We, as a species, have dug ourselves into a hole. Climate change, environmental collapse, soaring inequality and societies turning into dystopian surveillance states.

But we as a species made decisions which lead us here. Because we made bad choices, we can make better choices in the future.

This book is about those bad choices, and about what the good choices would look like.

A better society; a better world, is possible.


There are two versions of the book. The PDF version of “It Doesn’t Have To Be This Way: The collected Essays of Ian Welsh” is the preferred version.

An EPUB version of “It Doesn’t Have To Be This Way: The collected essays Of Ian Welsh” is also available. The formatting isn’t quite as good (and looks awful in any browser, you’ll need a dedicated EPUB reader.)

Both versions are free for now, though that will likely change in the future. All versions will always be free to those who donated to the 2017 fundraiser, or were active subscribers at the time.