Link to an interview conducted by James Wilt:
Category: Books
Andy Higginbottom – On Adam Hanieh’s Crude Capitalism
Link to a book review by Andy Higginbottom:
“On Adam Hanieh’s Crude Capitalism“
Bonus links: The Closing Circle and “The Lesson We Should Have Learned from ‘Silent Spring’”
Dominic Alexander – Welfare for Markets: A Global History of Basic Income – Book Review
Link to a review by Dominic Alexander of Anton Jäger and Daniel Zamora Vargas’ book Welfare for Markets: A Global History of Basic Income (2023):
Welfare for Markets: A Global History of Basic Income – Book Review”
John Clarke – The World Bank: A Critical History – Book Review
Link to a review by John Clarke of Éric Toussaint’s book The World Bank: A Critical History (2023):
“The World Bank: A Critical History – Book Review”
Bonus link: “The Perilous Path from Western Domination to De-Dollarisation”
Reviews of Books About “Post-Liberalism”
Stephen Rohde – Espionage Overreach
Link to a review by Stephen Rohde of Ralph Engelman and Carey Shenkman’s book A Century of Repression: The Espionage Act and Freedom of the Press:
“Espionage Overreach: On Ralph Engelman and Carey Shenkman’s ‘A Century of Repression'”
Carola Kleinert – Review of Die Insel (The Island)
Review by Carola Kleinert of the book Die Insel by Franziska Grillmeier:
“Die Insel (The Island): A harrowing account of the European Union’s murderous refugee policy”
Shamus Cooke – The Rise of Ilhan Omar
Link to an article by Shamus Cooke:
Review of Value and Crisis by Alfredo Saad-Filho
Link to a review by Fabian Van Onzen of the book Value and Crisis: Essays on Labour, Money and Contemporary Capitalism (2019) by Alfredo Saad-Filho:
Bonus links: Review of Making Money and “How Decades of Neoliberalism Led to the Era of Right-Wing Populism” (this article reviews another book on the same topic but is rather questionably historicist, though it is absolutely correct to note that “all policies — whether statist or neoliberal — are normative”) and “When Socialist Hungary Went Neoliberal” (“neoliberalism represents a class project, aiming not so much to ‘restore’ the power of economic elites . . . but instead to re-establish the conditions for capital accumulation following the global crisis of capital accumulation (1968-75). . . . as neoliberalism gradually gained traction amongst ruling classes across the world it has come to represent the current phase of global capitalism. In this regard, neoliberalism is, among others, characterized by a structural reorientation of the state towards export-oriented, financialized capital, open-ended commitments to market-like governance systems, privatization and corporate expansion, a deep aversion to social collectives and the progressive redistribution of wealth on the part of ruling classes, etc.”) (note that this interviewee makes much-contested if not outright dubious claims about “Soviet-style state capitalism” and “the Stalinist myth that the Soviet bloc regimes were somehow ‘post-capitalist’ societies”, that is, he calls the former USSR “state capitalist” rather than communist/socialist)
Slavoj Žižek Quote About the Suffering of Others
Quote by Slavoj Žižek from “Margaret Atwood’s Work Illustrates Our Need to Enjoy Other People’s Pain”:
“In his Summa Theologica, philosopher Thomas Aquinas concludes that the blessed in the kingdom of heaven will see the punishments of the damned in order that their bliss be more delightful for them. Aquinas, of course, takes care to avoid the obscene implication that good souls in heaven can find pleasure in observing the terrible suffering of other souls, because good Christians should feel pity when they see suffering. So, will the blessed in heaven also feel pity for the torments of the damned? Aquinas’s answer is no: not because they directly enjoy seeing suffering, but because they enjoy the exercise of divine justice.
“But what if enjoying divine justice is the rationalisation, the moral cover-up, for sadistically enjoying the neighbour’s eternal suffering? What makes Aquinas’s formulation suspicious is the surplus enjoyment watching the pain of others secretly introduces: as if the simple pleasure of living in the bliss of heaven is not enough, and has to be supplemented by the enjoyment of being allowed to take a look at another’s suffering – only in this way, the blessed souls ‘may enjoy their beatitude more thoroughly’.
***
“In short, the sight of the other’s suffering is the obscure cause of desire which sustains our own happiness (bliss in heaven) – if we take it away, our bliss appears in all its sterile stupidity.”