Summary: a vision of a utopian society beyond our current wage-slave capitalism, one that incorporates growing independent movements.

Rating: 5/5

Available at: Processed World, Amazon, etc. I bought my copy at City Lights in San Francisco.

Are you ready for post-capitalist society? In Nowtopia, author and Critical Mass founder Chris Carlsson looks at growing movements across society and puts them together into a system for survival in a world of work beyond our current one.

Carlsson sees our current “wage slave” system as unfulfilling and destructive and the vast majority of us as trapped in this system. Since this is Austin On Two Wheels and not a political site, I won’t go too much more into the motivations behind this. Suffice it to say that there are parts of Chris’ worldview that I can agree with and other that I think are just too unrealistic.

The free software movement and operating systems like Linux, community gardens, biofuel pioneers and the growing DIY bike culture all form the basis of a new system of unpaid work, done for the joy and sense of contributing to one’s community.

Carlsson goes into great detail about the bike ‘zine culture and groups like Portland’s C.H.U.N.K. 666 and their recycling of old bike parts into tall bikes and other mutants. More important though is the coverage of community-serving groups like the Bike Kitchen in San Francisco, similarly-named Bicycle Kitchen in Los Angeles and Plan B in New Orleans. Just like our own Yellow Bike Project and Bikes Across Borders, these groups help spread cycling as a cheap form of transportation and provide knowledge to those who need it. As Carlsson says:

“Bicycling is for many of its adherents both a symbolic and practical rejection of one of the most onerous relationships capitalist society imposes: car ownership.”

Nowtopia is a worthwhile read even if you don’t agree with Carlsson’s politics. This book will make you ponder the makeup of our society and at least contemplate doing things differently. The post-capitalistic utopian vision notwithstanding, Nowtopia at least encourages cyclists to see themselves as more than just people on a bike, but part of a greater whole.

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