onathan Crary’s Scorched Earth: Beyond the Digital Age to a Post-Capitalist World critiques late capitalism and its symbiotic relationship with digital networks, exposing how 24/7 capitalism colonises every facet of human life. Crary dismantles the optimism tied to digital technologies and underscores their catastrophic environmental and societal impacts. For him, the only “livable” future lies offline, in collective detachment from the endless cycles of capitalist extraction.

Crary begins with Jean-Luc Godard’s apocalyptic vision of a dark, amnesiac and fragmented world. This sets the tone for his urgent call to abandon the digital “internet complex” that fosters “addiction, loneliness, cruelty, psychosis and squandered life.” He argues that 24/7 capitalism’s reliance on digital infrastructure perpetuates a system of endless consumption at the expense of environmental recovery. For Crary, initiatives like the Green New Deal fall short because they fail to address the root cause: capitalism’s insatiable appetite for resources.

Aligning himself with social pamphleteering traditions, Crary critiques the normalisation of the internet in daily life. Drawing on Alain Badiou, he emphasises the necessity of emancipatory politics to imagine a future un-tethered from digital capitalism. The loudest defenders of the status quo, he asserts, are those benefiting from the uninterrupted functioning of capitalism, which thrives on alienation and isolation.

Crary examines how the “internet complex” has eroded collective memory, created social disintegration and fostered apathy. By becoming “autonomous administrators” of their lives, individuals have internalised a “narcissistic apathy” that disconnects them from meaningful community bonds. This transformation, he argues, is not merely technological but systemic, as digital networks facilitate capitalism’s domination over all spheres of existence.

Crary connects digital expansion to environmental crises, arguing that the internet’s global integration has necessitated destructive resource extraction. For example, powering digital infrastructure for eight billion people requires unprecedented energy and materials, exacerbating ecological collapse. By citing David Graeber, Crary highlights capitalism’s fundamental contradiction: infinite growth in a world with finite resources. As India and China embrace full participation in this system, Crary predicts capitalism will hit its limits within decades.

He critiques digital technologies as emblematic of capitalism’s terminal phase, where profit motives override human purpose. Referring to theorist Luis Suarez-Villa, he describes “techno-capitalism” as a force that colonises every aspect of human existence and nature itself. Crary warns that such developments will intensify inequality, accelerate environmental degradation, and fuel new forms of weaponisation.

Crary also critiques Big Tech’s myopic solutions to human problems. He highlights Google’s Calico project, which targets ageing as an “insecurity” to fuel anti-ageing markets for the affluent, further ignoring systemic inequities. He contrasts this obsession with consumerist longevity against the harsh realities of poverty, “deaths of despair,” and environmental collapse in the Global South. Ageing becomes a commodified “lifestyle” problem for the elite rather than a universal condition.

Scorched Earth compels us to confront the existential threats posed by digital capitalism and to imagine a world beyond its suffocating grasp.

Urban spaces, Crary argues, are the epicentres of consumerist cycles that alienate individuals from natural landscapes and collective experiences. Cities are saturated with digital interventions that fragment attention and isolate individuals in screen-mediated realities. This lifestyle removes the possibility of genuine connections, spontaneity or unforeseen interactions. Citing Eugene Minkowski, Crary characterises this state as a “loss of vital contact with reality,” where individuals are trapped in atomised loneliness.

The “internet complex,” he contends, has reshaped human emotions and social behaviours to align with economic imperatives. Surveillance capitalism, exemplified by retina scans and biometric tracking, isn’t merely invasive – it normalises dehumanisation by reducing individuals to data points. These systems reinforce a fragmented, commodified existence that prioritises profit over humanity’s collective well-being.

In the concluding chapter, Crary critiques the erosion of community and collective action in the digital age. He laments the replacement of physical interaction with digital mediation, which diminishes love, friendship and compassion. Quoting Herbert Marcuse, he emphasises how digital systems align human desires with structures of domination, perpetuating passivity and conformity.

Drawing on Guy Debord’s critique of spectacle, Crary identifies digital media as a force that disintegrates community and erases spaces for resistance. Yet, despite the overwhelming dominance of the internet complex, Crary sees hope in the growing critiques of digital consumerism and environmental devastation. He argues that these discourses are vital for imagining a post-capitalist world, where solidarity and collective action can counteract capitalism’s destructive grip.

Scorched Earth is a searing critique of the digital era’s entanglement with capitalism. Crary challenges the widely held belief in the internet’s democratic potential, exposing its environmental and societal costs. His work serves as both a warning and a call to action, urging readers to rethink the relationship between technology, society, and the environment. While it risks sounding technophobic, the book’s incisive analysis offers invaluable insights into the urgent need for systemic change.

Crary’s vision of a post-capitalist future – one that prioritises collective well-being over digital isolation – is provocative and timely. Despite its polemical tone, Scorched Earth compels us to confront the existential threats posed by digital capitalism and to imagine a world beyond its suffocating grasp.

Scorched Earth: Beyond the Digital Age to a Post-

Capitalist World

Author: Jonathan Crary

Publisher: Verso Books

Pages: 144

The reviewer teaches research and writing courses at Bowling Green State University, Ohio, USA