Quote, Unquote

By 1985, the threat of highly restrictive legislation became acute. In July, Ways and Means Chairman Dan Rostenkowski, future Senate Finance Chairman and vice presidential candidate Lloyd Bentsen, and future House Majority Leader and presidential candidate Richard Gephardt introduced legislation imposing a 25 percent surcharge on imports from any country that maintained both a large bilateral trade surplus with the United States and unfair barriers to imports, with mandated reductions in the bilateral deficit.
~ Michael Starr via American Affairs

:::

Quote, Unquote

Wolfgang Streeck may be best known for his essays in New Left Review, including a dazzling series on the cascade of financial crises that followed the crash of 2008. He resembles Karl Marx in his conviction that capitalism has certain internal contradictions that make it unsustainable — the more so in its present “neoliberal” form. His latest book, “Taking Back Control? States and State Systems After Globalism,” published this month, asks whether the global economy as it is now set up is compatible with democracy. He has his doubts.
~ Christopher Caldwell

via This Maverick Thinker Is the Karl Marx of Our Time
published by The New York Times on November 28, 2024

:::

Quote, Unquote

There’s a pleasure in being told what we already know, in a way we’re already used to. That’s why so much human writing and storytelling does exactly that. We go to a Hollywood movie or pick up a romantasy novel or attend a Sunday sermon knowing what to expect, and our expectations are almost always met.
~ Adam Kirsch via The Atlantic

:::