The Player and the Played
From Gamed Capitalism to 21st-Century Fascism
$134.50
- Paperback
288 pages
- Release Date
13 October 2026
Summary
A provocative examination of the ways our economy has been rigged by financialization, and the importance of games to our dangerous political moment.
In an age when capitalism feels like an unwinnable game, extreme reactionary ideas and politics are on the rise. The Hunger Games, Game of Thrones, Squid Game and much of reality TV are cultural reflections of a society of relentless, lonely competition, where each of us must become a player: a savvy risk-taker, a miniature corporation o…
Book Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780262056045 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10: | 0262056046 |
| Author: | Max Haiven |
| Publisher: | MIT Press Ltd |
| Imprint: | MIT Press |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Number of Pages: | 288 |
| Release Date: | 13 October 2026 |
| Weight: | 369g |
| Dimensions: | 152mm x 229mm |
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Critics Review
ENDORSEMENTS
“A timely and sophisticated examination how politics and reality have inverted the promised by games. Max Haiven goes beyond the usual platitudes to question just what games and gamification offer, and how they shape our thinking.”
—Adrian Hon, author of You’ve Been Played and A New History of the Future in 100 Objects
“An eye-opening and head-spinning exploration of how twenty-first-century fascisms, incubated by the myths and miseries of financialized capitalism, weave violent alliances between the ‘cheated’ and the ‘cheats.’ The Player and the Played is an antifascist game manual for our age of dominance without hegemony.”
—Alberto Toscano, author of Late Fascism
Max Haiven
Max Haiven is Canada Research Chair in the Radical Imagination at Lakehead University and author of many books, including most recently Palm Oil and Revenge Capitalism. He is the designer of the board game Billionaires & Guillotines. He was called “perhaps the most theoretically creative radical thinker of the moment” by the late David Graeber.
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