Thread: Favourite books of 2019. On Empire, Economy & Ecology.
Each about our place in the world & attempts to shape it.
Each about our place in the world & attempts to shape it.
How to Green a financial system that drives the climate crisis? @AnnPettifor not only saw the Crash coming but designed a Green New Deal in 2008. Her counsel? Restore public money & end mobility of pvt money. Onshoring London's offshore spiderweb, petro$...versobooks.com/books/3102-the… 
What is growth? Parents mark their children's ↑ height on a door; economists make dubious forecasts of output; militaries worry about keeping up w means of destruction. Smil lays out how production, energy & transport are the 𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘤 system of industrial civilization.
#GreenNewDeal isn't just about energy or economy. To make it stable, it requires a shift in what we prioritize as a society. A new social contract bw elites & masses; what we owe one another & nature. ht @alybatt @katearonoff @aldatweets @triofrancos versobooks.com/books/3107-a-p
Neoliberal ideology, hegemonic in econ can be distilled as:
The Market? Efficient
The State? Incompetent
The Commons? Tragic.
How must a new economics - a system relation bw economy,empire & ecology - that doesn't destroy earth, be designed?ht @kateraworth
chelseagreen.com/product/doughn…
The Market? Efficient
The State? Incompetent
The Commons? Tragic.
How must a new economics - a system relation bw economy,empire & ecology - that doesn't destroy earth, be designed?ht @kateraworth
chelseagreen.com/product/doughn…
an earlier thread on the books above
How did Growth become the scientific idea organizing empires, economy & ecology? How did Newton's Laws make matter inert thus evacuating value from Nature & allow extraction? How did Darwin's ideas of competition legitimate British empire?ht @bentleyballan assets.cambridge.org/97811084/16610…
What drove the West's invasion of Iraq asked @PatPorter76? Its catastrophic ideas — Rogue states, regime change & sanctions live on (eg. US FP in Iran & China)."They plunder, they butcher, they rape, & call it by the lying name of 'empire'. They make a desert & call it 'peace' "
US War on Terror is far beyond beyond ME. Special Ops call in air-strikes,advise & assist militaries in a staggering 76 countries. 33 of them are in the fastest growing continent -Africa. Libya horrible enough;2020s could see escalation in Horn of Africa & Great Lakes.@nickturse
These wars & shattered lands have expelled more ppl than ever before. @BehrouzBoochani's #NoFriendButTheMountains: “I just want to be free of the system...I just want to be somewhere where I am a person, not just a number, not just a label ‘refugee’.”
3 science revolutions shaped 20thC: electronic, nuclear & probability. At center of each was Fermi. Cracked quantum statistics of electrons,1st nuclear chain-reaction, Manhattan project & Monte-Carlo algorithm. Chance led to him & his jewish wife fleeing fascist Italy @dschwa8059
Scientists, funded by ColdWar needs —mil satellites to measure infrared, atm monitoring of nuclear tests, buoys to sound ocean floor for submarines — ironically found global warming. That drives another revolution in worldview. Geopolitics & GHGs have never been apart. @neiltyson
What is Indstrl Meat's origin story? Pastures in American West were red in tooth &claw w conquest of Plains Indians. Refrigerated trains & oligopolization of meat & grain mkts in Chicago was led by NY & London $.
A geography of Capital imposed on geography of Nature. @joshspecht
A geography of Capital imposed on geography of Nature. @joshspecht
earlier thread on how ecology, empire & economy was fused together in the creation of Industrial Ag & our habitat-destroying food system during the 1870s 2nd IR.
How did Brazil become the Butcher to the World? It followed American Ag. Same Cowboys vs Indians "a land without men for men w/out land". Same soy+meat+chemicals firms on the Amazon as on Mississippi. Same Capital-intensive farms on Cerrado as on Prairies.
Have been a bit obsessed with Brazil this year. Like Italy, its always been the "country of the Future". Mega-thread that exponentially grew & grew here ;)
Post-79 China is now a force-field acting on the planet. What happened? A process of co-evolution in State, Market & Society argued @yuenyuenang. Paradoxical mix of topdown & bottom-up improvisation; State set problems that CCP officials & their clans competed vigorously to solve
1979 was the explosive birth of a new world system. The dynamics of economy, ecology & empire were reset. A thought experiment: Let the events of 1979 swirl in your head. There are some decades when nothing happens, & some years in which decades happen...
Gramsci scribbled in prisons of fascist Italy; Gandhi in jails of British Raj.
Greta writes on boats imprisoned in Carbon's Empire.
Her political thought looks up at 21stC's survival upper-bound of CO2 Hockey stick instead of the past. A beautiful mind.
Greta writes on boats imprisoned in Carbon's Empire.
Her political thought looks up at 21stC's survival upper-bound of CO2 Hockey stick instead of the past. A beautiful mind.
