Przemysław Wielgosz

Przemysław Wielgosz is an essayist, editor, curator and journalist whose work focuses on the critique of capitalism, people’s history, and the political, social and environmental dimensions of contemporary crises. Through his books, essays and discursive projects, he explores the relationships between economic systems, inequality, racism, colonialism and structures of power.

In his book The Race Game: How Capitalism Divides to Rule, he argues that racism should be understood not as a collection of prejudices but as a historically constructed mechanism for organising labour and maintaining social hierarchies, inseparable from the development of capitalism. Bringing together global histories of colonialism and slavery with the histories of serfdom and the subordination of working people in Central and Eastern Europe, he examines the ways in which race and class have been intertwined throughout modern history.

His most recent book, Weather for Revolutionaries: How to Change the World in a Time of Catastrophe, investigates historical moments when environmental crises coincided with famine, epidemics, economic collapse and political conflict. He is particularly interested in how periods in which existing systems reach the limits of their social and ecological sustainability create opportunities for profound transformation. Addressing the present, he argues for understanding the climate crisis, social inequality and the limitations of global capitalism as interconnected phenomena. Rather than viewing catastrophe as an automatic path to emancipation, he sees it as a historical moment that opens multiple possible futures.

He is Editor-in-Chief of the Polish edition of Le Monde diplomatique, series editor of People’s History of Poland (RM Publishing), and collaborates with the Strefa WolnoSłowa Association. He is the author of The Opium of Globalisation, Welcome to Harder Times, The Race Game: How Capitalism Divides to Rule, and Weather for Revolutionaries: How to Change the World in a Time of Catastrophe. The Race Game was shortlisted for Poland’s Nike Literary Award in 2022. As a curator and co-creator of discursive projects devoted to people’s history, the critique of capitalism, future economies and environmental crises, he has collaborated with Biennale Warszawa, the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw and Teatr Ósmego Dnia.