Tag: the working class

3,368 words

Some texts are not as daunting as their reputation makes them seem. Many years ago, an English talk-radio host named Nick Ferrari was in conversation with an American lady caller about some political scandal in her home country. The subject of the American Constitution came up, and the lady said that she presumed Ferrari, as a journalist, had read that document. He exploded into laughter: “Of course not! It must be hundreds of pages long!” (more…)

2,160 words

It’s Grim Up North, So Let’s Make a Film About It

Britain is renowned for its social realism, whether it’s the likes of the world’s most disturbingly mundane soap operas, film classics likeThis Sporting Life, books like A Kestrel for a Knave, and plays like Look Back In Anger. Even Orwell’s seriously over referenced Nineteen Eighty-Four has a social realist tone despite its fantastic, allegorical elements, and all too apparent politics. (more…)

1,684 words

Trump’s Triumph: What’s It Got to do With the Price of Eggs?

After surviving two assassination attempts, a dubious criminal conviction, years of targeted lawfare, and ceaseless onslaughts of disparagement and calumny that would have crushed a hundred million frailer men, Donald Trump’s comeback has been so bombastically theatrical that even Sylvester Stallone couldn’t have scripted it. Although Stallone called himself “Rocky,” Trump appears to be made of rock. He is indomitable, indefatigable, and an epochal political figure. (more…)

27 words / 9:27

Jim Goad has produced a short video to accompany his latest essay, “Who Drinks More, the Rich or the Poor?“, on the age-old debate. See below. (more…)

1,230 words / 9:17

Audio version: To listen in a player, use the one below or click here. To download the mp3, right-click here and choose “save link as” or “save target as.”

Statistics have shown, again and again, that whites have higher per-capita levels of alcohol consumption than any other race — even the notoriously drunken Injuns. (more…)

President Lyndon Johnson signing the 1965 Hart-Celler Immigration Act into law, surrounded by his supporters.

3,031 words

Part 6 of 9 (Chapter 1 here, Chapter 4 Part 2 here, Chapter 5 Part 2 here)

When a term has become so universally sanctified as “democracy” is now, I begin to wonder whether it means anything, in meaning too many things. — T. S. Eliot (more…)

Klaus Schwab trying not to look like an evil mastermind.

1,799 words

We, a select group of human beings . . . — John Kerry speaking at Davos

In this life, one thing counts.
In the bank, large amounts.
I’m afraid these don’t grow on trees,
You’ve got to pick a pocket or two.
— Fagin, Oliver! (more…)

6,471 words

Introduction here, Chapter 11 Part 3 here, Chapter 12 here

Translated by F. Roger Devlin

Biopolitics, in this context, is defined as that force immanent to the social realm which creates relations and forms of life through a cooperative form of production. (more…)

3,226 words

Introduction here, Chapter 11 Part 2 here, Chapter 11 Part 4 here

Translated by F. Roger Devlin

Intellectual labor, say Hardt and Negri, is intrinsically associated with sharing and common production. This “common,” consisting in information, knowledge, and emotional and affective relations is both the condition and the result of today’s predominant form of labor — but of course it has nothing to do with what is generally understood under this term. It does not found a community, for it has neither unity nor identity. (more…)

Antonio Negri (left) & Michael Hardt

5,250 words

Introduction here, Chapter 11 Part 1 here, Chapter 11 Part 3 here

Translated by F. Roger Devlin

“The Empire is constructing a biopolitical order because production has become biopolitical,” states Antonion Negri.[i] That means that the emergence of the Empire as a paradigm of biopower is indissociable from the appearance of a new form of production, viz. “immaterial” labor, which is defined by Hardt and Negri as “labor which produces a non-material good such as a service, a cultural product, knowledge, or communication” (more…)

Antonio Negri (left) & Michael Hardt

5,027 words

Introduction here, Chapter 10 Part 2 here, Chapter 11 Part 2 here

Translated by F. Roger Devlin

Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri published a book intitled Empire (E.) in the United States in April 2000, followed four years later by another essay, Multitude (M.). (more…)

Barricade of the Communard National Guard, Paris, March 18, 1871.

3,377 words

Translated by F. Roger Devlin

Introduction here, Chapter 9 Part 2 here, Chapter 10 Part 1 here

The Revolution of 1789 was itself above all a liberal and bourgeois revolution — even “ultra-liberal,” as the very liberal Gaspard Koenig affirms, not failing to celebrate this. (more…)

Ernesto Laclau

3,974 words

Introduction here, Chapter 7 here, Chapter 9 Part 1 here

Translated by F. Roger Devlin

Pablo Iglesias, the leader of Podemos, a populist movement that became (with 20.6% of the vote) the third-largest political force in Spain following the elections of December 2015, said shortly thereafter that one could “define Podemos by saying that we have done everything the Left said must not be done.” (more…)