The cosy coastal world of pretend farmers’ markets bears no resemblance to the actual back end of America
Pluralistic: America and “national capitalism” (18 Feb 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
Thomas Piketty's 2013 unexpected bestseller (a 750 page economics book translated from French!) Capital in the 21st Century, offers a very convincing explanation of our political decay, and it continues to serve this purpose as the decay undergoes alarming acceleration:
Cognitive Farmsteading
The message of the AI medium is intellectual rural domesticity
NYC: can this city-state be completely self-reliant? | Aeon Essays
Green living in NYC need not be simple living – think skyscraper farms, meat-production towers and revamped aqueducts
The Closing of the Frontier — Tanya Verma
In 1893, Frederick Jackson Turner argued that much that is distinctive about America was shaped by the existence of free land to the West where anyone could start over, and that this condition infused America with its characteristic liberty, egalitarianism, rejection of feudalistic hierarchy, self-sufficiency, and ambition.
After Capitalism: A Cooperative Economy (Documentary)
Preface | The World After Capital
Since publishing the previous version of The World After Capital, I have met with people across the political spectrum to discuss the ideas from the book. When I present these in person, I emphasize that the ideas are neither left nor right but forward (credit to Scott Santens who first used this phrase about Universal Basic Income). My writing, however, at times has alienated readers who identify as being more on the right. In this new edition, I am therefore making an extra effort to emphasize how both my diagnosis of where we are at and my suggestions for how to move forward do not map onto the existing political divides. Instead this is a new way of understanding our challenges and opportunities that can be the basis for movements and parties that are not trapped in Industrial Age ideology.
Apocalypse Now and Then • EQUATOR
Artificial intelligence is capitalism’s final destination
A Thesis on the History of the 21st Century: Technocracy, AI, and the End of the World
Reviewing a trio of books by a sextet of ruling-class ideologues, Mathias Fuelling finds an ambient anxiety hanging over a perceived crisis in American capitalism, with visions of bolstering a Silicon Valley-led technocracy fueled by AI investment reflecting American fears over the dawn of a "Chinese Century."
Enough Debate about the AI Jobpocalypse. We Need To Plan for the Messy Middle.
Caught between arguments of abundance and apocalypse, economist Molly Kinder explores what workers can expect in the near future — and what we can do about it.
Marketplace - Business News & Economic Stories for Everyone
Marketplace raises the economic intelligence of the country through the unorthodox story, casual conversations and unexpected angles on the news.
The brutal trade-off that will decide the future of food
A growing number of thinkers say factory farming can help save the planet. Are they right?
America's Growth Ponzi Scheme | Strong Towns
The American pattern of development creates the illusion of wealth. Today we are in the process of seeing that illusion destroyed…and with it the prosperity we have come to take for granted.
Thinking about other industries like we think about data centers shows how impoverished the debate is
Clumsy, arbitrary environmental ideas ignore the incredible complexity of the systems modern society depends on
Bioregionalism, Commoning, and Relationalized Finance | David Bollier
Have you noticed how the term “bioregional” is becoming a new eco-buzzword and greenwashing term? At the same time, many ordinary people are genuinely excited about the idea of bioregionalism as a constructive way to focus activism and socioeconomic innovation. Bioregionalism offers a practical, politically accessible space for addressing climate change, social inequality, the eclipse of democracy, out-of-control oligarchs, and capitalist growth.