Nadia Sterling gives social democracy its due: public health care, pensions, unions, labor protections, and social rights can make life under capitalism less brutal. But domestic comfort is not the same as liberation. Following unequal exchange, global value chains, labor transfers, modern slavery evidence, trade dependency, inequality data, Marxist exploitation theory, and the strongest liberal-institutionalist objections, this book argues that welfare capitalism remains a compromise inside a world system built on capital's command over labor.
Sharp, accessible, and evidence-led, Comfort Built Elsewhere makes the case that socialism is not simply a larger welfare budget, but a transitional break with capitalist property relations: democratic control over production, trade, investment, and social reproduction.