ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book discusses political and theoretical backdrop to our analysis of riots and protest, we will try to explain why it has become so difficult to construct an image of a future in which we are not inextricably tied to the profit motive. The neo-liberal model itself was subject to stinging rebuke. Once again, it became possible to speak publicly of political and economic alternatives to neo-liberalism without being immediately dismissed as an unworldly utopian or an advocate of totalitarianism. The crisis allowed to momentarily extricate ourselves from the dominant economic logic of the neo-liberal era and occupy a new space from which one could look back objectively at the ideological dogma that had led our politicians to believe that the market would find a natural equilibrium, regulate itself and gradually improve the lives of all.
