With the recent protests at the government shutdown effect on employment gaining increasing coverage, it seems like an increasingly salient time to question the nature of work in our lives. I should caveat this with whilst I am aware there’s a fairly clear connection between these protests seemingly organic nature and large dark money corporate networks however the fact that this can seemingly go unremarked on in many instances, is in itself is quite an interesting fact and I would suggest more broadly indicative of how work functions in advanced capitalist economies. With 22 million out of work in the United States...
“Brexit is only sort of mentioned once, very briefly in the novel but I think it’s fair to say at this point you know that Brexit is a feeling” Sam Byers In an interview about his new, technological thriller, Perfidious Albion, the author Sam Byers pondered briefly on the question of whether, or not, the novel could be described as a Brexit novel. whilst he was somewhat recalcitrant in acquiescing fully to this description, he did, however, suggest that Brexit is in many ways as much of a feeling as it is an event. My previous attempts in writing about Brexit...
A recent discussion on the intersection between pandemics and industrialization brought on by the Chinese collective Chuang’s excellent piece ‘Social Contagion: Microbiological Class Warfare’ encouraged me to look further into the circumstances in which COVID-19 and other resilient pathogens, arose from and the correlation with large scale agribusiness, high intensity industrialization and the capitalist mode of production. Similar to Chuang I’m not so much interested in engaging in the kind of vulgar Marxism which places the blame for all the worlds ills at the feet of capitalism, rather given the seemingly random nature of pandemics I’m more interested as to...
The sluggish response to the current outbreak by the UK government recently pushed me to take stock of what the pandemic reveals to us about this current moment and ways we might navigate it. In some ways, the virus has proved to be politically polarizing in a way that has played out in an exceptionally revealing manner. The authoritarian strongmen in charge of two of the largest democracies on the planet, Trump and Bolsonaro, first tried to counter the rising concern with a combination of denial, conspiratorial whispers and outright refusal to allow measures to aid the general public to be implemented. The puzzled...
Once again the ugly spectre of Malthusianism slithered its way into the mainstream on an episode of the BBC show, Question Time, which over the last few months has shown itself rapidly losing any illusion it might have had of speaking to, or representing, the needs of the public writ large and instead has rapidly been transitioning into a bizarrely hyperreal circus and a conduit for an ever more divisive and populist message. From the rumours of Fiona Bruce prepping the crowd with information to unfairly bias them against certain members of the panel, to the continued inclusion of political...
Historically there have been many reasons why the reduction of labour time and even the abolition of wage labour itself has been seen not only in a positive light but as an achievable concrete goal. In 1930 John Maynard Keynes in his famous paper ‘Economic Possibilities For Our Grandchildren’, wrote: I draw the conclusion that, assuming no important wars and no important increase in population, the economic problem may be solved, or be at least within sight of solution, within a hundred years. This means that the economic problem is not-if we look into the future-the permanent problem of the human race....
In a recent television spot the economist, Mariana Mazzucato briefly touched on something which whilst hugely important is often left out of the public debate on economics. Whilst, unfortunately, she was unable to create the space to expound on it fully at 31:00 the following exchange takes place Jo Coburn: What don’t we value enough? Mariana Mazzucato: Well, first of all, we confuse price with value, it used to be that there were big debates about value and that turned into the theory of price, we only put into GDP things that have a price, if you marry your cleaner GDP will go down,...
I recently finished reading Goodwin and Eatwell’s work of political theory ‘National Populism: A Revolt Against Liberal Democracy’ which attempts to breakdown the roots of recent populist movements from Trump’s victory in 2016, to gains made by the likes of Fidesz in Hungary, National Rally in France and of course Brexit and subsequent successes The Brexit Party. Among their observations, they identify four principal causes for the rise of populism deprivation, destruction, de-alignment and distrust. However, when charting a course forward for post-populism they suggest, as indeed some parties have done, adopting certain ideas from populist parties. I, however, identify...
