Ecology and Democracy in a World on Fire

Our first responsibility, always, is to preserve the world, and our second is to improve it

The following text was first presented on April 22, 2025, as a distinguished lecture presented by the Henry H. Arnhold Forum on Global Challenges and the New School for Social Research. I want to trace the outline of an era that has closed. It ran from roughly the end of the ...
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Ecology and Democracy in a World on Fire

US Tariffs and Trump’s Neopatrimonial Mercantilism

Implications for the United States, China, and the global order

I have spent decades giving boring lectures on tariffs to graduate students. Suddenly, every other newspaper article is on tariffs. We have to credit President Trump with tapping into the popular disgruntlement with globalization beginning in 2016, leading to a rethinking of the structure of global economic governance and a ...
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US Tariffs and Trump’s Neopatrimonial Mercantilism

We’re Going to Fort Knox to Touch the Real

If somebody really hasn’t already raided the loot, maybe the administration will show us how it’s done

The Trump-Musk right repeatedly insists on revealing the true state of the world and of digging this true world out from under the distortions of liberal modernity. From Pizzagate to attacks on DEI, there exists a constant insistence on revealing what is hidden, mediated, and obfuscated. But nowhere is the ...
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We’re Going to Fort Knox to Touch the Real

If Eviction Is Personal for Us, It Should Be Personal for Our Landlords Too

A conversation on Abolish Rent

How do we remake our cities for the people who actually live in them? Tracy Rosenthal and Leonardo Vilchis, two cofounders of the largest tenants' union in the country, propose an answer in their new book, Abolish Rent: How Tenants Can End the Housing Crisis (Haymarket, 2024). In November 2024, the authors and ...
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If Eviction Is Personal for Us, It Should Be Personal for Our Landlords Too

Rent Is the Crisis

Framing it as a “housing crisis” ignores that from the perspective of its winners, the system works just fine

Every first of the month, we hand over a share of our wages to meet our human need for housing. Our rents rise faster than our incomes, and inequality grows. Every first of the month, more tenants go without food, medication, and basic necessities to pay this tribute. More people ...
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Rent Is the Crisis

Family Values or Family Exclusion?

How right-wing policies fail working mothers

Parental entitlement policies represent a complex interplay of cultural, social, and economic priorities for far-right leaders in both Italy and the United States. On the one hand, many religiously minded conservatives uphold traditional family values, which would seem to support policies that promote marriage and the growth of families. At ...
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Family Values or Family Exclusion?

Downward Mobility as a Relative Loss in Economic Security

How economic anxiety explains voting patterns

In 2016 formerly unionized parts of the country, the "Arsenal of Democracy," now called the Rust Belt (to the dismay of people who live there), switched from voting for the Democratic Party candidate Obama (both in 2008 and 2012) to the Republican Trump. Teresa Ghilarducci and Siavash Radpour (2016) show long-term stagnation ...
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Downward Mobility as a Relative Loss in Economic Security

Social Capitalism: An Alternative to Neoliberalism

On the economic consequences of the US neoliberal period

As defined by Hagen Krämer and coauthors (2023), social capitalism constitutes a "renewed social democracy" designed to achieve growth that is both inclusive (in the sense of being consistent with an equitable wage share of income) and sustainable (in the sense that it does not foster financial imbalances). These constitute narrow definitions of inclusivity and ...
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Social Capitalism: An Alternative to Neoliberalism

The Fashion for Baiting, Brainwashing, and Bullying

How does Brandy Melville continue to tap into the most desperate impulses of being a teenage girl?

“From the beginning of the supply chain to the end, we’re all being exploited by the same system” says Chloe Asaam, who represents the Or Foundation. She’s speaking in Brandy Hellville & the Cult of Fast Fashion, an HBO documentary that explores the toxicity of the international brand Brandy Melville.  The ...
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The Fashion for Baiting, Brainwashing, and Bullying

Building Black Political Power in Jackson, Mississippi

Cooperation Jackson is using the strategies of just transition to foster coalitions and shape local politics

Jackson is the capital city of the state of Mississippi and was named after the seventh president of the United States, Andrew Jackson (who was responsible for the Trail of Tears—one of many forced relocation marches for people who were Indigenous to the land—and a slave owner). Mississippi is also ...
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Building Black Political Power in Jackson, Mississippi