Known for his research on materialism, Professor of Psychology Tim Kasser had been dabbling with the idea of writing a book on hypercapitalism (extreme capitalism at the expense of traditional values) since 2007. But his ideas weren't coming together in a way he liked.

Then, in 2011, he collaborated on a project with the Center for a New American Dream on an animated video that spotlighted his work. As Kasser narrates, an artist's arm and a sketch pad are shown on-screen while the artist creates drawings that illustrate the concepts being explained by Kasser. The video has been viewed almost 800,000 times.

"After the video did so well, far better than any of us expected," said Kasser, "it made me start thinking about cartoons as a way to express my ideas about hypercapitalism that hadn't been coming together as a regular book."

Kasser's children had grown up reading books by cartoonist Larry Gonick, best known for The Cartoon History of the Universe. They encouraged him to reach out to Gonick, who agreed to collaborate with Kasser. The result is Hypercapitalism: The Modern Economy, Its Values, and How to Change Them, published by The New Press in January 2018.

What was it like collaborating with a cartoonist in writing this book?

It was really a pleasure to work with Larry. I've collaborated a lot over the years in my articles, and one of my books is co-authored. This was the most unusual collaboration I've experienced. Really, the framework for the book is mine, and Larry had his input as the artist. I'd write my piece, send it to Larry, and he'd send back a rough sketch of what I'd done. One of the struggles I had when I was first writing was that I was trying to write it as a comic, and I didn't know what I was doing. He eventually wrote me, "That's not your job. I'm the comic book writer, you give me materials."

I think it's a beautifully drawn book. I fed Larry organized raw material, thoughts, and data, and he'd draw it all as a comic and send it back to me. We'd Skype pretty regularly. He would ask me very on-point, penetrating questions about the argument I was making, not because he necessarily disagreed, but because he wanted to make sure he understood so he could represent it best visually. But that's why you write with someone else. If you can both come to agreement on something, it's more likely to be correct than writing it on your own. It was definitely a very challenging book, probably the most challenging book I've ever written. This is my fifth book, and it by far encompasses the widest swath of ideas of any of my books.

How did you get interested in hypercapitalism?

Since I was in graduate school, I've been studying people's values—what's important to them, what their goals in life are, and, in particular, what happens when people prioritize materialistic values for money, status, possessions, and image. Over the years, the research that's accumulated has shown that the more that people focus on those materialistic values, the less happy and satisfied they are with their lives, the less nicely they treat other people, and the worse they behave towards the environment. Contemporary humans are in this funny situation whereby the values that our political/economic system requires in order to run smoothly are values that actually undermine personal, social, and ecological wellbeing.

What is your goal for this book?

I have three goals for this book. One is just to clearly lay out for people, "Look, this is what this economic system is, this is how it operates, these are its basic principles and tenets, and this is what it needs to socialize people to believe in order for the system to work." It's amazing, but you can go through high school and college without learning about the basic social, economic, and political structure in which your life unfolds. I hope that the book provides people a kind of map of how capitalism works.

The second goal is to argue about capitalism in a different way than most other scholars who have critiqued capitalism. I think what my work has been doing is to lodge that critique in what psychologists have empirically demonstrated about how values work and how values are related to behavior and quality of life. There's a lot of science in this book, and that's one of the reasons I reached out to Larry—he's a cartoonist who does science.

The third goal is to show that there are alternatives to capitalism. Margaret Thatcher was famous for the idea that capitalism is the best we can have. She called it TINA—There Is No Alternative. Throughout the book, we represent hypercapitalism as a juggernaut, as a powerful, lumbering tank that seems invincible. What we're trying to say is, that's wrong. We use the research to point to what new economic systems would look like that can create alternatives. So, the third goal is to give hope.

Tim Kasser has authored more than 100 scientific articles and book chapters on materialism, values, goals, well-being, and environmental sustainability, among other topics. He has also authored four other books, including The High Price of Materialism (2002); Psychology and Consumer Culture, co-edited with Allen D. Kanner (2004); Meeting Environmental Challenges: The Role of Human Identity, co-authored with Tom Crompton (2009); and Lucy in the Mind of Lennon (2013).