Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Martijn Konings

Jathan Sadowski @jathansadowski.com · 8h

In the new TMK Premium, we trace how the sprawling networks of data capture built to funnel profits through the adtech ecosystem and platform economy are also powering an exterminationist techno-politics carried out by fascist agencies and their corporate collaborators. Oops!

Premium – 426. The Road to Hell is Paved with Advertisements | This Machine Kills

www.patreon.com

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Martijn Konings @mkonings.bsky.social · 8h

Looking forward to a decade of mainstream political science debating whether this rehabilitates VoC claims about the enduring relevance of the CME.

Benjamin Braun @benbraun.bsky.social · 8h

Remember when dense networks of strategic cross-shareholdings among firms, native to coordinated market economies, went the way of the dodo?

The Rhenish model, Germany, Inc. undone by Anglo institutional investors?

Well, the dodo is back. Say hello to USA, Inc.
www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

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Martijn Konings @mkonings.bsky.social · 23h

The definite sense that this makes is political – the AI industry has positioned itself in such a way that its speculative claims will have to be validated to some extent, regardless of economic fundamentals. Market melt-up = expectation of bailout.

Katie Martin @katie0martin.ft.com · 1d

I'm not saying it makes a huge amount of sense, but I am saying a market melt-up is a distinct possibility. The bad stuff just isn't sticking - on.ft.com/48PHt3p

Brace for a market melt-up

[FREE TO READ] Some say this is a ‘good’ bubble, but investors should remember that all bubbles burst in the end

on.ft.com

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Martijn Konings @mkonings.bsky.social · 1d

“Hardcore fascist ideologues certainly see themselves explicitly in spiritual terms, even if you don’t.”

Joost Vervoort (portal goblin) @joostvervoort.bsky.social · 11d

Spiritual disease as a bio-weapon: why it’s useful to understand the rise of fascism as political-spiritual warfare. anticiplay.medium.com/spiritual-di...

Spiritual disease as a bio-weapon

Why it’s useful to understand the rise of fascism as political-spiritual warfare

anticiplay.medium.com

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Money on the Left @moneyontheleft.bsky.social · 1d

"This is a fundamental restructuring of public spending, a way out of neoliberalism’s violent allergy to the fiscal spending that expands the economy and lifts up the population."

-Doctorow

Blue Bonds

State debt is generative.

doctorow.medium.com

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Martijn Konings @mkonings.bsky.social · 2d

Great piece - empirical confirmation that everything has always-already been a bank.

jacobin.com/2025/10/bank...

Everything Is Becoming a Bank

Most major corporations — from airlines to social media platforms — now aspire to become unregulated banks. Bankification today accounts for the highest profit margins in the US economy, crippling pro...

jacobin.com

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Reposted by Martijn Konings

Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 5d

Anyone wondering why private equity firms remain interested in edtech - it's because of truly eye-popping speculative valuations like this:

"The global education market is expected to soar to $8trillion in value by 2030" www.privateequityinternational.com/private-equi...

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Reposted by Martijn Konings

Will Davies @will-davies.bsky.social · 12d

currently reading @zahidrc.bsky.social fascinating new book, which this resonates with strongly fordhampress.com/paranoid-pub...

Paranoid Publics - Zahid R. Chaudhary

Exploring the psychosocial realities of the assault on truth.

fordhampress.com

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Tarik Abou-Chadi @tabouchadi.bsky.social · 14d

Now out in @cpsjournal.bsky.social. In our new article, @denis-cohen.bsky.social @thmskrr.bsky.social and I show that where local rent prices increase more, residents with lower incomes become more likely to support the radical right AfD.

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

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David Sirota @davidsirota.com · 15d

Here's what happens when Abundance pretends problems can be fixed exclusively with more supply but no check on corporate power: You get housing monopolists selling off the supply to investors rather than supply creating lower prices that benefit regular people.

www.levernews.com/the-corporat...

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Reposted by Martijn Konings

Stuart Schrader @stschrader1.bsky.social · 16d

The second portion of this great convo is now available!

Daniel Denvir @danieldenvir.bsky.social · 16d

PART 2 of my interview w/ Alberto Toscano & @stschrader1.bsky.social on Trump’s intensification of police, ICE, military repression, what it reveals about MAGA’s fascist/authoritarian project—and about illiberalism already immanent in US carceral/imperialist state www.thedigradio.com/podcast/stat...

State of Impunity w/ Alberto Toscano and Stuart Schrader

Featuring Alberto Toscano and Stuart Schrader on Trump’s intensification of police, ICE, and military repression. What does this all reveal about MAGA’s fascist and authoritarian project—and about the...

www.thedigradio.com

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Reposted by Martijn Konings

Stuart Elden @stuartelden.bsky.social · 16d

Katja Diefenbach, Spinoza in Post-Marxist Philosophy: Speculative Materialism - trans. Gerrit Jackson, @edinburghup.bsky.social, November 2025
edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-spinoza...

Cover of book - white and grey with a crest in bottom right corner

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IfS Frankfurt @ifsfrankfurt.bsky.social · 16d

Katherina Kinzel, Jan Overwijk (IfS): Marxism Without Irony: On the Failure of Alfred Sohn-Rethel's Transcendental Materialism
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... [full text online]

Marxism Without Irony: On the Failure of Alfred Sohn‐Rethel's Transcendental Materialism

Click on the article title to read more.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

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Martijn Konings @mkonings.bsky.social · 17d

Likewise!

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Martijn Konings @mkonings.bsky.social · 18d

PS I think our takes on the meaning of the abundance agenda are somewhat similar
jacobin.com/2025/07/klei...

The “Magabundance” Agenda Is Creating Strange Bedfellows

Supply-side progressivism is forging unexpected alliances between populist Democrats, business-friendly centrists, and MAGA Republicans around militarized growth. The result is a post-neoliberal polit...

jacobin.com

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Martijn Konings @mkonings.bsky.social · 18d

I think I was momentarily enthused by the professed interest in breaking with excellence discourse. But I agree with your take that it's all consistent with a project centred on human capital formation with an authoritarian edge.

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Martijn Konings @mkonings.bsky.social · 18d

Couldn't agree more with the quote from Shorten below. But then you read the piece and there's just nothing but the vapid consultancy speak - modularity, agility, stackabilty - that prevents universities from allocating resources in a sensible way in the first place.

Dr Liz Allen @drdemography.com · 18d

THIS!
‘Australia’s higher education market is saturated with prestige-driven narratives that often alienate…potential students from regional, first-in-family, neurodiverse, mature-age and non-traditional backgrounds. It is time for change.’ theconversation.com/bill-shorten...

Bill Shorten ‘re-imagines universities’, with specialist institutions and bespoke degrees

University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor Bill Shorten has called for a “fundamental re-imagining” of Australia’s universities

theconversation.com

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Reposted by Martijn Konings

Mark Howard @mrshoward.bsky.social · Aug 27

Check out my new article published @distinktionjournal.bsky.social on contrarianism as a cultural practice enabled by the institutional logic of Silicon Valley VC. Read it here (open access): www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Contrarian optionality and negative mimesis: venture capital and the institutional logic of Silicon Valley

This paper offers a theorization of contrarianism in Silicon Valley, presenting it as a strategic rationality underpinned by institutional infrastructure. Rather than treating contrarianism as prin...

www.tandfonline.com

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Reposted by Martijn Konings

Money on the Left @moneyontheleft.bsky.social · 25d

We talk specifically and at length about the CFA franc currency union, a system with violent colonial roots that continues to constrain the economic and political agency of its member states in West and Central Africa.

The New Postcolonial Economics with Fadhel Kaboub (New Art & Transcript!)

Money on the Left is proud to publish a remastered version of our third episode with Fadhel Kaboub, now with a new transcript and art. Kaboub is associate professor of economics at Denison and Pres…

moneyontheleft.org

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Reposted by Martijn Konings

Adrienne Buller @adriennebuller.bsky.social · 28d

A short intro for Issue 2 of The BREAK—DOWN from me & @johnmerrick.bsky.social

The issue takes many approaches to "the frontier", but always with a core question: which compromises for a sustainable future unavoidable, & which should we resist at all costs?

www.break-down.org/on-frontiers/

Introducing Issue #2: Frontiers

In the trade-offs between decarbonization and human and ecological impact, how do we determine which costs are bearable, or inescapable, even necessary—and who gets to make these decisions?

www.break-down.org

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Nina Eichacker @ninaecon.bsky.social · 29d

Later posting than usual, but: my newsletter this week is about Stephen Miran, his economic views, and what it could all mean for dollar dominance -- please check it out! open.substack.com/pub/ninaeich...

Stephen Miran and the Fed

Some thoughts about Stephen Miran, the Federal Reserve, and Exorbitant Privileges and Burdens

open.substack.com

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Matt Huber @matthuber.bsky.social · 29d

Finally read @alex1789.bsky.social critique of the new arguments about techno/neo-feudalism on the left. Great stuff! americanaffairsjournal.org/2025/08/tech...

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Warwick Anderson @wombatscholar.bsky.social · Sep 9

A nice article about friend and colleague Raewyn Connell in the SMH, including foreshadowing her new trans memoir. Pleased to see she's delivering this year's Ted Wheelwright lecture in political economy at Sydney University - one of the few universities to maintain political economy and Marxism.

Raewyn’s groundbreaking work changed how we think about men. Its origins were deeply personal

Raewyn Connell has a global reputation and is speaking at an event marking one of the PM’s intellectual influences.

www.smh.com.au

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Reposted by Martijn Konings

Zohran Kwame Mamdani @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social · Sep 8

"How Are the Very Rich Feeling About New York’s Next Mayor?"

A Dramatic Reading of The Recent New York Times Dispatch from the Hamptons.

Presented by The Gilded Age's Morgan Spector.

870 7.9K 31K

Reposted by Martijn Konings

Aaron Wistar @aaronwistar.bsky.social · Mar 31

As US interest rates have risen, debt crises have exploded across much of the Global South. The IMF is doing to countries like Kenya and Sri Lanka what DOGE is trying to do to the US.

@danieldenvir.bsky.social
@70sbachchan.bsky.social
@iliasalami.bsky.social

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...

New World Order w/ Ilias Alami and Tim Sahay

Podcast Episode · The Dig · 03/24/2025 · 2h 19m

podcasts.apple.com

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