Even Our Sleep Has Gone Corporate
How to invest in public infrastructure, influence populists, and win back our naps
January 13, 2022
Give Us Government, Please!
In 2008, Chicago got fleeced. Faced by financial crisis, the city ceded control of its 36,000 parking meters for the next 75 years to a group of private investors who swooped in with $1.16 billion. Just 11 years later, the group has already recouped $1.6 billion: all in all, Chicago stands to lose nearly a billion dollars over the course of the deal. But as Donald Cohen and Allen Mikaelian write in this excerpt from their new book, The Privatization of Everything (New Press, 2021), revenue is only part of what a city gives up when public goods are privatized. (January 7, 2022)
“Government is too important to the project of equality to not defend it, even as we continually improve it so it lives up to the possibility of a country that works for all of us.” Author Donald Cohen chats with Claire Potter about the bigger picture of why Americans need to reclaim their public services from the private sector—and how to do it. (January 7, 2022)
In the latest episode of the Unproductive Labor podcast, political theorist Steven Klein unpacks the significance of the welfare state. (January 7, 2022)
Populism Versus Democracy
One year after Trump supporters stormed the United States Capitol, Peter Nohrnberg reviews the performative nature of the January 6 insurrection and Democrat’s failure to mount a credible response with Trump’s second impeachment trial: “As a work of political theater, it resembled an off-Broadway show that opens to decent reviews, has a few shining moments (one might point to the video compilation of the insurrection itself), but closes a week later without much notice.” (January 6, 2022)
“What are some of the weaknesses of right-wing populist rulers? Who resists or intimidates populist authoritarianism and is consequently targeted as enemies?” Berna Turam shows how Boğaziçi University has come to epitomize liberal urban civil resistance in Turkey. (January 12, 2022)
Surviving a Pandemic
“In the refugee community [in my country] one of the problems is that people don’t have enough money. So with everything switched to online, families with maybe five children or four children that are in school are hopping on your mum’s one phone . . . to be able to have access to online education.” In a European study, young people share how COVID-19 has changed their lives. The pandemic, William Hayward writes, may leave a lifelong scar. (January 12, 2022)
How Corporations Stole the Cat Nap
For many modern households, the “leisure” of weekends is more exhausting than the work of the week, while true “rest” hinges on the productivity of others. In the new episode of Past Present, the podcast team examine the history of rest and relaxation. (January 10, 2022)
Learning to Forgive
“A member of my own family was beaten to death by a high school student. That boy is now a man. He walks the streets today. I believe justice has been served.” In the wake of the school shooting at Oxford High School, Harold Pollack shares a personal account of how crimes committed by children are opportunities for compassion.
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