Political Theorist from the University of Cambridge.
Author of Legitimacy in Liberal Democracies & The Chronic Crisis of American Democracy: The Way is Shut
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Articles by Benjamin Studebaker
The Last Argument for Democracy: The Unsettling Reliance of Embedded Democracies on Comparisons with Authoritarian Specter Regimes
In 1947, Winston Churchill gave a speech before the British parliament in opposition to second chamber reform. In that speech (Parliament 1947), he argued against concentrating power in the House of Commons on the grounds that this would give the elected government too much power.
Slopulism
I identify left populism with the political theory articulated by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe in Hegemony and Socialist Strategy, first published in 1985.1 In its original incarnation, left populism was a response to three things: In so far as the working class still existed, it had become substantially less interested in socialism. In so far as interest in socialism still existed, it seemed to be coming from the new social movements, rather than the working class.
Why Federalism: The Conclusion
This is the final entry in my series on supranational federalism. There were five previous entries: In these essays, I sought to provide an account not just of what federalism might mean, but how people might be motivated to commit time and energy to it.
A Pirate’s Life for Thee: Piracy in State Capitalism
Benjamin Studebaker 3 hours ago 8 min read A Pirate’s Life for Thee: Piracy in State Capitalism November 2, 2025 I have a weird little argument for you. There’s a new kind of piracy around, specific to state capitalism. These pirates aren’t sailing the seas – they’re traversing the series of tubes that lies underneath them. Instead of exploiting merchant shipping, they’re filling out online forms, exploiting the complex web of bureaucratic rules they’ve been trained to navigate.
Why Federalism: On the Role of China
Proposals for a federal union typically operate on the premise that the members are meant to be committed to political pluralism, to competitive multiparty democracy. China remains a one-party state. But over the last half century, China has been heavily integrated into the system of world trade. This economic integration would be extremely costly to reverse.
Two Ships Passing at High Noon: Alasdair MacIntyre & Raymond Geuss
Benjamin M. Studebaker Alasdair MacIntyre was born in Glasgow and educated in the British university system. He began his career as a Marxist in the 1950s, before converting to Catholicism in the early 80s. He has spent most of his career teaching in the United States. Raymond Geuss, the son of a Catholic steelworker, attended a Catholic school in Pennsylvania before undergoing university education at Columbia. He then moved to West Germany and finally to the UK, taking up a post at Cambridge.
On the varna system, Gandhi’s plan to empower the workers
Political theorists often argue that citizens need to have certain capabilities for their political projects to be successful. Ancient and medieval political theorists, like Plato or Aquinas, often demand that people receive advanced spiritual and civic education as a prerequisite for participating in rule. This training is intricate. It takes time, and it can be expensive. Pre-industrial economic systems do not generate a very big surplus.
Citizens and spinning wheels - Benjamin Studebaker
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A Review of The Total State: How Liberal Democracies Become Tyrannies by Auron Macintyre
It’s been said that fascism was a 20th century movement of the lesser intelligentsia. If that is the case the 21st recuperation of the far right shows that history does indeed repeat itself, but not-as Marx thought-first as tragedy then as farce. Instead we get farce followed by farce; history as a series of near-identical rhymes. Over the past 15 years a variety of far-right authors have emerged to put a gloss on the movement’s ambitions.
The Varna System in Gandhi’s Theory of Civic Education
While M K Gandhi was a critic of hierarchical caste and untouchability, he defended hereditary occupation. For Gandhi, learning how to make a living from our parent(s) at home allows us to spend most of our time on spiritual pursuits rather than for money. Gandhi recognised that the varna system of his day was not performing this function. Achieving swaraj required reintegrating all Indians into the varna system as Shudras, teaching them traditional crafts like khadi.
Our Deformed Professional Class
“All professionals are deformed,” begins a quip by acclaimed literary critic Merve Emre. She’s correct, but that insight applies in a larger sense. In her New Yorker essay,“Has Academia Ruined Literary Criticism,” Emre uses the French phrase déformation professionnelle.
Of Gods and Men on Apple Podcasts
This episode is on the 2010 film, Of Gods and Men. To hear the B-side, subscribe on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thelackpodcast
Is U.S. Democracy Just Going To Be Dysfunctional Forever? (w/ Benjamin Studebaker) on Apple Podcasts
Is U.S. Democracy Just Going To Be Dysfunctional Forever? (w/ Benjamin Studebaker)
Saltburn on Apple Podcasts
This episode is on the 2023 film, Saltburn. To hear the B-side, subscribe on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thelackpodcast
A Philosopher Explains Why It’s Rational to Be Angry
Myisha Cherry is a philosopher at UC-Riverside whose book The Case for Rage: Why Anger Is Essential to Anti-Racist Struggle (Oxford University Press) argues that reason and emotion are not, as many people assume, opposites, but that our emotions are often important expressions of our reason. We get angry when our implicit framework for how the world ought to operate is violated, and Prof. Cherry argues that it’s okay and even important to have this feeling.
Plato as a Theorist of Legitimacy
International Journal of the Platonic Tradition 19 (1):25-46 () Scholars of political thought often view Plato as a ‘political moralist’, or a ‘utopian’ partly due to the Republic’s emphasis on ‘justice’. But in the Republic, Plato offers a distinctive theory of legitimacy, one that grounds legitimacy on an interdependent relationship between justice and moderation.
How the War in Ukraine Ends
Russia has moved ahead with annexing the occupied oblasts of Ukraine. This is a point of no return for the Putin regime. It is hard for the regime to maintain its legitimacy when it is trying and failing to invade a foreign country. The regime looks weak and incompetent, and with no real possibility of replacing the leadership through an election, there is no easy to way to restore confidence on short notice.
Proportional Representation is a Terrible Idea
I have a new piece out for Current Affairs criticizing proportional representation and the tendency to fixate on reforming democratic procedures. You can read it here:
The Witch on Apple Podcasts
This episode is on the 2015 Robert Eggers film, The Witch. To hear the B-side, subscribe on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thelackpodcast
Thinking More Clearly About the Idea of “Rights”
Rights expansion plays a big role in left-wing policymaking. President Franklin Roosevelt called for a “Second Bill of Rights” in 1944. He hoped to include rights to employment, adequate income, decent housing, adequate medical care, social security, and education. But Roosevelt died the following year, and the Democratic Party abandoned the proposal. Now, Bernie Sanders calls for a 21st Century Economic Bill of Rights that closely mirrors Roosevelt’s proposal.
What’s Really Going on in Ukraine
Most of the people writing about the Ukraine crisis are too busy trying to prove that they are on the right side to give decent analysis of it. They are worried about appearing too friendly to either Russia or the United States, and their career concerns are crippling their ability to say anything useful. Let’s talk about what’s really going on. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, NATO expanded eastward: NATO expansion has been a bi-partisan project.
The Age of Imperialism is Not Over—But We Can End It ❧ Current Affairs
As the failure of COP26 sinks in, it is increasingly clear that our leaders have neither the courage nor the will to respond effectively to ecological breakdown. This is not surprising. The ecological crisis is being driven by capitalist growth, which is tearing through the living world at a staggering pace, with the rich states and corporations of the global North responsible for the vast majority of the damage.
How to be excellent
Find a good social environment Bringing balance to the chariot is a big challenge for a person. But it’s not a challenge we face alone. For Plato, the community we live in helps us take care of our horses. We don’t all grow our own food, make our own shelter, and provide our own entertainment. Other people help us meet the needs of the dark horse. And how can the light horse be satisfied without other people to make us feel valued and worthy?
Are Declassed Professionals in the United States like Surplus Song Dynasty Civil Servants?
I’ve been reading Youngmin Kim’s A History of Chinese Political Thought. In one of his chapters, he argues that during the Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279), a peculiar kind of “metaphysical republicanism” took root. As the Chinese population increased, the Song state struggled to create enough jobs in the state bureaucracy to accommodate larger and larger numbers of educated young men.
Liberalism’s War on the Internet
Over the past few weeks, the occupation of the capitol building by pro-Trump demonstrators has legitimated a raft of security measures. The War on Terror is now the War on the Internet. In the wake of Brexit and the election of Donald Trump, liberalism has become aware of the danger posed to it by the internet. On the internet, discourse proliferates rapidly, in an uncontrolled and unmediated way.
Why Larry Summers is Wrong About $2,000 Stimulus Checks
Larry Summers, the former director of the National Economic Council under President Obama, has publicly spoken out against the $2,000 stimulus checks proposed by Bernie Sanders and President Trump. Summers’ argument is simple–the checks are projected to increase disposable personal income as a ratio of GDP to an unusually high level. For Summers, the fact that this figure would be elevated above normal levels is itself cause for concern.
The Great Covid Class War
On January 19, 2020, Washington state reported the first US case of coronavirus. By the end of March, 245 million Americans were under stay-at-home restrictions to “flatten the curve.” Mainstream news terrorized the public with exponential graphs, threats of a medical supply shortage, and displays of hygiene theater. Appeals to science were weaponized to enforce conformity, and the media portrayed anti-lockdown protesters as backwards, astroturfed white nationalists bent on endangering the public.
The Left’s Nationalism Dilemma
I want to talk about the American left’s relationship with nationalism. I’ll start by making a distinction between two different ways of understanding what America is: Some people think of America as a federal republic. In a republic, citizens are thinly united by a commitment to a shared political system.
The Virtual Education Shock Doctrine
In California, the nation’s most populous state, 90% of students started the school year entirely online. When schools closed in March, 50% of low-income California students lacked the necessary technology to access distance learning. Broader tech distribution was available for the 2020-21 school year thanks to donations from companies like HP, Lenovo, Amazon, Apple, T-Mobile, Microsoft, and Google.
Magic and Capitalism
In 2015, the CW premiered a new reality competition show filmed in front of a live audience at the Rio Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada. It was a familiar format: each episode chronicled performers eager to show off their talent in front of a panel of judges. Typically, the talent-show-as-TV genre asks the judges to assess whether the contestant has “got it”: the charisma, the voice, the capability of being developed into a commodity. But Penn & Teller: Fool Us is different.
These Executive Orders Make No Sense
After weeks of failed negotiations between the House and the Senate, the President is attempting to provide additional stimulus through executive action. The orders are probably unconstitutional–all money bills must begin in the House of Representatives, per the “origination clause”. They will be challenged in the courts, and I doubt they come into force.
Losing the Education Lottery
Jorge Luis Borges’s story “The Lottery in Babylon” envisions a society in which every individual’s social position fluctuates according to the periodic drawings of a lottery.
The Collecting of Books
Since the age of four I have liked to be surrounded by books, but it wasn’t until college that I actually started amassing a “book collection.” It started as a single row above my desk, just stuff I bought for class and a few Kurt Vonnegut paperbacks brought from home. Over the next 10 years, the collection grew and grew until it became massively, comically unwieldy.
The Quarantine is Failing Because Our Institutions Weren’t Built For It
(The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not reflect the views of Citizen Truth.) (Benjamin Studebaker) All around us, the quarantine is beginning to die. In the United States, the Southern states are slowly abandoning it and many Midwestern states are planning to follow. But it’s not just Republicans. The European states are bailing too. If you ask Democrats why states are beginning to defect, they will tell you it comes down to greed and stupidity.
The Immense Political Insight of The Land Before Time III: The Time of the Great Giving
Were you fortunate enough to see The Land Before Time III? The direct-to-video sequel to the original Land Before Time came out on VHS in late 1995. I re-watched it recently, and I think it has better political commentary than most of what I’ve read over the past couple months. Here’s why. Like all the Land Before Time films, The Land Before Time is about a group of young dinosaurs growing up in “the Great Valley”, a paradise where food and water are plentiful and predators are few.
Can the liberal order be transformed by global government? – Benjamin Studebaker | Aeon Essays
In the aftermath of the Second World War, the administrations of presidents Franklin D Roosevelt and then Harry S Truman in the United States led in the construction of the liberal order – a set of international institutions agreed upon by nation-states. The goal was to sustain peace and prosperity in the decades after the devastation of the war, and in doing so prevent both communism and fascism from spreading. But over the last 30 years of the 20th century, the liberal order changed.
Why Federal Stimulus is Always Too Small
(The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not reflect the views of Citizen Truth.) The global economic crisis of 2008 should have taught us a lot about how governments cope with major economic shocks, but the level of analysis in 2020 has been abysmal. (Benjamin Studebaker) We never seem to learn anything.
Neoliberalism isn’t Dead Yet
(The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not reflect the views of Citizen Truth.) (Benjamin Studebaker) As the coronavirus crisis drags on, it has become popular to declare this to be the death of neoliberalism. If neoliberalism were simply noninterference in the economy, the large stimulus packages passed around the world would seem to signify its end. But neoliberalism was never simply about noninterference.
A Left Critique of the Current Protests
(The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not reflect the views of Citizen Truth.) (Benjamin Studebaker) There are a number of problems with the strategy of the current protest movement. No one seems to be writing about these problems. This is not to say that no one can see them. Many folks have reservations, but stay silent in the hope that the protests will succeed.
Go Ahead and Shrug
I am generally of the belief that you ought to listen to what people have to say before you dismiss them. Unless we have tried to understand a thing, we will not actually know what we are talking about when we criticize it. So even though I am a leftist, I read a lot of conservative books. I do not do this because I enjoy it. I find it painful, because I find many of the opinions in these books horrifying.
Coronavirus, Rioting, and the Privatization of Morality
(The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not reflect the views of Citizen Truth.) (Benjamin Studebaker) A short while ago, we were making political demands on our states, of various kinds. Some of us wanted our governments to do more to stop the spread of the virus and save lives. Some of us wanted our governments to provide more aid, more economic stimulus. But over the last few weeks, we stopped making political demands. We started looking at each other.
Coronavirus, Rioting, and the Privatization of Morality
A short while ago, we were making political demands on our states, of various kinds. Some of us wanted our governments to do more to stop the spread of the virus and save lives. Some of us wanted our governments to provide more aid, more economic stimulus. But over the last few weeks, we stopped making political demands. We started looking at each other. As governments began re-opening their economies, they tried to make it our responsibility to stop the virus. You are supposed to social distance.
A Realistic Left-Wing Strategy for Cities
With Bernie Sanders officially out of the 2020 presidential race, the left has no immediate prospects for taking power at the federal level. This leaves a lot of Sanders supporters wondering what, politically, they can do going forward. There is no energy or enthusiasm for Joe Biden or the national Democratic Party, and rightly so. This pushes folks back toward local politics. Local politics has a number of advantages–it takes less money and less manpower to be competitive at the local level.
Neoliberalism isn’t Dead Yet
As the coronavirus crisis drags on, it has become popular to declare this to be the death of neoliberalism. If neoliberalism were simply noninterference in the economy, the large stimulus packages passed around the world would seem to signify its end. But neoliberalism was never simply about noninterference. Neoliberalism is characterised by economic integration without political integration.
Coronavirus and the Fable of the Bees
Coronavirus puts elected governments in a sticky situation. If they appear to fail to solve the public health crisis, they will lose the next election. If, in the process of solving the public health crisis, they create an economic crisis, they will also lose the next election. They’re stuck between a rock and a hard place. It all reminds me of Bernard Mandeville’s “Fable of the Bees”.
Current Affairs | Culture & Politics
Articles in Healthcare How Britain Got Its NHS A highly unequal country has a socialized healthcare system thanks to a decades-long fight by leftists. by Caring For All The response to Trump’s “Medicare for All” op-ed that we probably shouldn’t have written… by
New Hampshire Highlights Continuing Problems With Sanders’ Strategy
One of the core components of Bernie Sanders’ 2020 strategy is to turn out fringe voters–people who sometimes don’t turn out. For this reason, many Sanders supporters hoped Sanders would out-perform the 538 projection, which predicted he’d secure 28% of the vote. Instead, he under-performed, managing just 26%. This was still enough to win, but the campaign shouldn’t get overconfident. The data shows that voters are behaving very differently from the way the Sanders campaign initially anticipated.
Proportional Representation Is a Terrible Idea That The Left Should Not Embrace
Under conventional American electoral rules, the candidate who gets the largest share of the vote in a given constituency wins. This is called “first past the post,” or FPTP. If you get 25 percent of the vote, but another candidate gets 30 percent, the candidate with 30 percent gets the whole seat and you get nothing.
Britain: For the Love of God, Please Stop Boris Johnson
On 12 December, Britain has a general election. I care deeply about British politics–I did my BA over there and am finishing up a PhD there as we speak. But more importantly, the Conservative Party has managed the country’s economy and future with stunning fecklessness, and I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t do my part to point this out. Let me tell you the story of what happened in Britain and how Cameron, May, and Johnson are making everything much, much worse.
I’m a Political Theorist, and I Hate the “Equality”/”Equity” Chart
Have you seen it? There’s this chart that goes around and around the internet, with three people of different heights attempting to watch a baseball game. I hate it so much, but I suppose I have to show it to you, in case you’re not familiar: I’m a political theorist, and I work on inequality, and this chart is so reductive and so unhelpful I can’t even. Where to begin? Well, first, there are a lot of different ways to conceptualise “equality” as a value.
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