Blair Fix, Jonathan Nitzan & Shimshon Bichler – Real GDP

Link to an article by Blair Fix, Jonathan Nitzan & Shimshon Bichler:

“Real GDP: The Flawed Metric at the Heart of Macroeconomics”

Real-World Economics Review, Issue 88, P. 51 (July 10, 2019)

 

Like everything in the Real-World Economics Review, this article really is an attack on the hegemony of neoclassical (i.e., anti-classical) economics.  The main points this article makes therefore tacitly draw from classical economics, such as the distinction between use value and exchange value that was explained by Karl Marx in Das Kapital.  Of course, these authors make no mention of Marx.  They also suggest energy units as one alternative to GDP, similar to a concept promoted by R. Buckminster Fuller three or four decades ago but no such precedents are acknowledged in the article.  They also normatively accept a “growth” model.  There is a degree of self-promotion in this article, and it only briefly explains the ideological battle driving their critique.  But the narrow technical points it makes are mostly sound.

See also “The GDP Illusion: Value Added versus Value Capture”

Maggie Levantovskaya – Identity Shaping on Social Media

Link to a review by Maggie Levantovskaya of Jia Tolentino’s Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion (2019):

“Identity Shaping on Social Media: On Jia Tolentino’s ‘Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion'”

 

Bonus links: Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity, and Branding in the Social Media Age and “The Programs of Neoliberal Feminism” and “‘If Only There Were More Female Billionaires!’— New York Times” and Organs Without Bodies and “Capitalism and Female Labor”

Articles About USA-Iran Provocations

Selected links to articles about military provocations between the USA (and its allies) and Iran:

“Eve of Destruction: Iran Strikes Back”

“If Iran Is Responsible for the Fuel Tanker Attacks in the Gulf of Oman (and It May Not Be), It Is Only a Reaction to Washington’s Outrageous Conduct in the Middle East”

“What Right Has Britain to Seize an Iranian Tanker Off Spain?”

“Why the World is Watching the Fate of an Iranian Tanker in the Mediterranean”

Rob Urie – Toward an Eco-Socialist Revolution

Link to an article by Rob Urie:

“Toward an Eco-Socialist Revolution”

 

There are many reasons to question the proffered solution here, which would be unpopular and prone to the all the problems that have historically accompanied peasant societies (rigid social hierarchies, etc.).  Still, this article thinks seriously about real issues and the necessary scope of solutions, and actually ventures to offer a solution.

Alenka Zupančič – The Apocalypse is (Still) Disappointing

Link to an article by Alenka Zupančič:

Alenka Zupančič, “The Apocalypse is (Still) Disappointing,” S: Journal of the Circle for Lacanian Ideology Critique, Vol. 11, 16-30 (2018)

 

This article discusses the essay “The Apocalypse is Disappointing” by Maurice Blanchot, available in Friendship.

Ted Rall – The Difference Between Liberals and Leftists

Link to an article by Ted Rall:

“The Difference Between Liberals and Leftists”

 

Bonus links: “‘Far Left’? There’s No Such Thing in This Democratic Party” and Virtue and Terror and Review of Domenico Losurdo’s Liberalism: A Counter-History and  Non-violence: A History Beyond the Myth and War and Revolution: Rethinking the Twentieth Century and Violence and Slavoj Žižek On Political Struggle and Trouble in Paradise and Revolution at the Gates and The State and Revolution and “The Guardian’s Populism Panic” and “Left is the New Right, or Why Marx Matters” and “Oregon’s Republican ‘Walkout’ Was a Serious Defeat For the Left” and “Democracy Is the Enemy” and “Don’t Mourn, Repoliticize!”

Philip Alcabes – No Peace of Mind in Psychiatry

Link to a review by Philip Alcabes of the book Mind Fixers: Psychiatry’s Troubled Search for the Biology of Mental Illness (2019) by Anne Harrington:

“No Peace of Mind in Psychiatry”

 

Bonus links: “Psychiatry’s Incurable Hubris” (takes an implicitly anti-Freudian perspective, ignoring Lacan) and “Élisabeth Roudinesco Interviewed on the 30th Anniversary of Jacques Lacan’s Death”

Malloy Owen – Don’t Mourn, Repoliticize!

Link to an article by Malloy Owen:

“Don’t Mourn, Repoliticize!”

 

Bonus links:  Mladen Dolar on “university discourse” and Review of Domenico Losurdo’s Liberalism: A Counter-History and Slavoj Žižek On Political Struggle and Read My Desire (Chapter 6) and “Was I Right to Back Donald Trump Over Hillary Clinton? Absolutely” (“Democratic elections are a method to settle disagreements between people who already agree on the basics. When this agreement on basics falters, the only procedures at our disposal are negotiations or (civil) war.”)