This Weekend’s Slouching News and Reviews, &

BRIEFLY NOTED: For 2022-10-08 Sa

Oct 09, 2022

One Blurb: Adam Tooze:

From The Ezra Klein Show <https://overcast.fm/+oiPVRlwc4/1:27:18>

“If you want to follow the conversation right now on global economic history, you should check out Brad DeLong’s Slouching Towards Utopia <bit.ly/3pP3Krk>…”

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One Video: Wall Street Week:

With a short Slouching Towards Utopia <bit.ly/3pP3Krk> segment at 34:15:

<https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2022-10-08/wall-street-week-full-show-10-07-2022-video>

Wall Street Week - Full Show 10/07/2022: ‘On this edition of Wall Street Week, Erin Browne, PIMCO Portfolio Manager and Chris Ailman, CalSTRS CIO wrap up a weird week in the markets. Brad DeLong, U.C. Berkeley Professor of Economics joins Former US Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers to discuss the long tail of history and it's effects on today. (Source: Bloomberg)…

And from This Weekend’s Google Sweep:

<https://frankdiana.net/tag/slouching-towards-utopia/>

So what moved the Amazon sales needle? Larry on Wall Street Week, Adam on The Ezra Klein Show, or something else?

(In the range which I have been seeing, it looks like sales—hardcover and ebook through all channels—are roughly 1/ASR x 200,000. But the numbers are very fuzzy, what with lags, & c.)

Must-Read: On W.E.B. DuBois:

Paul Poast: ‘W.E.B. Du Bois is a major International Relations theorist, and his writings should be standard reading for international relations students.If you're reading Morgenthau (or Waltz or etc), you need to also read Du Bois… critical FOR IR theory because… it’s critical OF IR theory… questioning the very foundations of the theory... in two big ways: (1) Race relations are central for understanding world politics. (2) "International Relations" is best thought of as "Imperial Relations"

Let's unpack each:

First, race relations are central for understanding world politics. A core idea in Du Bois' writing is the notion of "The Color Line". As he said in his 1900 "To the Nations of the World" address, "The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line". In that speech, he elaborates on the "problem": "The question as to how far differences of race...will hereafter be made the basis of denying to over half the world the right of sharing to utmost ability the opportunities and privileges of modern civilization.”… This led Du Bois to label the Russo-Japanese War was as "epoch-making" because it "crossed the color line"…. World War I, namely [the] way it was seen as shocking… to many in Europe and the United States because... the devastation was unfolding in "White Civilization". He then contrasts what [was then] unfolding in Europe with the death and devastation that Belgian imperialism did in Congo during the late 19th century....

The second big way in which Du Bois is critical of IR theory: "International Relations" is best thought of as "Imperial Relations".... "The African Roots of War".... His thesis is straightforward: this might be a war in Europe, but its cause is in Africa. This is because of colonialism and how that fed jealousy and competition among the European powers, especially Germany...

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Very Briefly Noted:

Project Syndicate: Is Putin in Peril?: ‘Russian President Vladimir Putin seems to be living in a parallel universe. By claiming sovereignty over a huge swath of Ukrainian territory from which Russia’s military is steadily retreating, he has staked his political future on a fantasy…. We ask Robert D. Kaplan, Dina Khapaeva, Mark Leonard, and Angela Stent whether Putin’s grip on power will slip along with his apparent grip on reality…
Philip Stafford and Scott Chipolina: Binance blockchain suffers $570 million hack: ‘World’s largest crypto exchange targeted in security breach…
Jon Gruber: Everything: ‘Smartphones replaced everything Radio Shack sold 30 years ago: still cameras, video cameras, music players, radios, alarm clocks, calculators, tape recorders, and, yes, cellular dumbphones…. What we need isn’t an everything app. It’s an everything device, with small focused apps for features. You want to do more? Download — or better yet, create — a new app. And you’ve already got one in your pocket — or in your hand, as you read this very sentence on it — right now…
Next Big Idea Club: The Hand-Picking Ideas Authors Book Club: ‘Get the Best New Nonfiction Books Delivered to Your Door. Join the nonfiction subscription book club curated by Malcolm Gladwell, Adam Grant, Susan Cain, and Daniel Pink…

¶s:

Jacob Soll: Britannia Deranged: ‘Britannia Unchained, the 2012 manifesto that UK Prime Minister Liz Truss wrote with other Conservative MPs, reveals her remarkably strange and dystopian vision of free-market capitalism. It also provides important insights into the radical ideology behind Trussonomics and the government’s disastrous budget plan…. It is an odd combination of Victorian self-help clichés, Randian platitudes, and incongruous factoids presented in a strange stream-of-consciousness style…. The two “frontier” protagonists tasked with building the new Britain are the London “cabby” and the “buccaneer” venture capitalist. The authors juxtapose hard-working cab drivers with unionized Tube drivers, whom they call “grifters” with “public sector pensions” whose place is among the “idlers of the world”…. The authors are concerned that young Britons model themselves not on these fearless capitalist buccaneers but on reality TV stars, whom they see as sapping the UK’s work ethic. The Apprentice, the television show that made Donald Trump famous, is an exception: The authors seem to think it is unscripted…

Diane Coyle: Liz Truss’s Backward Vision of the Future: ‘The new UK prime minister’s outdated economic plan attempts to apply Thatcher-era solutions to twenty-first-century problems. But lifting Britain’s chronically low growth rate and boosting its flat-lining productivity requires a government that does not shy away from actively shaping markets…. Today’s knowledge economy requires an innovative state to provide a long-term framework for investment and set the rules of the game. Unless Truss and Kwarteng stop living in the past, the prospects for the UK economy on their watch look bleak…