Hi! Thanks for signing up for my weekly newsletter, where Iāll be sending out links to the results of my blogging-every-day-in-2019 venture, as well as recommendations for books/articles/podcasts/etc that Iāve come across.
Fragments round-up
Since Iām starting this newsletter partway through the year, hereās a list of my top 10 favourite fragments from the last 60 days. Future emails will have the 7 from the previous week (Sunday - Saturday).
Theses on organising contractors in tech (day 3): Some inchoate thoughts on organising Silicon Valley's shadow workforce and why it matters.
Upward mobility and the tech industry (day 5): Musings on the concept of upward mobility, and how it's used to excuse inequality, no matter how stark or unjustifiable.
Revenge of the nerds (day 8): Reflections on Paul Graham's 2003 blog post about nerds, and what it illuminates about the tech industry today.
When you live long enough to become the villain (day 13): Tech startups may start out with good intentions, but the process of gaining wealth and power comes with existential risks.
Making kings out of startup founders (day 27): The legitimating myth of Silicon Valley suggests that successful entrepreneurs deserve their untold wealth because they created value for which they should be rewarded.
The Lucas Plan & Silicon ValleyĀ (day 29): In the 1970s, workers at Lucas Aerospace came up with a plan to repurpose the company's equipment to build more socially useful products, while also bringing it under worker control.
Selling shovelsĀ (day 35): On Silicon Valley and the new California Gold Rush.
When everyone else is an NPC (day 41): On Dynasty Warriors, and the political implications of treating other people like NPCs.
On advertising fraud and RuneScape's bot economy (day 44): What the prevalence of advertising fraud tells us about the business models of platforms like Google & Facebook, and why advertising is core to capitalism as a whole.
You say you're a socialist, but ...Ā (day 51): How can socialists claim they care about workers' rights but still use their iPhone? Easy: because socialism is a method of systemic critique, not a description of personal consumption habits.
Recommended content
š„ What is Democracy. I saw a screening on Thursday, which was followed by a Q&A with the filmmaker (Astra Taylor) and Wendy Brown, an incredibly eloquent political theorist (and probably the worldās best Wendy). The film itself was spectacular: insightful, powerful, and very, very critical. Taylor deftly weaves philosophical musings about what democracy should be with illustrations of the numerous ways our democracies are failing today, mostly centred around Greece (austerity + refugee encampments) and the US. I cannot recommend it enough. Itās captivating, though also devastating - I spent at least half the film crying.
šŗ This Giant Beast that is the Global Economy: An unorthodox semi-documentary show that just launched on Amazon Prime Video, in which we follow actor Kal Penn around the globe as he tries to understand how the economy works. Iāve only seen the first episode so far, on money laundering, but itās surprisingly critical for something that sounds so mainstream (I also hear Nick Srnicek will be in one on the later episodes). The only claim Iād take issue with is when Felix Sater (an extremely shady money laundering expert featured in the show) suggests that you canāt fully stop money laundering without choking legitimate transactions. But thatās really true - money laundering requires all three of means, motive and opportunity, and you can deny the first two simply by removing the possibility of massive wealth concentration and the incentive to seek a return. Well, maybe not so simple, but the point is that money laundering is a symptom of extreme wealth inequality meeting the profit motive. That money laundering currently accounts for maybe 2-5% of GDP merely tells us that our economic system is dysfunctional.
šDavid Harveyās Anti-Capitalist Chronicles: An terrific podcast - informative, engaging, and more accessible than I expected. Recommended episodes: The Value of Everything (on Mariana Mazzucatoās book of the same name), which had a stunning fact about the financial industry not being included in GDP prior to 1970; Does Socialism Affect Freedom?, which takes Marxās idea of freedom as only achievable once we leave the realm of necessity; and The significance of China in the Global Economy, which explores Chinaās role in the global recovery from the 2008 crisis (did you know that the worldās 4 largest banks are all Chinese?).
š High Tech Low Pay a Marxist Analysis of the Changing Character of the Working Class: Written in the 1980s, this book by Sam Marcy on technology & class composition is still quite relevant today. Recommended for anyone interested in high-level labour organising strategies, or how the nature of work has changed as the result of technological development. A little dry. Focused on the US context.
š No One Makes You Shop at Wal-Mart: The Surprising Deceptions of Individual Choice: A book by Tom Slee. There isnāt much thatās new for anyone who already understands the concept of structural coercion from a left perspective, but it could be a good recommendation for your liberal/centrist/conservative friends who like microeconomics. Lots of game theory and examples to help readers understand why individual choice in our current economic system is mostly a fiction.
š Elwood, Illinois (Pop. 2,200), Has Become a Vital Hub of Americaās Consumer Economy. And Itās Hell.: A long but highly engrossing article for The New Republic. The article subheading says it all: āThe rural town south of Chicago is now a crucial stop for Amazon, Wal-Mart, IKEA, Home Depot, and other giant retailers. Developers had promised growth and good jobs. So why is everyone so miserable?ā You can probably guess why (hint: always be skeptical when someone promises āgoodā jobs), but the details are really astounding, and itās worth reading in full.
š Other Peopleās Blood: A terrific n+1 article on Paul Volcker, whose namesake ācoupā, when he hiked interest rates on behalf of the US Federal Reserve from 1979-1982, is often thought of as marking the birth of neoliberalism. Volckerās justification for this was that he needed to combat inflation, even if it came at the cost of massive unemployment and misery for many working people; this article suggests that although Volcker did address inflation in the realm of consumer prices, that was only accomplished by shifting inflation to the financial sector, where it manifested as an asset bubble: āinstead of causing a general inflation of all prices (including the price of labor), the new spiral affects only assets (from bonds to houses to Picassos), enriching the rentier class but also creating instabilityā. Iād never thought of asset bubbles that way before, but it makes sense. Recommended if youāre interested in financialisation, economic history, or political theory.
Feedback
If you have ideas for things I should write about, or suggestions for books/articles/podcasts to check out, feel free to reach out: ilostwaldo@gmail.com, or @dellsystem on Twitter.