Is there enough work for everyone? Kim Stanley Robinson on the future of planetary employment. Never make the mistake of thinking “efficient” is synonymous with “good” Kim Stanley Robinson Say it’s the very near future, and you’re a worker put out of work in the declining oil industry. You’re highly educated, and you’ve been well-compensated, […]
A Practical Utopian’s Guide to the Coming Collapse
A quarter of the American population is now engaged in “guard labor”—defending property, supervising work, or otherwise keeping their fellow Americans in line. Economically, most of this disciplinary apparatus is pure deadweight. Revolutions are thus planetary phenomena. But there is more. What they really do is transform basic assumptions about what politics is ultimately about. […]
What a Solidarity Economy Looks Like
Despite President Bolsonaro’s COVID-19 denialism, a small Brazilian city has one of the most ambitious responses in the world. While Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro denies that a serious public health crisis is underway, a small municipality an hour up the coast from Rio de Janeiro has instituted a remarkable and effective COVID-19 response. In Maricá, a […]
Modern Monetary Theory, explained
A very detailed walkthrough of the big new left economic idea. Modern Monetary Theory is having a moment. The theory, in brief, argues that countries that issue their own currencies can never “run out of money” the way people or businesses can. But what was once an obscure “heterodox” branch of economics has now become a major topic […]
Digitalisation of money and the future of monetary policy
The digitalisation of money has the potential to change traditional structures of the financial system. This column discusses four areas in which it may have an impact, and argues that while digitalisation will not erode the importance of central banks, banks could be massively challenged by new forms of intermediation. Most economists will agree that […]
