Tag: Capital Mobility

Debilitated Democracy: When the Legs Get Ripped Off

I’m pleased to announce that Dirk Jörke and I have published a new journal article in the European Journal of Social Theory. The article is open access, which means you can read it for free, with no paywall or restrictions of any kind. It’s available here: https://doi.org/10.1177/13684310251393914

Here’s the abstract:

“Democratic theorists often argue that democracy is in crisis, but nonetheless maintain democracy can be revived. In contrast, this paper argues that modernisation and democracy have become opposed. Drawing on the work of Michael Th. Greven and Hartmut Rosa, it argues that as modernisation intensifies, it erodes the preconditions necessary for democracy to credibly make the promises long associated with it. This process of debilitation involves ‘ratchet effects’, such that it becomes steadily less possible to restore lost capacities. The regime that remains is like a marathon runner who has been subjected to an amputation – it continues on in a minimalist sense, but its horizons of possibility are irrevocably altered. Because this debilitated democracy is unable to check or manage modernisation, it will remain subject to the process that has debilitated it, further reducing its horizons in the years to come.”

My First Book is Out

I’ve written a book! The Chronic Crisis of American Democracy: The Way is Shut is now out with Palgrave Macmillan. This book is not an adaptation of my PhD thesis. It’s written in plain language. If you like my blog, you’ll like the book. The paperback is the best deal, and you can find it on Amazon and on Springer’s website:

https://a.co/d/d59Zbkh

https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-28210-2

The paperback should retail for no higher than $49.99. It’s never higher than $49.99 on Springer’s website, where they call it the “softcover.”

The argument of the book is provocative. Chapter 1, “The Unsolvable Problem,” argues that the American economic system is gradually subjecting Americans from many classes and backgrounds to enormous amounts of psychological stress. Chapter 2, “False Hope,” argues that none of the existing political movements in the United States are capable of responding to these economic problems. But because professionals in politics and in the media need to stay employed, they find ways to distract us from these problems and their inability to solve them. Despite all of this, Chapter 3–“Chronic Crisis”–argues that Americans remain committed to democracy as a political system. Even when we confront the system’s failures, we do not abandon it. Instead, we look for ways to revitalize it. We get excited about things like electoral reform, campaign finance reform, reforming the justice system, or devolving federal powers to state and local government. But most of the reforms we’re interested in don’t pass, and the ones that do pass do not actually enable us to solve the economic problems. Chapter 4, “Dream Eating Democracy,” examines how, over time, our understandings of liberty, equality, equity, and representation have been watered down, making it harder for us to use these terms to make meaningful critiques. Chapter 5, “No Escape,” argues that as the problem continues to go unresolved and our political discussions become more and more disconnected from it, most Americans sink into political despair. We go looking for other things to care about, and we try to hide from politics in enclaves. But the failures of the political system eventually affect every part of American culture, distorting every activity we get excited about. Chapter 6, “What If This Book is Wrong?” asks whether the book is too negative and explores whether there is any way out of the crisis.

I am really excited to talk about this book. If the argument is right, then the political professionals are failing the American people. It’s a critique that implicates every part of the political class–the left, the right, and the center. I wrote this book because I feel that people who write about politics have a duty to actually help ordinary Americans understand how and why the system fails to respond to them and meet their needs. The book is dedicated to all those who labor so that others may write.

I want to encourage people to get creative and imagine more fundamental ways of confronting our problems. I’m also interested in talking about this stuff. I would love to be convinced by somebody that there’s an easier way out of this mess than I think.

If you want to help me, there are three things you can do:

  1. Buy the paperback!
  2. Ask your library to buy the book.
  3. If you have a platform, invite me on it to talk about the book. I can request reviewer copies for people with some level of media presence. This includes podcasts! If you have a podcast, I’d love to do it.

Tell your friends!

American Democracy is in No Imminent Danger

In 2014, I finished an MA thesis at the University of Chicago. In that thesis, I argued that as economic inequality increased, American politics would return to the sharp political divisions of the 1930s, with both left-wing and right-wing radical movements popping up all over the place. Recently, I finished a PhD thesis at the University of Cambridge. In that thesis, I argued that while economic inequality does cause legitimation problems, those problems are fundamentally different in kind from the problems of the 1930s. I reversed my position from 2014, and I did so even as most people in the American media and intelligentsia arrived at the position which I formerly held. If I stuck by my old position from 2014, it would be advantageous to my career development. There is increasingly a lot of appetite for expert accounts which play up the threat Donald Trump poses to democracy. Any well-credentialed political theorist or political scientist who can compellingly tell stories about executive coups from the 20th century and draw parallels to Trump can now sell many books without much trouble. The issue is that these parallels are rubbish. Here’s why.

Continue reading “American Democracy is in No Imminent Danger” →

Why Immigration Controls Can’t Bring Your Job Back

All over the western world, anti-establishment movements are pushing for immigration controls. They argue that immigrants from developing countries are willing to work for too little and there are too many of them. Because there are so many and they are so cheap, these immigrants take jobs which might otherwise go to native-born westerners. The workers who support immigration controls are right to point out that they have not been receiving a fair shake in the last few decades, but this is not due to immigration–it’s due to capital mobility.

Continue reading “Why Immigration Controls Can’t Bring Your Job Back” →