On every continent, in every state, there are indicators of profound economic and environmental collapse. From the lands of indigenous communities to the currency markets of Asia, from the ocean floors to the ozone layer, the collapse is all-encompassing and deep-reaching. In The Cancer Stage of Capitalism, John McMurtry traces the causes of this global disorder back to the mutating assumptions of market theory that now govern the world's economy.

Professor McMurtry diagnoses the malaise as a pathologist would a biological cancer, tracking the de-linked circuits of the global system's monetized growth as a carcinogenic disorder at the social level of life-organization. In the wide-lensed tradition of Adam Smith, Marx and Keynes, the author cuts across academic disciplines and boundaries to penetrate the inner logic of the system's problems.

Far from pessimistic, he argues that the way out of the global crisis is to be found in an evolving substructure of history which provides a common ground of resolution across ethnic and national divisions. Reaching beyond conventional textbooks, this fascinating study offers a new paradigm which is accessible to intelligent citizens the world over.