The Master's Tools

False prophets of democratizing finance are everywhere. Michael A. McCarthy is a real one. He pitches democracy as a system of minipublics and nested spaces of distributed ownership and decision-making drawing on our collective intelligence. This is not just critique. It's a cookbook. -- Quinn Slobodian, author of <i>Crack-Up Capitalism: Market Radicals and the Dream of a World Without Democracy</i> This book is an original intellectual contribution to the timely debates about democratizing finance. It offers a new framework featuring governance processes that center deliberation and sortition (the random selection of decision makers). Michael A. McCarthy makes a compelling case for shifting who has decision-making power, and how decisions are taken in financial institutions. An essential read. -- Claudia Chwalisz, founder and CEO, DemocracyNext The lead weight of fictitious capital deprives us of our future. Mike A. McCarthy has a plan to regain it: democratize finance. -- Cédric Durand, author of <i>How Silicon Valley Unleashed Techno-feudalism: The Making of the Digital Economy</i> Given the vast inequalities and debilitating crises to which the capitalist financial system plainly gives rise, criticizing that system is easy. Considerably harder is the work of thinking carefully and creatively about the possible form of alternative financial institutions designed to serve the many rather than the few. Making a full-blooded case for a genuine democratization of control of financial investment, The Master's Tools represents an original, welcome and extremely interesting intervention. -- Brett Christophers, author of <i>The Price is Wrong: Why Capitalism Won't Save the Planet</i>