. [...] he presents a wide repertoire of issues and public debates to engage with including, but not limited to, techno-optimists, commercialisation of informal economy, high and unfair executive pay, creation of oligarchs through privatisation, responsibilisation and individualisation process of gig economies, work becoming simply a ceremony, fantasies of escape and institutionalisation of instrumental rationality. The writing feels deceptively light in its touch, jumping from analysis of one topic to another in each chapter, which risks some repetition. Nevertheless, as Fleming uncovers the false promises behind glossy concepts, such as Mason’s postcapitalism, behavioural economics, sharing economy and human capital theory, overall, the book emerges as a forceful critique of the current phase of neoliberal capitalism which is killing us through work. [...] While it is not written in the form of an academic text, Fleming often draws arguments or concepts from critical scholars such as Derrida, Foucault, Agamben, Hardt, Negri and others. Cognisant readers will easily note the underlying powerful analysis of political economy"