Three and a half years ago, a great big, fat, intimidating-looking economics book burst onto the scene and changed the economic discourse. Based on years of research, its findings were that, over time, the rate of return on wealth has been greater than the rate of return on economic growth, leading to greater and greater inequality. The book argues that, unless capitalism is reformed, the very democratic order will be threatened. The book, of course, is Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century, which is finally out as a great big, fat, intimidating-looking paperback, at $39.99. While not without his critics, Piketty’s research and findings form the intellectual underpinnings for the questioning of free-market economics in the politics of Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn. In Australia, Bill Shorten and the Labor Party have also embraced the rhetoric. The rise of extremism, most visibly in the US, seems to bear out Piketty’s thesis that this rising inequality threatens democracy and its institutions. When the book was published, I wrote that this was a perfect example of the power of books to reset conversations. For us it was a bestseller: we sold over 1000 copies of a dense economic history (one that was hardly cheap). The hardback currently retails here for $94. Now, at $39.99, a lot more people will be able to afford it.

When I read Jonathon Taplin’s Move Fast and Break Things, I felt a similar frisson to reading Piketty. Taplin has had a varied career, working with Bob Dylan and The Band as a manager, as a film producer, and as an expert in communications. Taplin had always been interested in technology – and the internet in particular. He’d remained friendly with Levon Helm, The Band’s drummer and vocalist. Helm had never amassed a fortune and late in life he relied heavily on royalties from album sales. With the rise of music-streaming sites such as Napster and Spotify, the Band’s sales plummeted and Helm’s royalty income dried up. The response from the streamers was that this was the new world and Helm should ‘get off his bum and do some touring’; but the trouble with this idea was that Helm had contracted cancer and couldn’t tour. He subsequently passed away in 2012.

In the early days of the internet, people thought it would be a liberating agent, empowering people and creativity, but as Taplin argues, the internet has been hijacked by a small group of businessmen, particularly Paypal’s Peter Thiel and Napster founder Sean Parker. Both men are inspired by the writings of Ayn Rand, who believed that ‘achievement of your happiness is the only moral purpose of your life’ and that naked, unfettered capitalism was the best way to achieve it – and governments should get out of their way. The internet is now dominated by three huge corporations – Google, Facebook and Amazon – who often used ruthless and dubious means to build their companies, and then maintain their market domination. These organisations are so large and all-pervasive that they set their own agendas, often bending or even breaking the rules, and having profound and pervasive impacts on communities. Google and Facebook have drained away the advertising revenue that sustained our media, Amazon destroys more jobs than they create, and Uber deliberately flouts local regulations. Taplin’s book is provocative and scary: I urge you to read it. But perhaps we’ll discover, like the Luddites who tried to stop the Industrial Revolution, that the Tech Revolution is an unstoppable force.

Mark Rubbo is the managing director of Readings.