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So Monbiot’s new book is a bestseller.

It also has a number of errors, of fact, of logic etc. So, I’m going to do a quickie response to it. Up on Amazon in 10 days to 2 weeks, about. Also run it as the paid part of the Substack.

OK. So, what do I call it?

Their title is “The Invisible Doctrine. The Secret History of Neoliberalism (& How It Came To Control Your Life)”.

What should I call mine? “Monbiot Talks Toss” would not quite work while being usefully descriptive.

Any ideas?

40 thoughts on “Your help required”

  1. The Madness of Ming George

    (‘cos he’s not terribly attractive and wants imperial solutions)

  2. The title, I don’t know, but how about “How to stop worrying and love neoliberalism” as the tag line?

  3. The Open History of Neoliberalism (and how it came to enhance your, and everyone else in the world’s, life)

  4. How about:

    The Invisible Hand. The Secret History of Neoliberalism (& How It Came To Enrich Every Aspect of Your Life)”

  5. George Monbiot is an anagram of “Go, Tim! Boo Green.” Also of “emoting goober.” I don’t suppose this helps, but neither does he.

  6. The Meissen Bison

    The problem with his title “The Invisible Doctrine. The Secret History of Neoliberalism (& How It Came To Control Your Life)”, apart from being wordy is the premise that something invisible can also be controlling your life while side-stepping the reality that neoliberalism is a boo-word of the left whose definition is intentionally nebulous to suit the argument and the day.

    If you want your title to reflect his to some degree. You could oppose his “invisible” with “self-evident” and if you want to link to Monbiot’s offering this could give something like: The Self-Evident Truth that Monbiot Denies (& Which Makes Our Lives Better) or something along those lines.

  7. So Monbiot’s new book is a bestseller.

    A bestseller like Harry Potter, or a bestseller in a subsection of a subsector of lefty wanktoss?

  8. S Times no 1 nonfiction.

    General hardbacks
    1 The Invisible Doctrine by George Monbiot and Peter Hutchison (Allen Lane £12.99)
    The secret history of neoliberalism and how it came to control your life (2,565)

    Of course, 2.5k copies is not all that many….

  9. “The Invisible Doctrine. The Secret History of Neoliberalism (& How It Came To Control Your Life) From a Galaxy Far Far Away”

  10. Person in Pictland

    This piece by Monbiot, which passeth all understanding.

    Monbiot’s maunderings: outward and visible signs of an inward and spiritual disgrace.

    Georgie Porgie’s puddings and lies.

  11. Monbiot’s Misunderstanding:s How Freedom and Markets Improved All Our Lives – Including George Monbiot’s

  12. How about:

    The Implausible Bogeyman. The Not So Secret History of How Statists Blame Neoliberalism For The Mess They Made

    or

    The NeoLiberal Delusion: how the statists who have made you poorer and less free blame capitalism and free markets for THEIR catastrophic errors

    or

    The Imaginary Doctrine: how progressives invented Neoliberalism as a scapegoat for their mistakes

  13. “Fallacy,
    Or how a Naturalist who does not understand Nature expands into Economics and Politics, and gets Things Wrong.”

  14. Marius basically has already given a flavour of mine:

    ‘The imaginary doctrine: How left wing totalitarians invented the term neoliberalism to blame markets for their errors (and how it was used as cover to stop people going to pubs for the first time in centuries)

  15. That depends on your goal. Do you want to convince Monbiot or his fans? Do you want to provide arguments for people who already agree with you to use when necessary? Or so you want to persuade the undecided?

    For the second, you can use a negative, combative title, but that would deter the first and quite likely the third groups from buying. Overall I’d suggest “The neoliberalism conspiracy” and carefully ensure that the blurb and initial publicity does not mention that you are saying that the conspiracy is nonsense. Since readers also like to know a bit about an author, you could include a mini biography in a section titled “Mon Bio”.

    Or maybe you just want to make as much money as possile from book sales, in which case I’d suggest you choose a different topic entirely.

    I see from Amazon, btw, that “The Invisible Doctrine…” is “#1 Most Gifted in Business & Economic History”. Presumably, when it falls out of those rankings, we can fairly describe it as “you couldn’t give it away”.

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