Against Ambition: The Radical Potential of Giving Up

Since the 1980s, ambition has become the driving logic of our world. We’re told that everyone has always wanted to ascend to the heights of their societies. We’re told that we can achieve anything we set our minds to and overcome any obstacle to live out our fantasies. And we’re told that if we fail, we have nothing to blame but ourselves.

In Against Ambition, Bill Peel explores how capitalism created this cult of ambition and turned our lives into nothing more than goal-oriented investments. He shows how the ambitious life of hard work and self-sacrifice reinforces neoliberalism and turns all of us into little more than failed versions of the selves we dream of becoming. Rather than political actors capable of creating a better world, capitalist ambition turns all of us into individual climbers on the social ladder, foreclosing the possibility of collective action.

Where capitalist ambition turns life into an investment strategy, driven by the "rise and grind" mentality, passive income side hustles and ruthless corporate backstabbing, Against Ambition makes the case for the radical potential of giving up, arguing instead that we should be able to waste our time however we see fit.