NM's blog

“ In trying to solve the puzzle of why people vote in politicians that do little to improve their living standards, Seymour goes for a psychological explanation. “this dismissal of the primacy of the economic is not just surprising coming from one of the foremost Marxist intellectuals in Britain today, but rests upon empirically spurious claims. “Seymour only tangentially acknowledges the role of elites in the rise of disaster nationalism. While he does point out that its political economy is mainly about furthering the interests of domestic capitalists, that is never really explored. “To get a full picture  of the social forces driving the rise of the far right and likely to benefit from it, we need more systematic and comparative analysis of party elites, their donors and their actual economic policymaking when they enter office. This could help better explain the apparent contradiction of the far right as both a rejection and reinforcement of neoliberalism. We also need to bette...

The Harper’s Letter and Our Extremely Narrow, Self-Serving Definition of Cancel Culture Related The Coddling of the Elites

How the elite is created Malala Yousafzai to study politics, philosophy and economics (PPE) at Oxford University. One day, she will probably join the elite of Afghanistan. What is PPE?

Varoufakis "speaks of how great it was to have the support of Larry Summers, Norman Lamont, and other figures on the Right, but it was support for whom, for what, and in whose class interests? Class analysis is far from the foreground of the picture sketched out here. Closed rooms and class war

 “PPE is seen as part of the apparatus of the state … privilege connected to public service” – at a time when fewer and fewer voters believe such a thing is possible. Once widely regarded as “highly qualified people with good intentions”, as Davies puts it, PPE graduates are now “bogeymen”. How did a mere undergraduate degree become so important? The Oxford degree that 'runs' Britain

" Assad and his wife have a remarkably similar background to many elite figures in the West . Like Libya's Gaddafi dynasty, the House of Assad has strong connections to the United Kingdom. Bashar was studying ophthalmology in London when his brother Bassel dashed his chances of becoming president by smashing his Mercedes into a roundabout at 80mph. His wife, Asma, is British-Syrian, went to a private school, studied at King’s College, London and spent time working as a banker before becoming First Lady. The regime has sought to capitalise on Asma and build up an image for her as a sort of Syrian Princess Diana, including through her involvement in charity work. Her philanthropy, alas, does not extend to asking her husband to stop gassing Syria's civilians. Even the regime's poisonous propagandist, Bouthaina Shaaban, was educated at the University of Warwick, and the language she uses in interviews with western media outlets suggests the extent to which she unde...

"Perhaps the central function that meritocracy plays — complete with SAT exams and other presumptively objective testing mechanisms — is in normalizing the growing class disparities in money, power, and resources. Top universities have been the essential building blocks of our new Gilded Age, facilitating the transfer of wealth and opportunity from one privileged generation to the next — and doing so while cloaking the extent to which today’s meritocratic elite are really the beneficiaries of a modern version of an "old boys’ club." And this applies to elite universities in general, "[H]igher education is a profound instrument of social power, one that can project values independent of state and corporate demands and offer its students and community members a space for their own cultivation. The dilemma is that our universities, in particular our elite ones, are doing less of this work and far more of the invisible work of class reproduction. " Meritocra...

Brexit: A Fake Revolt "Leaving the EU won’t guarantee a rise in wages, a cap on rents, or a fall in NHS waiting times and class sizes. The only thing it guarantees is more rightwing Tory control." Yes, Paul. It's a fake revolt and I would add that it is reactionary. Remain is not progressive, either. It is a ruling class crisis as the referendum itself is a product of an economic and social crisis.