The decisiveness of the short period of colonialism and…
How Indigenous West African Communities Resisted the European Slave Trade
Compelling evidence of massive African resistance to Atlantic slavery can be found from the very onset of the European colonial arrival on the con-tinent. When the Portuguese gained control of the …
Africa Was Not an Anarchist Paradise: Misconceptions about Precolonial State-Building in Africa
Africa was not an anarchist paradise; it underwent broadly similar processes of centralisation and state formation to those found elsewhere, with regional variation.
Is China doing "colonialism" in Africa?
Western claims are contradicted by empirical evidence.
The resurgence of fortified landscapes in West Africa
West African states respond to insurgencies by building city walls and fortifying borders, balancing protection with rural vulnerabilities.
Unceded
Unceded - Understanding British Columbia’s Colonial Past and Why It Matters Now; Unceded reveals the BC government’s history of injustice toward First Nations, providing the context for understanding modern treaty negotiations.
‘Self-termination is most likely’: the history and future of societal collapse
An epic analysis of 5,000 years of civilisation argues that a global collapse is coming unless inequality is vanquished
The Nation on No Map: Black Anarchism and Abolition
The Nation on No Map examines state power, abolition, a…
Anarchism and The Black Revolution and Other Essays
An analysis of white supremacy vs the black struggle an…
Capitalism, Inequality, and the Myth of Catch-Up Development
Prevailing narratives in international development hold that poorer countries can and will "catch-up" with richer countries through the process of
Brett Scott (@brettscott)
A lot of economists want to claim that economic growth is, at some deep level, driven by human greed. In this worldview, we always desire more and more, and so collectively seek to endlessly boost production I don’t buy this worldview at all I think economic growth is driven - at a deep level - by fear. It stems from the extreme insecurity of life in a capitalist market system, where you’re always on the verge of being cut out of society, and so need to over-secure your position through any means possible One of the most compelling pieces of evidence for this is the history of colonial beliefs around laziness. In many colonial regions, colonizers would complain about tribal people being lazy - in other words, not seeking to increase production when they could. The reason for this, however, was that such people had access to subsistence farming and secure social structures that did not require endless competition. Secure people are, by definition, ‘lazier’, in the sense that they do not perceive a visceral need to fight for survival The colonial mission then, was the cut them off from older means of survival, make them dependent on insecure market structures, and thereby boost production as they all turn up at the mines to elbow each other out of the way as they compete for jobs. Security, in other words, is the enemy of economic growth
The new right: Anatomy of a global political revolution – European Council on Foreign Relations
The thinkers and ideas of the rising nationalist right merit the political mainstream's attention. Only by understanding them can it build a resilient counter-p
The myth of catch-up development: trends in core–periphery inequality from 1960 to 2023
The conventional narrative in international development holds that poorer countries are “catching up” with richer countries through the process of capitalist growth. This paper assesses this claim ...
The Chesapeake: Making Race
When the Chesapeake region began taking shape, race and class were ill-defined. But Africans quickly became enslaved for life.
The Third Web
(This text is very long. Maybe too long. You can find a PDF and an EPUB of it below.The current version of this text will always live at https://web3.tante.ccSatya has created an audio version of this essay. Eine deutsche Version findet sich hier. Una versione italiana di questo testo è qui – grazie Nebbia! En […]