“As If a Man Were Author of Himself”
A couple of years ago, I saw a performance of Coriolanus on the Boston Common. It was that rare experience of seeing a great Shakespeare play with no prior knowledge. I had only the vaguest idea of...
View Article“Sustained Pressure Gets a Response”
Here’s my brother on MSNBC talking about Ferguson. He makes an important point: In the vast majority of police shootings a grand jury is never even convened. We can recognize the gross injustice of the...
View ArticleLinks for April 12
Maybe I should aspire to do a links post like this once a week. Today is Tuesday; is Tuesday a good day? Or would it be better to break a post like this into half a dozen short ones, and put them up...
View ArticleLinks for April 21
The coup in Brazil. My friend Laura Carvalho has a piece in the Times, briefly but decisively making the case that, yes, the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff is a coup. Also worth reading on Brazil:...
View ArticleBlogging in the Age of Trump
I haven’t written anything for this blog in the past month. Or rather, I’ve written quite a bit, but nothing I’ve felt comfortable posting. No surprise why. On the one hand, I have — like everyone —...
View ArticlePopulism, or Its Opposite?
[I am an occasional contributor to the roundtables in the magazine The International Economy. This month’s topic was “Why is populism on the rise?” My answer is below. While the format of the...
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The Return of the Renter
Every month, the Census releases new numbers on new housing construction. As an indicator of current economic conditions, June’s numbers didn’t give any dramatic news one way or another. But they did...
View ArticleAt Jacobin: Yes, We Should Support Industrial Policy and the Green New Deal
(This piece was published by Jacobin on April 6, 2023, in response to the Dylan Riley post linked in the first paragraph. The version below adds a few unimportant footnotes and one somewhat important...
View ArticleAt Barron’s: With the Debt Ceiling Deal, the Administration Takes a Step...
(I write a monthly-ish opinion piece for Barron’s. This is my most recent one. You can find earlier ones here.) Since the onset of the pandemic, policy makers in the U.S. and elsewhere have embraced...
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URPE Statement on Gaza
I’ve been struggling to find something to say about the unfolding horror in Gaza. What is happening there is not war, but murder on an industrial scale. It is a conscious effort to bring about the...
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