Editorial When the US state department recently told a court that the Saudi Arabian crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, should have immunity in a lawsuit over the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi, it portrayed its argument as a legal and not moral position. By way of evidence, it pointed to a rogues’ gallery of foreign leaders… Read More The Guardian view on Modi’s India: the danger of exporting Hindu chauvinism
In any other time and place, in any other part of the world, seven mass shootings in seven days, nearly two every day of the current year, would not be called “senseless,” “insane” and “barbaric.” Why? Because in any other time and place, in any other part of the world, seven mass shootings in seven… Read More So much mass death: The insurgency we refuse to see
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)
His projects were so reliant on public money for survival that in the days before he discovered the necessity of voting Republican to provide “balance” to American politics, conservatives derided the degree of state support for his ventures. Kenan Malik Trussonomics trashed within eight weeks. Donald Trump’s anointed candidates cut down in the US midterms. Sam… Read More Beware self-made ‘genius’ entrepreneurs promising the earth. Just look at Elon Musk
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
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?
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
A wave of bestselling authors claim that global affairs are still ultimately governed by the immutable facts of geography – mountains, oceans, rivers, resources. But the world has changed more than they realise by Daniel Immerwahr Russia’s war in Ukraine has involved many surprises. The largest, however, is that it happened at all. Last year, Russia… Read More Are we really prisoners of geography?
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
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
After the truth-shower 