"Twenty-first-century tech elites may not even know of the old technocracy movement, but have revived many of its ideas. Gone are the pomp and spectacle of rallies, however, since popular persuasion is no longer needed."
@brettchristophers.bsky.social @matthuber.bsky.social @davidharvey.org @jackcopley.bsky.social @iliasalami.bsky.social @greigc.bsky.social @geoffmann.bsky.social @pederoe.bsky.social
It's some of the best English-language writing on ground rent since Harvey's "Limits to Capital."
Notably, it draws on the untranslated work of the Argentinian researcher Juan Iñigo Carrera, who has revolutionized the materialist analysis of ground rent, value circulation, and uneven development.
For those interested in value theory and the critique of political ecology:
This new article by André Novas Otero shows how rent can only be understood in terms of its double basis (natural difference and class power), and how this double basis helps explain the persistence of uneven development.
“Much ecological politics focuses on a kind of localism – localizing food systems, reuniting communities with ecologies – but clearly that is not what is required. The crisis is global and requires a restructuring of production at the planetary scale, at the level of the species."
On the decline of process knowledge and its significance: "The point is not to romanticize traditional working-class occupations. But in the frenzy of digitalization, both right and left have forgotten that software presupposes hardware ... modern human life presupposes building and manufacturing."
Tunisian Unions Reveal the Real Cost of Private Solar Energy in Tunisia - and Why Public Solar is a Better Option
New research paper shows public solar would be far less expensive than the current approach, which privileges IPPs at excessive costs to the Tunisian people
tinyurl.com/TUED-B169
"For us, flourishing is inseparable from the transformation of the technical and social means by which we reproduce our lives."
"Hegel helps us see that work like Saito’s is premised on a false dichotomy—the choice is not between growth and degrowth but capital growth and rational growth."
Samtidigt som USA blir allt mer auktoritärt blir vi mer beroende av deras energi. Ja Sveriges _elsystem_ är fossilfritt - men inte industrin och transporterna.
I 2024 lade Sverige ✨205 miljarder kronor✨ på att importera fossil energi. Kunde lagts på annat
"The present movement ... is broader in social composition, more diffuse in demands and far more deeply shaped by economic exhaustion and geopolitical siege... It is within this vacuum that monarchist currents have gained renewed visibility."
"In 2009, the proposition that Reza Pahlavi might constitute a political alternative to the Islamic Republic would have been widely dismissed... This shift tells us less about the intrinsic strength of monarchism than about the erosion of alternative pathways for political transformation..."
Chinese firms even seem likely to break into the European market in the near future as the Danish offshore developer Ørsted announces it is considering the purchase of Chinese turbines for upcoming projects.
It remains to be seen whether these turbines would be imported or manufactured in Europe...
In Australia, Chinese turbine suppliers like Envision are gaining ground against legacy Western firms like Vestas.
Brazil’s wind sector is expanding fast, and Chinese manufacturers are challenging European incumbents.
Unlike China’s export-driven solar industry, wind turbine manufacturing remains focused on the Chinese domestic market. For now.
Chinese OEMs are now poised to challenge European firms’ dominance across Asia, Australia, Africa, and Latin America
As the imperialist confrontation between the US and the EU intensifies, the next major advance in Chinese capitalism is quietly underway.
More powerful wind turbines mean less reliance on foreign fuel imports and a growing Chinese edge over Europe in the export of wind power technology.
The New Left correctly identified many of the features of modern technological systems that make them inherently capitalist, but then hypostatized those features, treating them as intrinsic to all industrial societies. It's one of the most serious consequences of the defeat of historical socialism.
Matt Huber against the dour, anti-political degrowthism of the contemporary Left
"...if we struggle, and wrestle control of production away from the depredations of capital, there is nothing we can’t do. An energy transition is not only possible; it’s only the beginning of what we can accomplish."
For a materialist account of the decline of literacy in the United States (and the wider world), there's no better essay than Loren Goldner's "The Online World Is Also On Fire: How the Sixties Marginalized Literature in American Culture (and Why Literature Mainly Deserved It)"
"The transformation of America in the past 30 years into an 'hour glass' society, leaving only yuppies and the homeless in cities like Manhattan and devastating the life conditions of the urban working class and marginal Bohemia, is a major factor in the decline of reading." - Loren Goldner, in 1995
Uni Bremen ❤️🗝️
Preliminary proofs are in......
I've been rereading this excellent piece today - it sheds light on so many of the vital debates within Marxist and heterodox political economy in recent years. I really recommend checking it out.
New paper out! We explore how the Swedish wage-setting model (the Industrial Agreement) manages to hold wage increases together across occupations. Using large labour-market groups, we show that occupational hierarchy plays an increasing role in shaping who benefits most from wage growth.
Ultimately, (1) the fight to keep functioning nuclear plants open, (2) the fight to improve working conditions in new nuclear construction and mining, and (3) the fight to organize workers throughout the renewables industry is the same fight against the *global devalorization of human labor-power*
One thing I've disliked about this debate is that both sides often talk as if 'the Left' is in power and capable of implementing its energy policy.
IMO the real task is organizing the energy industry in its present shape, which includes organizing with workers fighting to keep nuclear plants open.
Strong arguments here.
The real problem is we don't live in a society in which we genuinely plan power production decades in advance.
If we did, both nuclear and renewables would be built faster and cheaper as we wouldn't face the same grid constraints and economies of scale would be much greater.
Sammen med @williamwc.bsky.social har jeg skrevet nogle ord om hvorfor kløften mellem venstrefløjen og arbejderklassen har åbnet for højrefløjen at gå frem i energipolitikken
www.information.dk/debat/2025/1...
In recent Danish municipal elections, the far-right made big gains by mobilizing voters against renewable energy. Jonas and I argue that this was a winning strategy because the left has mostly ignored problems in the industry like social dumping and mass layoffs.
Sadly relevant far beyond Denmark.
Massefyringer i vindenergisektoren og social dumping i solindustrien er begge problemer, som venstrefløjen i stor udstrækning har ignoreret. Som følge heraf ser mange i landdistrikterne grøn energi som et symbol på forringelsen af hårdt tilkæmpede arbejdsforhold.
Hvordan reagerer venstrefløjen nu?
