How We Sold Our Future

Jens Beckert is Director at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.

• Acknowledgements1 Knowledge without change2 Capitalist modernity3 Big Oil4 The hesitant state5 Global prosperity 6 Consumption without limits7 Green growth8 Planetary boundaries9 What next?Notes

Longlisted for the German Non-Fiction Prize, 2024"We can no longer claim not to understand how the climate crisis got to this point, and why progress has been so elusive, now that we have this book. Beckert provides an authoritative, sobering diagnosis of our present condition and ultimately points us to where the most powerful levers of change might be found. An illuminating contribution."Rebecca Elliott, London School of Economics and Political Science"Jens Beckert's book presents us with an outstanding synthesis of many of the debates around climate change. While Beckert acknowledges that some progress has been made, his book persuasively unpacks the complexity and interconnectedness of the forces that have made it so politically difficult to solve the problem. In the end, he argues that this can only be overcome by the concerted actions of citizens."Neil D. Fligstein, University of California, Berkeley"[Beckert's] book stands out starkly from the field of books on the climate and biodiversity crisis."Torsten Harmsen, Berliner Zeitung"An excellent panorama of the issues, rich in material and highly readable."Meike Fessmann, Der Tagesspiegel"How We Sold Our Future is a landmark in the analysis of the climate crisis. Jens Beckert regards climate change as a 'wicked problem' for which there are no simple answers. This is an investigation without illusions, but that's why it's so important."Sighard Neckel, University of Hamburg"An intriguing analysis of modern capitalist society and its inability to fight the self-produced problem of climate change. Beckert's book is down-to-earth, matter-of-fact, and enlightening."Anita Engels, University of Hamburg"Beckert's argument is hard to ignore."Pilita Clark, Financial Times"...bleak but compelling...."Financial Times"German sociologist Jens Beckert makes a powerful, if dismal, case that even the greenest governments and businesses shy from action that would cut the profits, tax revenues and economic growth they need to survive."Pilita Clark, Financial Times, Best Summer Books of 2025: Environment, Science and Technology"A first-magnitude economist sets out to elucidate the reasons why contemporary societies are unable to respond to the threats that climate change poses to humanity, even though the causes of these threats are now well known."Sociologie