Section
Capitalism
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Long-Distance Talkers: The Great Depression Speaks
During the Great Depression, the Works Progress Administration conducted thousands of interviews among American workers. Anne Trubek’s “American Made” gives them new voice.
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Public Thinker: B. R. Cohen on How Food Became “Pure”
“There were so many new laws, I had to make a map showing the spread and intensity of antimargarine laws in states over a quarter century.”[none-for-homepage]
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The Realism of Our Times: Kim Stanley Robinson on How Science Fiction Works
“We’re in a science fiction novel now that we are all co-writing together.”[none-for-homepage]
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How the Welfare State Became the Neoliberal Order
Today’s neoliberalism emerged when US policymakers built New Deal–style projects abroad—for private gain rather than the public good.[none-for-homepage]
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The Once and Future Temp
What can the history of the temp-work industry teach us about the precarity of modern working life?
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All Tomorrow’s Warnings
Both left and right employ “speculative nonfiction” to imagine the world after climate change. But who will win the battle of the futurists?
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It’s the Geography, Stupid! Planetary Urbanization Revealed
Covid-19 spread so rapidly because urbanization is now planetary: connecting disparate territories through flows of goods and people.[none-for-homepage]
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Listen Closely: “Exit, Voice, and Loyalty” @50
When the Trump presidency ends, and the toll of years of toxicity and mismanagement becomes clear, we are going to need some guidance.
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A Tale of Two Valleys
To understand Silicon Valley, first examine the stories it tells about itself; just like, to understand the Victorian age, first read writers like Dickens and Dreiser.
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Ideas Alone Won’t Tame Capital
Inequality emerged after the French Revolution, and again after the postwar boom, because our institutions have been hardwired to serve capital.
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“Parasite” and the Plurality of Empire
Bong Joon-ho’s critique in Parasite is less of “universal” capitalism than of the particular imperialisms that have shaped Korean life.
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Tales from the Crypto
Techno-utopians rarely acknowledge that untraceable money transfers support a world of kleptocrats, tax havens, and dark-money politics.
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How to Evolve Past Capitalism
Economic systems are like ecosystems. In America, capitalism may be the dominant species. But other species exist there, too.
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The False Hopes of Homeownership
The American Dream of private home ownership has fueled a system that preys on Black people for profit.
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Giving Credit to White Supremacy
Something, we are told, has changed in capitalism. Finance has replaced production as the main source of wealth; credit matters more than profit; even the …
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Economics: Theories vs. Stories
In the rubble of the Richard Nixon years, a University of Chicago economist named Arthur Laffer drew a diagram on a napkin to illustrate the hidden blessings of …
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Public Thinker: Frances Negrón-Muntaner on Puerto Rico, Art, and Decolonial Joy
Frances Negrón-Muntaner is an innovative and multimodal thinker and artist, and a professor … [none-for-homepage]
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Disrupting the “Startup Hustle”: An Interview with Margaret O’Mara
Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Sergey Brin, John Doerr, Jeff Bezos …
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Terminal Whiteness
While doing fieldwork in Tennessee for his eye-opening and often harrowing new book, Dying of Whiteness, Vanderbilt University Professor Jonathan M. Metzl met Trevor. A 40-something-year-old former …
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Goodbye to All That: The End of Neoliberalism?
For Richard Denniss, the evolution of the Australian War Memorial into a giant billboard illustrates the logic of neoliberalism, something that, he says …
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The World the Gulf Has Built
The viewing platform of the Burj Khalifa, currently the tallest building in the world, provides an exceptional view. On a clear day, you can see Dubai’s towers …
