NM's blog

“Under the old system, there were separate ‘pots’ for research and teaching – some money for research; some money for each student you had to teach. Under the new system , there is no pot for research (at least for the arts and humanities): the money must come out of student fees. This transforms the operations of the university – and much for the worse. While in the old system, there was no particular incentive to increase your student numbers (and, in fact, an incentive for the government to limit them), under the new one, there is an incentive and even necessity to attract as many as possible. So whereas in the past universities could concentrate on teaching and research, now they spend a huge amount of their time and resources on a perpetual scramble for students. This competition has only grown more cut-throat since the cap on student numbers was lifted, which meant that more prestigious universities could hoover up more, leaving others to fight over the shrinking remainder. “Mean...

The cultural and political crisis of our day is not due to the fact that there is too much individualism but that what we believe to be individualism has become an empty shell. The victory of freedom is possible only if democracy develops into a society in which the individual, his growth and happiness, is the aim and purpose of culture, in which life does not need any justification in success or anything else, and in which the individual is not subordinated to or manipulated by any power outside of himself, be it the State or the economic machine; finally, a society in which his conscience and ideals are not the internalization of external demands, but are really his and express the aims that result from the peculiarity of his self. These aims could not be fully realized in any previous period of modern history; they had to remain largely ideological aims, because the material basis for the development of genuine individualism was lacking. Capitalism has created this premise. The prob...

Context: “California warehouse worker accused of arson raged online against capitalist greed.” (NBC News) The same day that Chamel Abdulkarim burned down his workplace, the president of the United States threatened to permanently annihilate “a whole civilization”—a statement which can only be described as a threat of genocide. “The people who carry the boxes, stock the shelves, scan the packages, and drive the routes know what Abdulkarim’s quote means. Not because they think arson is justified—they don’t. Because the sentence did not sound foreign. It sounded like something millions of people say in less catastrophic ways every day, in kitchens, in group chats, in cars outside warehouses before shifts they cannot afford to quit … Criminal acts deserve criminal consequences, full stop. But punishment does not answer the question underneath all of this, the one nobody in power addressed this week: what happens to the people who cannot afford to live in the economy being built above them?...

A review of Adam Hanieh’s A. Crude capitalism : Oil, corporate power, and the making of the world market

Western Hemisphere

The achievements, the limits and the contradictions of Chavez’s government in an analysis from 2016. 

An old article, but a very interesting one . “It’s sort of a supreme irony here that we now have the technology such that not that many people have to work and we can produce a lot. We have the technology that would allow us to address the vexing environmental problems with probably far less of a cost than we’re going to have to end up paying. We have the technology so that we could have a much higher standard of living. The output per worker is radically higher than it was fifty years ago. Yet the standard of living for most people is lower. There are endless calls for cutbacks, and stagnation at the same time. This is an enormous paradox, and it’s only understood by understanding the contradictions built into the way capitalism works.” A fascinating and a deep analysis indeed. However, I suggest that we abandon the dichotomy ‘capitalism’ and ‘democracy’. They are not two, but one called capitalist democracy.   “This tension between capitalism and democracy,” as McChesney puts it...

Excerpts from a long, very engaging and thought provoking interview.  The colonisation of Palestine is an intrinsic “moment” in the history of European imperialism (beginning with the British Empire, followed by the French Empire, and continued to this day by Israel’s close association with the “Western” powers, which provide it with funding, weapons and diplomatic protection). It enacts its extreme forms (settler colonialism, which replaces the indigenous people with settlers, directing their expulsion and then elimination) and extends the imperialist enterprise even beyond its supposed historical endpoint. It uses the consequences of the extermination of the Jews of Europe as an opportunity, a (demographic and intellectual) resource, and an ideological cover. I would propose a critical variation on this scenario which, I hope, does not disregard its general truth. It is certainly true that Zionism, since its founding fathers (Herzl, Weizmann), has been both a typically “European”...

Mill “arguing that a just liberal society must experiment with different types of socialist organization to better the situation of the least well off… [H]e  endorsed worker cooperatives as superior to capitalist-managed firms and insisted there was ‘nothing in principle in economic theory’ that spoke against experimenting with socialist principles and forms of organization. “[H]e  was one of the first major liberal and socialist writers to take seriously the problem of women’s equality and, in  The Subjection of Women. “But he was also trepidatious about the uneducated and unintelligent having too much of a say in politics, and supported British colonialism, viewing the non-European subjects of its empire with condescension. “He seemed doggedly uninterested in analyzing the power dynamics of the bourgeois liberal state, its history, and the way imperial powers like the United Kingdom worked to spread capitalism at the barrel of a gun.” The writer thinks that Mill's “idio...

This crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Our whole educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship acquisitive success as a preparation for his future career. — Albert Einstein

“The emphasis on Christian identity is deeply weird in a country where public expressions of belief are slightly embarrassing. It points more to the Americanisation of the European far right than to any national spiritual awakening: Robinson’s reinvention as a “citizen journalist” owes much to  American cash  from outfits like the Daniel Pipes–founded Middle East Forum. Yet this also helps the new far right solve a problem. Christianity as an ethnic rallying point cuts across the old racial lines while sustaining a Kulturkampf against Muslims. “ The Unite the Kingdom rally was the product of years of international networking and funding, backed by wealthy, racist Americans.  But the fact that so many people turned out to Robinson’s fascist jamboree cannot be blamed on his donors, or even the platforms that profit from his propaganda. The UK has been on a course to rightist radicalization for years. “‘Unite the Kingdom’ was built during a summer of racist agitation outside...

“Our deepest conceptualisation of the world to our ways of relating to one another, is in part a product of the (neo)imperial boomerang effect .”

What is interesting in engaging with ChatGPT is not the answers themselves as the way it does generate them. My questions and comments are in red. _______________ “Human species, intractably divided on questions of value and definitions of the best regime.” How accurate is this? The quote —  “human species, intractably divided on questions of value and definitions of the best regime”  — is broadly accurate and reflects a deep tension in political philosophy, anthropology, and international relations. Here’s a breakdown of how and why this is accurate: Why it's accurate Historical Evidence Across history and cultures, humans have been deeply divided over: What constitutes justice (e.g., divine law vs. secular law). What makes a good society (e.g., hierarchy vs. equality, liberty vs. order). Who should rule (e.g., monarchy, aristocracy, democracy, technocracy). Competing Philosophical Traditions From  Plato and Aristotle  to  Rawls, Foucault, and Fanon , political...