Tag: critical theory

Julian de Medeiros: Trump’s wall isn’t a state of emergency but a state of exception (2019)

First posted February 19, 2019 NB: This is an important commentary. Carl Schmitt’s elevation of animosity to a metaphysical dimension is much admired by intellectuals across the political spectrum, and commands influence (sometimes unacknowledged) left to right. An example of Schmitt’s ‘the political‘ as applied to the historiography of communal politics in colonial India may be… Read More Julian de Medeiros: Trump’s wall isn’t a state of emergency but a state of exception (2019)

Dilip

Don’t be fooled: policymakers are quietly invoking austerity by other names

Clara Mattei Austerity, like trickle-down economics, has been relegated to the list of things economists don’t talk about anymore. Austerity’s core policies – hikes in interest rates, downward pressure of fiscal spending and wages – had their last stand with the European sovereign-debt crisis a decade ago, and the resulting public outcry made the “a-word”… Read More Don’t be fooled: policymakers are quietly invoking austerity by other names

Dilip

Clara Mattei: How Economists Invented Austerity / Anwar Shaikh: What Happens When Economics Doesn’t Reflect the Real World?

Clara Mattei discusses her new book The Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism “A must-read, with key lessons for the future.”—Thomas Piketty A groundbreaking examination of austerity’s dark intellectual origins.  For more than a century, governments facing financial crisis have resorted to the economic policies of austerity—cuts to wages,… Read More Clara Mattei: How Economists Invented Austerity / Anwar Shaikh: What Happens When Economics Doesn’t Reflect the Real World?

Dilip

Sam Kriss: ‘Neoliberalism’ isn’t a left-wing insult but a monstrous political system of inequality

The One Word Guaranteed to Make the Corporate Pundit Class Squirm Neoliberalism is not particularly hard to define. It’s not only an ideology or a set of principles; it’s a system of practices, and an era, the one we’re living in now. What it means, over and above everything, is untrammeled ruling-class power, an end… Read More Sam Kriss: ‘Neoliberalism’ isn’t a left-wing insult but a monstrous political system of inequality

Dilip

Joe Biden, the National Security State, and Arms Sales

BY WILLIAM D. HARTUNG Here’s a seldom commented-upon reality of this century and this moment: the United States remains the number-one arms-exporting nation on the planet. Between 2017 and 2021, it grabbed 39% of the total global weapons market and there’s nothing new about that. It has, in fact, been the top arms dealer in every year but one for… Read More Joe Biden, the National Security State, and Arms Sales

Dilip

A matter of time

First posted Hiroshima Day, August 6, 2014 NB: This article was written for an edited volume on contemporary terrorism, more specifically, terror in the name of Hindutva. I disagree with the habit of approaching terrorism with a prefix, but nevertheless wrote it, in order precisely to make my point more explicitly. It was completed more than… Read More A matter of time

Dilip

The Political Prophet Harvard Didn’t Want

In our age of global conflict, István Hont is finally having his moment Danielle Charette and William Selinger In 2001 a dispute over hiring in Harvard’s government department briefly became national news. The faculty had voted unanimously to offer a tenured position to the historian István Hont (1947-2013), a specialist in Enlightenment political thought at King’s College,… Read More The Political Prophet Harvard Didn’t Want

Dilip

Paul Krugman warns of collapse of crypto institutions after FTX debacle

 Alex Henderson Right-wing libertarians and socially conservative MAGA Republicans disagree about many things, but one thing they do have in common is an affection for cryptocurrencies. It isn’t hard to find people on the right who are unapologetically bullish on cryptocurrencies. But one person who doesn’t share their enthusiasm is liberal economist and New York… Read More Paul Krugman warns of collapse of crypto institutions after FTX debacle

Dilip

Nationalism is the ideology of our age. No wonder the world is in crisis

Gordon Brown There is no longer such thing as the international community,” a prominent African leader recently complained to me, lamenting that this week’s G20 would, like September’s UN general assembly, October’s IMF-World Bank meetings and this month’s Cop27, fail to combat the world’s food, energy, debt, inflation, currency, pollution and poverty crises. At the very moment… Read More Nationalism is the ideology of our age. No wonder the world is in crisis

Dilip