Book summary “Another Now”: summary

Introduction

You live in a world defined by financial crashes, precarious gig work, and unchecked techno-feudal monopolies that extract your data while you grow poorer. You suspect that the prevailing economic system is broken, yet you cannot see a viable alternative to the endless cycle of bailouts, austerity, and ecological collapse.

The book presents an alternative history of capitalism and digital feudalism told through the voices of three dissidents who discover a parallel universe without stock markets, bosses, or banks. The author argues that a better civilization is technologically and socially possible if you dare to dismantle financialized markets.

The following questions guide the exploration:

• How can human society function without stock markets, bosses, or commercial banks?
• What mechanisms would replace traditional capitalism to distribute wealth and manage labor fairly?
• How did a parallel timeline successfully overthrow financialized power structures after 2008?

1. Modernity's Vanquished and the Multiverse

Disillusioned professionals in Our Now encounter a subatomic wormhole linking them to an alternative timeline where capitalism was successfully overthrown.

Modernity's vanquished include brilliant minds cast aside or corrupted by the financialized machinery of the early twenty-first century. You find that traditional left-wing activists often mourn an outdated system while savvy operators seize control of historical moments.

At a crowded left-wing meeting at the London School of Economics in 1982, Iris shocked the audience by declaring she would choose Margaret Thatcher over them any day. Iris viewed Margaret Thatcher as a master politician who understood that the post-war consensus was dead. Thatcher won her third successive general election in 1987, the year Iris resigned her lectureship.

The Dissidents

Eva transitioned from a lucrative career as a financial engineer on Wall Street to academic isolation, driven by the trauma of the 2008 financial crash. After working as an intern at Goldman Sachs and a financial engineer at Lehman Brothers, Eva experienced the 2008 crash as an epoch-ending trauma. Eva arrived in Brighton in 2012 straight from Gatwick with her five-year-old son Thomas and three large suitcases, taking up a lectureship at Sussex University.

Costa experienced disillusionment with corporate tech development after discovering that companies intentionally mothball major life-improving innovations to protect monopolies. The narrator first met Costa at King's College London in 1989. Costa designed a high-performing bionic implant upgrade for blind people, only to receive a memo from Cornea PLC management instructing him to mothball it to maintain a strategic market advantage.

The Freedom Machine

Costa set up a large laboratory space in downtown San Francisco following the dot-com bubble and 2008 financial crashes to secretly build his technological inventions. He built a futuristic virtual reality apparatus to test whether people would willingly reject permanent digital bliss in favor of true freedom. This Freedom Machine, known as HALPEVAM or the Heuristic ALgorithmic Pleasure and Experiential VAlue Maximizer, relied on CREST, the Cerebral Recursive Engram Subatomic Trail.

To ensure users were not simply being brainwashed, the pleasure machine required a prime directive hardwiring it to generate experiences exclusively from the user's own pre-existing desires. Costa spent years trying to capture a complete and accurate picture of a user's past experiences to feed into the machine's raw material generation.

The Wormhole Discovery

Fearing corporate hackers would steal access to CREST to create a private market for human emotions, Costa built a self-destruct security system modeled after Cold War nuclear deterrence. On the evening of 25 January 2025, Costa returned to his lab to discover intruders had come within minutes of decoding his PIN using his DNA from a toothbrush. He named this security system Cerberus, which was scheduled for its first test on 7 April 2025.

The testing of the Cerberus security system accidentally precipitated a tiny fold in space-time, opening a subatomic wormhole that allowed data communication with an alternative version of Costa. On the morning of 8 April 2025, Costa woke up and read diagnostic data produced overnight that contained an encoded message from his alternate self. This diploma, transmitted through an Einstein-Rosen wormhole, proved that an alternative history was now within reach.

2. Corpo-Syndicalism and Alternative Finance

The Other Now operates through flat-managed corporations without bosses or tradable shares, utilizing central bank digital accounts and socialworthiness indexes.

Corpo-Syndicalism replaces traditional wage labor and hierarchies with spontaneous order and worker ownership. Hierarchies are rejected because they create status anxiety and inefficient mismatches between contribution and standing. Under a flat model, observable gaps allow staff to vote with their feet and move to projects they value, creating an ongoing collective assessment of each project.

Kosti describes how his company operates without orders, allowing staff to choose teams and projects freely while staff movement creates complete transparency regarding dysfunctional teams and boring projects.

Flat Management and Recruitment

Hiring and compensation decisions are handled democratically through impromptu search committees and preferential voting algorithms rather than personnel departments or executives. New staff are recruited by temporary committees whose job ads, shortlists, and interviews are open to observation and voting by anyone in the company. Revenues are divided into fixed slices determined by a preferential voting referendum, basic pay is divided equally, and annual bonuses are distributed using a merit-point allocation system akin to the Eurovision Song Contest.

Kosti explains that every year he is given one hundred merit points to distribute among colleagues, and a laser-powered hologram projection in a dimly lit room displays arrows representing the flow of merit points to prevent suspicious reciprocity.

You can engage directly with corporate governance through structured choices:

• Propose a distribution formula for corporate revenues if you wish to change the current allocation.
• Rank competing business plans in order of preference on an electronic ballot form during a one-month debate period.
• Distribute one hundred merit points among colleagues at the end of the year to determine bonus percentages.

Stock exchanges are replaced by a system where nobody can own shares unless they work in the company, holding exactly one non-transferable share and one vote. This structure eliminates the separation between owners who take profits and workers who collect wages, reintegrating the political and economic spheres. Lower income inequality encourages long-term collective interests over short-term individual gain.

Costa realizes that stock exchanges in the Other Now have shrunk into economic insignificance, resembling markets for stamps or cryptocurrencies.

PerCap Accounts and Plain Vanilla Loans

Every resident is provided with a central bank digital account called PerCap comprising three separate funds: Accumulation, Legacy, and Dividend. Accumulation holds business income and savings where inequality manifests democratically through merit bonuses. Legacy is an illiquid trust fund credited by the state for every baby at birth. Dividend is a monthly universal social payment funded by corporate revenues.

Kosti explains how every newborn comes into the world with a bundle of capital provided by society, protecting them from starting life in destitution.

Taxation is restricted solely to corporate tax and land tax, with no income tax, sales tax, or VAT levied on individuals. Wealth is treated like language as something that can only be produced collectively before being privatized by those with power. Dividend acts as a real return on society's collectively produced capital stock rather than a welfare benefit financed by proletarian taxes.

Iris argues that every modern technology device relies on infrastructure, government grants, and a commons of ideas developed communally, yet big tech never pays dividends to society.

Capital accumulation and start-up funding occur through plain vanilla lending directly to businesses via individual PerCap savings rather than stock markets. Employees and savers are encouraged to lend their Accumulation or Legacy funds to companies in exchange for interest, eliminating financial intermediaries and investment bankers. Small partnerships use a Shootout Clause where sealed bids determine who keeps the company while backing it with a personal loan.

Kosti explains how he saved his bonuses into his Accumulation fund and lent to other companies whose services to the broader community he wanted to support.

You participate in financial allocation through direct methods:

• Divert part of your PerCap holdings to lend directly to the corporation you work for or another business.
• Submit a sealed number representing the financial value you assign to staying on when dissolving a partnership under the Shootout Clause.

Corporate Accountability

Corporate accountability is maintained through a Social Accountability Act where regional Citizens' Juries grade every company using a standardized Socialworthiness Index. Representative panels drawn from stakeholder communities monitor corporate conduct and publish ratings online. Consistent low ratings trigger a public inquiry that can result in company deregistration, replacing share prices with social ratings as a measure of reputation.

Costa compares the repulsive creditworthiness score of his current world with the Other Now's socialworthiness score produced transparently by randomly chosen fellow citizens.

3. How Capitalism Died

Traditional left-wing parties did not bring down capitalism between 2008 and 2011. A global techno-syndicalist movement named Ossify Capitalism dismantled it instead.

A global techno-syndicalist movement called Ossify Capitalism dismantled financialized capitalism by targeting its structural vulnerabilities.

Rebel groups struck the structural vulnerabilities of privatized financialized capitalism using coordinated digital guerrilla tactics rather than traditional spatial occupations. It took central banks three weeks to realize that re-floating securitized debt was impossible.

The Fall of Investment Banking

Retail commercial banking purposes vanished once everyone obtained a PerCap account. Investment banks lost their function because financial speculation on debt instruments like collateralized debt obligations evaporated without stock markets and fictitious capital.

Costa experiences a massive realization during his flight that the entire structure of investment banking, debt securitization, and speculative bubbles has been eradicated.

Techno-Rebel Factions

Specific techno-rebel factions deployed targeted strikes against pension funds, big tech monopolies, and state surveillance to dismantle corporate power. Esmeralda leads the Crowdshorters, who wrote software to unpick the contents of collateralized debt obligations and coordinate payment strikes on utility bills.

Akwesi proclaimed the right to free information in early 2009. Facebook was brought down in early 2012.

• The Solsourcers organized mass withholding of pension contributions to force divestment from unscrupulous employers.
• The Bladerunners organized global consumer boycotts against big tech firms like Amazon and Facebook.
• The Wikiblowers deployed the Panopticon Code to achieve total informational transparency.

You can apply similar tactics when resisting corporate dominance:

• Boycott targeted big tech companies during organized global Days of Inaction.
• Withhold pension contributions from funds invested in exploitative corporations.

4. Markets Without Capitalism

The Other Now replaces commercial banking, land ownership, and international trade with decentralized digital systems and ground commons authorities.

To prevent forced partnerships in simple tasks, the Other Now uses the Disjointedness Criterion to distinguish between individual and team production. Tasks where value can be measured individually allow for simple cash payment without equity shares. In contrast, joint production where individual contributions cannot be isolated requires the one-person-one-share-one-rule.

Eva questions casual waiters, but Eve explains that waiters actively create the cafe atmosphere and culture, meaning the criterion does not apply.

The Jerome Payment System

Commercial banking is replaced by Jerome, a free, public, decentralized digital payment system run by the central bank and organized around three PerCap accounts. Every citizen receives a PerCap account containing three parts: Legacy as a baby trust fund, Dividend for universal basic dividends, and Accumulation for savings. Commercial banks and tradable shares are eliminated, while community money brokers pool savings to issue loans without relying on future overdrafts. Historically, 97 per cent of money was created by commercial and investment bankers through loans, while only 3 per cent of all money is cash created by central banks.

The United States began transitioning to Fed accounts in 2011, providing every social security number with a PerCap account, which eventually led to the extinction of private inter-bank payment systems by 2020.

You can establish this public banking infrastructure through specific steps:

• Create a Legacy account for every newborn with an initial grant of 100,000 dollars.
• Provide Dividend accounts for universal basic allocations.
• Offer Accumulation accounts with 5 per cent tax relief initially offered for funds transferred to encourage savings migration from commercial banks.

Land and Trade Reform

Land ownership is transferred to regional ground trusts, and commercial land rents are regulated using a permanent self-revelation auction scheme. Freehold titles are transferred to ground commons authorities, known as gComms. Occupants of commercial spaces declare their own market property values to determine rent, while virtual bidding rooms allow any visitor to bid on properties to keep occupants honest and prevent undervaluation.

The UK enacted the Great Ground Reform Act of 2017 to establish county ground commons authorities, offering lifetime free leases to existing private landlords during the transition.

You can manage land and property through decentralized local rules:

• Transfer freehold titles of county land to regional gComms.
• Require commercial occupants to visit the PASS web page at the start of each year.
• Input self-declared market values for occupied premises to compute monthly rent.
• Allow external visitors to bid higher annual rent to take over any property through a permanent auction.

The International Monetary Project stabilizes global trade by denominating transactions in Kosmos and penalizing persistent trade surpluses and deficits. To prevent debt bondage and neo-colonial bailouts caused by expanding trade deficits, the IMP uses a digital accounting currency called Kosmos. Countries with trade imbalances pay a levy, and the withheld funds flow into a common redistribution depository to finance green investments and development in less advantaged regions. The system applies an initial 5 per cent levy on deficits and surpluses, aiming for a 10 per cent levy target by 2031, such as a 5 billion Ks levy payment on a 100 billion Ks trade deficit.

Eve explains that the IMP replaced the IMF in 2013, shifting from imposing austerity and privatizing public property to stabilizing world trade without indebtedness.

You can stabilize global exchanges through structured financial rules:

• Denominate all trade between countries in Kosmos units.
• Withhold Kosmos from central bank accounts in proportion to trade surpluses and deficits.
• Channel withheld funds into the International Redistribution and Development Depository.

Digital Renaissance

Big tech monopolies are replaced by a digital renaissance using micropayments, data property rights, and a Sovereign Data Fund.

Digital Rights Acts grant people full property rights over their personal data. Through a micropay platform called Penny For Your Thought, users and app developers pay micro-sums for data and access, while anonymous public and private data is stored in a Sovereign Data Fund that collects royalties for technological breakthroughs.

Following the Face the Music user strike on November 5, 2012, and new Digital Rights Acts, major data-harvesting businesses were forced to mutate into digital communes.

You can secure data sovereignty and fair compensation through direct platform rules:

• Require app developers to pay consenting users for personal data.
• Charge users micropayments for app access or charge their PerCap Legacy account directly.
• Store public and private data anonymously on the Sovereign Data Fund's cloud network.

Immigration policy is managed through local community empowerment and regional ground trusts rather than central state border controls. To prevent native populations from feeling threatened by increased competition for social housing and public services, the Human Movement Project devolves visa-granting power to County Associations. Migrants enter a randomized digital raffle for social housing space, with odds adjusted based on remote interviews.

Ebo coordinates the Human Movement Project, arguing that empowering local communities through gComms and Citizens' Juries builds widespread support for liberal migration policies.

You can restructure migration management through decentralized local authorities:

• Devise the power to grant visas from the national state to regional gComms.
• Allocate additional funds for new homes to counties that grant migrant visas.
• Enter approved migrants into a randomized digital raffle for social housing.

Conclusion

The alternative history of the Other Now demonstrates that ending financialized capitalism requires dismantling corporate hierarchy, stock markets, and central banking through deliberate institutional design.

10 Key Ideas

1. Modernity's vanquished professionals discover a subatomic wormhole linking them to an alternative timeline where financialized capitalism was successfully overthrown.
2. Corpo-Syndicalism replaces traditional wage labor and corporate hierarchies with flat-managed, worker-owned organizations operating without bosses or tradable shares.
3. Every resident receives a central bank digital PerCap account comprising Accumulation, Legacy, and Dividend funds to manage savings, baby trusts, and universal social payments.
4. Corporate accountability is maintained through a Social Accountability Act where regional Citizens' Juries grade every company using a standardized Socialworthiness Index.
5. A global techno-syndicalist movement named Ossify Capitalism dismantled financialized power structures using targeted digital guerrilla strikes against pension funds, big tech monopolies, and investment banking.
6. The Jerome decentralized digital payment system run by the central bank replaces commercial banking, eliminating tradable shares and private inter-bank payment systems.
7. Land ownership is transferred to regional ground trusts called gComms, and commercial land rents are regulated using permanent self-revelation auction schemes.
8. The International Monetary Project stabilizes global trade by denominating transactions in Kosmos units and penalizing persistent trade surpluses and deficits to prevent debt bondage.
9. Digital Rights Acts grant people full property rights over their personal data, replacing big tech monopolies with micropay platforms and a Sovereign Data Fund.
10. The alternative history of the Other Now demonstrates that ending financialized capitalism requires dismantling corporate hierarchy, stock markets, and central banking through deliberate institutional design.