Tag: Economics

Matthew Stanley – Ulysses S. Grant: American Giant

Link to a review of Ron Chernow‘s book Grant (2017) by Matthew Stanley:

“Ulysses S. Grant: American Giant”

 

Selected quote: “To the extent that it overturns reactionary narratives and underscores the radical potential of the American past, Chernow’s Grant should be commended as a gain for truth. But his stress on the importance of political rights without discussion of how the market renders those political rights vulnerable (or even futile) is the primary shortcoming of liberal accounts of the Reconstruction era — and of liberal politics today.”

 

Bonus links: Democracy in America? and Golden Rule and Trade, Development and Foreign Debt and Review of Lenin

Ginger Jentzen – Minneapolis’ Housing Plan Rewards Developers, Punishes Working People

Link to an article by Ginger Jentzen:

“Minneapolis’ Housing Plan Rewards Developers, Punishes Working People”

 

Bonus links: “When Capitalists Build Too Much” and “Residents an Afterthought in Public Housing Privatization Coverage” and “‘Poor Door’ Tenants of Luxury Tower Reveal the Financial Apartheid Within” and “The Corporate Steamroller of Gentrification is a Deliberate Process” and “Turning Libraries Into Condos” and “Capitalism Can’t Give Us Affordable Housing” and “Euphemisms All the Way Down” and “Why Rent Control? An Interview with Kshama Sawant” (and “Amazon Is on the Attack Against Kshama Sawant”) and “MPHA Enlists Rep. Ilhan Omar for Its Privatization Campaign” and “What a Bernie Sanders Agenda on Affordable Housing Should Look Like” and “Universal Rent Control Now” and “We Can Have Beautiful Public Housing” and “A Communist Designed Your Kitchen” and “Marxism, Space and a Few Urban Questions: A Rough Guide to the English Language Literature” and “Why Rent Control Works” and The Pruitt-Igoe Myth and “The New Deal State and Segregation” and “When Capital Threatens to Strike in Your City”

Bonus quote:

“This is the real estate state: a government . . .  fine-tuned to ensure that government actions are calibrated toward rising profits for developers, landlords, speculators, and flippers. Like other state assemblages (the welfare state, the carceral state, the warfare state, etc.) the real estate state is never totalizing, but its influence is particularly strong at the local level, where most US land use decisions take place.

Whatever problems planners attack, the solutions they propose are likely to include luxury development as a key component — even when that problem is a lack of affordable housing. Planners in the real estate state are tasked with stoking property values: either because they are low and investors want them higher, or because they are already high and . . . their deflation could bring down an entire budgetary house of cards. Working to curb speculation and develop public and decommodified housing seem like absurd propositions to a planning regime whose first assumption is that future public gains come first through real estate growth.

In this system, gentrification is a feature not a bug.”

“Gentrification Is a Feature, Not a Bug, of Capitalist Urban Planning” (for what it’s worth, this article makes a very confused reference to real estate developers et al. as “capitalists”) see also The Social Structures of the Economy

Daniel Zamora – Should We Care About Inequality?

Link to an article by Daniel Zamora:

“Should We Care About Inequality?”

 

This is really an article about historical battles for ideological hegemony.

Bonus links: Slavoj Žižek On Political Struggle and Trouble in Paradise and Making Money and The Chickenshit Club: Why the Justice Department Fails to Prosecute Executives and The Lie of Global Prosperity: How Neoliberals Distort Data to Mask Poverty and Exploitation

John Steppling – Before the Law

Link to an article by John Steppling:

“Before the Law”

 

While fairly detailed in its analysis and proffered support, the asserted parallels with fascist regimes of the past aren’t fully convincing.  Does the current moment not have neo-feudalist (or neo-Bonapartist) aspects?  Doesn’t the present moment have some unique features without complete historical precedent?

Bonus link: The Courts Are Political

Matt Taibbi – Ten Years After the Crash, We’ve Learned Nothing

Link to an article by Matt Taibbi:

“Ten Years After the Crash, We’ve Learned Nothing”

 

Bonus links: …And the Poor Get Prison and “Retrospectives of the Financial Crisis Are Leaving Out the Most Important Part—Its Victims” and “The Lehman 10th Anniversary Spin as a Teachable Moment”