Category: Economics
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The Collapse: Bluff, Call or Raise
A story about what happens when capital figures out that the thing it was paying for (hands, legs, eyes in awkward places) doesn’t have to be replaced to be priced down. It only has to be threatened.
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The Collapse: Who Answers for the Machine?
A story about what happens when a profession figures out that the thing its clients were paying for — the reading, the drafting, the hours — never actually required a person, but the thing they were really paying for still does: someone to carry the can.
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Empire: The Tax That Became Rent
In which we examine the political economy of why pre-modern empires ended.
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The Concentrator’s Dilemma: Part 4
In which we examine the contradictions within the political economy of platform capitalism and AI. And where this might end. Or indeed begin.
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The Concentrator’s Dilemma: Part 3
In which we examine the contradictions within the political economy of the surveillance economy and AI. And where this might end. Or indeed begin.
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The Concentrator’s Dilemma: Part 2
In which we examine the contradictions within the political economy of the surveillance economy and AI. And where this might end. Or indeed begin.
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The Concentrator’s Dilemma: Part 1
In which we examine the contradictions within the political economy of the surveillance economy and AI. And where this might end. Or indeed begin.
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The Collapse: The Influencer Economy Automates Itself
A story about what happens when a business figures out that the thing it was paying for — attention, trust, a face people feel they know — never actually required a person attached to it.
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Africa: Meet the New Gatekeepers, Same as the Old Gatekeeper
Examining the historical and contemporary political economy of extraction in sub-Saharan Africa through the lens of “gatekeeper states”.
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Holland: The Overreaching Empire
In which we examine the Golden Age founding myth of success: a toll booth built on moral ambiguity.
