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Synopsis A generalized pathology of chronic mendacity seems to be a structural condition of global capitalism at the beginning of the 21st century. The lies told in Washington and London about the invasion of Iraq are only a conspicuous case of the general problems of legitimacy generated by neoliberalism and empire. Honesty and plain speaking by politicians have become exceptional, and the journalistic profession is shamefully complicit. The empty language and sales-pitch mentality of corporate culture increasingly pervade all areas of life. Hardly less important is the growing subordination of scientific research to commercial ends, and the deliberate abdication of a significant segment of the academic intelligentsia from the vocation of telling the truth. Fifteen leading writers explore the problem of truth and the lack of it in thirteen original essays on: the cynical state. ‘capitalist democracy’, the ‘business community’, ‘welfare reform’, ‘law and order’, the media and the Iraq war, global poverty statistics, development economics, the politics of theatre, academic postmodernism, socialists and the problem of class, the history of truth.