Chance Phillips
@chancephillips.bsky.social
1.6K followers 460 following 890 posts
A student in the economics PhD program at UMass Amherst. Recreationally reading: Harry Jaffa’s Crisis of the House Divided Most bylines in @alreporter.com and @liberalcurrents.com Substack: someconvenienttree.com
Posts Media Videos Starter Packs
Pinned
chancephillips.bsky.social
Thanks to @thebulwark.com for publishing my latest analysis of the leaked responses to a Project 2025 questionnaire for government jobseekers.

Contra Sam Haselby, Pat Buchanan is not a “marginal figure.” The folks running the government appear to be his acolytes.
www.thebulwark.com/p/the-trump-...
The Trump Admin Appointees Who Love Buchanan and Bukele
A leaked Project 2025 questionnaire database appears to reveal the books, thinkers, and dictators some Trump appointees most admire.
www.thebulwark.com
Reposted by Chance Phillips
iansociologo.bsky.social
Du Bois basically did a version of this in his bibliography in Black Reconstruction
BIB L I OGRAPH Y 
STAN DARD - A N TI-NEGRO 
(These authors believe the Negro to be sub-human and congenitally un-
fitted for citizenship and the suffrage.) 
Burgess, John W., Reconstruction and the Constitution, 1 866-1 876. 
Coulter, E. Merton, Civil War and Reconstruction in Kentucky. 
Davis, William W ., The Civil War and Reconstruction in Florida. 
Dunning, William A., Reconstruction, Political and Economic . 
Eckenrode, F. Hamilton, Political History of Virginia During Reconstruc· 
tion. 
Fertig, James Walter, The Secession and Reconstruction of Tennessee. 
Ficklen, John R., History of Reconstruction in Louisiana. 
Fleming, Walter F., Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama. 
--, Documentary History of Reconstruction, 1 906, 1907. 
Hamilton, Joseph G. de R., Reconstruction in North Carolina. 
Hollis, John Porter, The Early Period of Reconstruction in South Carolina. 
Lonn, Ella, Reconstruction in Louisiana after 1 868 . 
Ramsdell, Charles W., Reconstruction in Texas . 
Rhodes, James F., History of United States from the Compromise of 1 850. 
Scott, Eben G., Reconstruction During the Civil War. 
Staples, Thomas S ., Reconstruction in Arkansas . 
Studies in Southern History and Politics . Inscribed to William Archibald 
Dunning. 
Carpet-Baggers in the United States Senate. By C. Mildred Thompson. 
The Literary Movement for Secession. By Ulrich B. Phillips. 
Negro Suffrage in the South. By W. Roy Smith. 
Some Phases of Educational History in the South Since 1 865. By Wil-
liam K. Boyd. 
Southern Legislation in Respect to Freedmen, 1 865- 1 866. By J. G. de 
Roulhac Hamilton. 
The Federal Enforcement Acts . By William Watson Davis. 
The New South, Economic and Social . By Holland Thompson. 
Grant's Southern Policy. By Edwin C. Woolley. 
Taylor, Richard, Destruction and Reconstruction. 
Thompson, Clara M., Reconstruction in Georgia, Economic, Social, Po-
litical, l 805-1 872. 
Wooley, Edwin C., The Reconstruction of Georgia.
Reposted by Chance Phillips
jamellebouie.net
I read Caleb Nelson's piece on the removal power and I was taken with a reference he makes in the conclusion.
When the First Congress confronted the same ambiguities, more than one member warned against interpreting the Constitution in the expectation that all Presidents would have the sterling character of George Washington.  The current Supreme Court may likewise see itself as interpreting the Constitution for the ages, and perhaps some of the Justices take comfort in the idea that future Presidents will not all have the character of Donald Trump.  But the future is not guaranteed; a President bent on vengeful, destructive, and lawless behavior can do lasting damage to our norms and institutions.  As one member of Congress argued in 1789, we should not gravitate toward interpretations of the Constitution that “legaliz[e] the full exertion of a tyrannical disposition.”
chancephillips.bsky.social
The essay on the creation of new words was especially interesting, as someone for whom that topic (linguistics) is usually a bit dreary.
www.orwell.ru/library/arti...
George Orwell: New Words
New Words, the essay of George Orwell. First published: 1940 by/in --
www.orwell.ru
chancephillips.bsky.social
I began reading one volume of a collection of his essays and other writings the other day, after only reading Homage to Catalonia and Animal Farm, and am quite impressed. Orwell can write!

I’m jotting down turns of phrase and sentences of note as I read.
chancephillips.bsky.social
It was a bit in The Office, the most popular sitcom this century!
bsky.app/profile/chan...
chancephillips.bsky.social
The lack of folks pointing out that Jay Jones’ initial comments (“put Gilbert in the crew with the two worst people you know and he receives both bullets every time”) closely parallel a bit from The Office is odd in my opinion.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIoq...
Killing Bin Laden, Hitler, and Toby - The Office US
YouTube video by The Office
www.youtube.com
chancephillips.bsky.social
(Obvious disclaimer: Politicians should not joke about killing their political opponents and commenting about the death of opponents’ children is even worse.)
chancephillips.bsky.social
The lack of folks pointing out that Jay Jones’ initial comments (“put Gilbert in the crew with the two worst people you know and he receives both bullets every time”) closely parallel a bit from The Office is odd in my opinion.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIoq...
Killing Bin Laden, Hitler, and Toby - The Office US
YouTube video by The Office
www.youtube.com
chancephillips.bsky.social
Lord, I see what you have done for others...
chancephillips.bsky.social
Used bookstores in college towns are invariably better than used bookstores in cities without a large university.
Copies of Tacitus’ The Annals of Imperial Rome, James C. Scott’s The Moral Economy of the Peasant, Christopher Lasch’s The Revolt of the Elites, a collection of Machiavelli’s letters, Jack Knight’s Institutions and Social Conflict, Alistair Horne’s The Fall of Paris, P.N. Ure’s The Origin of Tyranny, Roger Price’s The French Second Republic: A Social History, a collection of George Orwell’s essays, Orwell’s The Road to Wigan Pier, Michael Harrington’s The Twilight of Capitalism, and Ralph Roeder’s Juarez and His Mexico.
chancephillips.bsky.social
New video from @jamellebouie.net on the Lincoln-Douglas debates 👀 (also a good reminder I really need to finish Crisis of the House Divided this month)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=44Q8...
Why the Lincoln-Douglas Debates Still Matter
YouTube video by Takes™ by Jamelle Bouie
www.youtube.com
chancephillips.bsky.social
(Sagely) Joan Robinson talked about this.

“Every demand depends upon every other price. If the mat makers are exceptionally heavy drinkers, the demand for liquor will be high on the days when they have been lucky.”
chancephillips.bsky.social
My wholly uninformed opinion is that athletes for whom success was more natural are just less aware of how great coaching can help people succeed. Folks for whom their coaches were more important may be able to transfer those experiences to being good coaches/managers more easily.
chancephillips.bsky.social
I'm not saying that Nixon was not actually president when the war began to end. I'm saying that it is a mistake to give a burglar any credit for ending their robbery.
chancephillips.bsky.social
Like, if you repeatedly delay/sabotage peace talks, as Nixon did, while illegally expanding the scope of the war and turning it into even more of a quagmire, I don't think you should actually get any credit for overseeing that war's eventual end.
www.politico.com/magazine/sto...
When a Candidate Conspired With a Foreign Power to Win An Election
It took decades to unravel Nixon’s sabotage of Vietnam peace talks. Now, the full story can be told.
www.politico.com
chancephillips.bsky.social
Well I can't argue with that.
chancephillips.bsky.social
If there was a race of aliens of equal intelligence to humans, who wanted to eat humans but could trivially be prevented from doing so, would it be acceptable to eat them in turn?
Reposted by Chance Phillips
josephpolitano.bsky.social
my life is that I record a podcast episode all about tariffs and leave the booth just to find out there are more tariffs
Beginning November 1st, 2025, all Medium and Heavy Duty Trucks coming into the United States from other Countries will be Tariffed at the Rate of 25%. Thank you for your attention to this matter!
chancephillips.bsky.social
The specific quote appears to be on pages 40 and 41 of the second volume, in the essay titled “The Philosophy of Prices”: archive.org/details/coll...

(The whole essay/collection is also a fun read of course.)
collected economic papers : joan robinson : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
archive.org
chancephillips.bsky.social
An earlier (IIRC) version of the paper/argument that the quote is from can be found at the link below. But it's not quite as direct. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...
Some Reflections on the Philosophy of Prices
Click on the article title to read more.
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
chancephillips.bsky.social
distribution of property, which is quite arbitrary from either an economic or an ethical point of view, and the manipulation of prices can be used as a corrective to the maldistribution of income.’’
chancephillips.bsky.social
Joan Robinson in a volume of her Collected Economic Papers series: “The case for pricing according to market demand is very much stronger in a socialist society than in a capitalist one, for in the capitalist society the distribution of purchasing power between families depends largely on the ...