The Alibi of Capital: How We Broke the Earth to Steal the Future on the Promise of a Better Tomorrow by Timothy Mitchell

This book review examines Timothy Mitchell’s The Alibi of Capital as a sustained intervention into contemporary debates on climate crisis, economic growth, and political responsibility. The book offers an incisive reconceptualization of economic growth as a political alibi that legitimizes extraction through appeals to the future. Mitchell’s account compellingly explains how responsibility for ecological harm is displaced rather than outright denied, helping to clarify why climate awareness so often coincides with political inertia. While the book’s historical breadth and conceptual precision offer a powerful framework for understanding the temporal logic of capitalist extraction, the review also considers the limits of its explanatory reach, particularly concerning sites of rupture, resistance, and alternative futures. Nevertheless, The Alibi of Capital remains a richly generative work whose analytic clarity and historical depth significantly sharpen how scholars and critics think about notions of time, responsibility, and the politics of climate crisis.

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