Seth Ackerman
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Articles by Seth Ackerman
We Have the Chance to Reel In Israel Right Now
First, let’s get one thing straight. Rahm Emanuel’s much-heralded speech on US-Israel relations portends no shift at all in Democratic Party policy toward Israel. In fact, if leaked media accounts are accurate, it doesn’t contain a single proposal that wasn’t already adopted in the waning days of the Biden administration (but quietly rendered toothless by the policy fine print).
Burn the Constitution Once Again
In a 1988 memoir recounting his thirty-year tenure as chief Washington correspondent of the Sunday Times, the British journalist Henry Brandon recalled the flicker of disquiet he felt in 1964 as he watched the chaos and extremism of Barry Goldwater’s hard-right presidential campaign. He had wondered, at the time, if it was an omen of things to come.
Burn the Constitution Once Again
In a 1988 memoir recounting his thirty-year tenure as chief Washington correspondent of the Sunday Times, the British journalist Henry Brandon recalled the flicker of disquiet he felt in 1964 as he watched the chaos and extremism of Barry Goldwater’s hard-right presidential campaign. He had wondered, at the time, if it was an omen of things to come.
The weirdness of the aid-to-Israel discourse
To salvage Israel’s dwindling support, Jonathan Chait wants pro-Israel Democrats to throw a bone to the public: let Israel buy its weapons from the US, rather than giving them the weapons for free. Chait wasn’t the first to suggest this. Benjamin Netanyahu first injected the idea in the public debate in an interview with the Economist in January. Since then it’s been touted by Matt Yglesias, taken up by J Street, the liberal pro-Israel lobby group, and embraced by presidential hopeful Rahm Emanuel.
Wouldn’t It Be Nice to Live in a Society With No “Kill Line”?
This morning, the Guardian’s Amy Hawkins offers a delightful split-screen portrait of global consciousness, highlighting two trends playing out in parallel on US and Chinese social media. On US platforms like TikTok and Instagram, “young people are diving into the joys of Chinese culture — from drinking hot water to playing mahjong — all under the banner of ‘Chinamaxxing,’” she writes.
European Economies Are Not Stagnating
Since COVID, a narrative about economic stagnation in Europe alongside booming productivity in America — “Eurosclerosis,” to use an old but newly fashionable term — has attained the status of accepted fact in discussions of global politics. Though analysts may differ about what conclusions to draw or what steps should be taken, the “fact” itself is seldom questioned.
Eurpoors vs. Florida Man
While writing my last post, I stumbled on a Krugman piece that reminded me about the time Trump’s ambassador to the EU claimed (quoting Krugman) “that Europe is as poor as Mississippi and Germany as poor as West Virginia.” (“To which the immediate answer should be that if that’s what your numbers say, your numbers are wrong,” quoth Krugman.) This type of US state vs. European country comparison is now a flourishing genre on Twitter, I’ve noticed, where MAGA chuds chortle at the Europoors.
Europe's productivity keeps outpacing the US
A closer look at some famous statistics. Since COVID, a narrative about economic stagnation in Europe alongside booming productivity in America — “Eurosclerosis,” to use an old but newly fashionable term — has attained the status of accepted fact in discussions of global politics. Though analysts may differ about what conclusions to draw or what steps should be taken, the “fact” itself is seldom questioned.
JOHN QUIGGIN. Socialism with a spine: the only 21st century alternative
Socialism is back, much to the chagrin of those who declared it dead and buried at the end of history in the 1990s. When the New Republic, long the house organ of American neoliberalism, runs an article on The Socialism America Needs Now, its clear that something has fundamentally changed. The soft neoliberalism represented by Tony Blair, Bill Clinton and Paul Keating has exhausted its appeal, and not just in the English-speaking world.
Bernie Is Right: 60% of Americans Live Paycheck to Paycheck
Bernie Sanders says it over and over again: 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. Centrist critics swear this is false. Once we sort through the noise, we see Bernie is right on the money. Bernie Sanders says it over and over again: 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. But Matt Darling, formerly of the Niskanen Center, swears it’s not true, and Dylan Matthews of Vox calls it a damned lie. Even Matt Yglesias is apparently on the case, but I’m blocked from seeing his posts.
Bernie Is Right: 60% of Americans Live Paycheck to Paycheck
Bernie Sanders says it over and over again: 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. But Matt Darling, formerly of the Niskanen Center, swears it’s not true, and Dylan Matthews of Vox calls it a damned lie. Even Matt Yglesias is apparently on the case, but I’m blocked from seeing his posts. Who’s right and who’s wrong? Who should we listen to? Bernie Sanders — a model citizen of our community? Or the infamous Vox-Niskanen syndicate? The answer is that Bernie is right.
De Levitzum
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Gaza: The End of the Illusion.
Israel’s blood-soaked debacle in Gaza now lumbers through its tenth month. Dwarfing the Bosnian (1992-95), Syrian (2011-2018), or Salvadoran (1979-1990) wars, it is killing Palestinians at a rate that, by conservative estimates, more closely approximates the Cambodian genocide of 1975-79.
The Khmer Rouge Index: updated to Feb. 4, 2024
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A lie is about to be exposed
Although "Israel does not have to hold elections until 2026," write the Financial Times’s James Shotter and Neri Zilber, "the country's political class is positioning itself for a vote much sooner — as the veneer of unity that has covered Israeli politics since the outbreak of the war begins to fade." With polls seeming to show them benefiting from Netanyahu’s state of disgrace, centrist figures like Gadi Eisenkot and Yair Lapid are calling on Netanyahu to set a date for elections now.
Why Israel’s War Is Genocide - and Why Biden Is Culpable
Since October, Israel has killed more than 25,000 Palestinians, an estimated 70 percent of them women and children, in what a leading scholar of aerial bombing has called “one of the most intense civilian punishment campaigns in history.” Israel has been killing more than five times as many Gazans per day as the Nazis did, per capita, in the London Blitzkrieg.
There Was an Iron Wall in Gaza
In a 1948 essay, “The Twilight of International Morality,” the international relations theorist Hans Morgenthau looked back at the bygone style of diplomacy practiced by the old aristocratic states of Europe — what might be called “traditional Realpolitik” — and ventured a contrarian argument: that behind its amoral facade and despite its reputation for cynicism and duplicity, it was always grounded in an inviolable ethical code.
There Was an Iron Wall in Gaza
In a 1948 essay, “The Twilight of International Morality,” the international relations theorist Hans Morgenthau looked back at the bygone style of diplomacy practiced by the old aristocratic states of Europe — what might be called “traditional Realpolitik” — and ventured a contrarian argument: that behind its amoral facade and despite its reputation for cynicism and duplicity, it was always grounded in an inviolable ethical code.
Is Capitalism Terminally Ill?
Interview by Doug Henwood For the last couple of decades, New Left Review (NLR) has been publishing articles diagnosing the capitalist system as suffering from long-term stagnation, chronic overcapacity, declining profitability, and sluggish growth. The emphasis began with a 1998 paper by the historian Robert Brenner, “The economics of global turbulence,” an article that impressed and influenced many. Brenner focused on the decline in manufacturing in particular.
The Welfare State Can Survive the Great Aging
Alongside the warming of the climate, the aging of the population — most prominently in the rich world but increasingly in poor countries as well — represents the most profound shift in the human condition we will face as the century advances. Global life expectancy, which stood at under 47 years in 1950, exceeds 72 today. That is a […]
Robert Brenner’s Unprofitable Theory of Global Stagnation
Over the past twenty-five years, UCLA economic historian Robert Brenner, a longtime contributor to the New Left Review, has developed an increasingly influential theory of what he calls “the long downturn” — the global economic slowdown that began in 1973 with the passing of the postwar boom.
The Problem With YIMBY Economics
Twenty years ago, “the hot-button issue of land use” was a phrase that could only have been uttered as a joke. Today, it would barely raise an eyebrow. Jacobin contributor Ross Barkan, writing in New York magazine last year, described the “YIMBY war breaking out on the Left,” in which “progressives and outright socialists find themselves on all sides,” as one of the fiercest ongoing.
The Problem With YIMBY Economics
YIMBYs are right that the US needs a major expansion of its housing supply. Unfortunately, eliminating restrictions on private housing development won’t do much to get us there. Twenty years ago, “the hot-button issue of land use” was a phrase that could only have been uttered as a joke. Today, it would barely raise an eyebrow.
We Owe the French Revolution a Debt of Gratitude
On this day, 234 years ago, the people of Paris rose up to take history into their own hands.
We Owe the French Revolution a Debt of Gratitude
On this day, 234 years ago, the people of Paris rose up to take history into their own hands.
The Sources of Inflation Have Shifted. The Fed Needs to Take Note.
But what’s less often appreciated is the second kind of inflation, which can occur even without any acceleration in unit wages or profits. If the number of hours required to produce a given amount of output rises for some reason, or if its rate of decline falls — that is, if labor productivity growth falters — price inflation will rise even if wage and profit growth remain steady. We can call this type of inflation productivity-shortfall inflation.
Karl Marx Knew That the Struggle for Reforms Was Part of the Struggle for Socialism
If we fast-forward a century or so, however, we find these intellectual positions drastically reconfigured. By the middle of the twentieth century, the political economies of the industrialized world had been transformed by forms of state intervention that Marx and his comrades in the International Workingmen’s Association could scarcely have imagined. Wide swathes of industry were nationalized. Wage schedules were set in national agreements.
Why Do We Even Need Private Banks?
But besides its historical superfluity, the fragmentation of ownership is also profoundly destabilizing: the ultimate cause of much of the macroeconomic dysfunction to which capitalist economies have always been prone.
Key Inflation Measures Are Falling at Their Fastest Pace in 40 Years
Last Friday, the Commerce Department released its monthly update on personal income and spending, and as it does every month, the latest release, covering February, includes data on a key measure of inflation that’s closely watched by the Fed: the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) price index, both in its overall “headline” version and an array of variants.
We Could Have Used Twitter Trolls in the Run-Up to the Iraq War
ALSO SEE: US Senate Votes to Advance Repeal of Iraq War Authorization When the Marines crossed into Iraq twenty years ago, it still existed, but just barely. You could find it in any college town and the big metropolises, but you had to purposely seek it out in slacker coffeeshops, underground video stores, countercultural bookshops.
We Could Have Used Twitter Trolls in the Run-up to the Iraq War
In the run-up to the war, one of the most popular stock talking points among its advocates and apologists was the claim that the Western governments now hypocritically opposing George W. Bush’s drive to war — like those of France, Germany, and Canada — had never actually questioned his contention that Iraq was hiding weapons of mass destruction.
Inflation Is Set to Fall. The Fed Should Back Off.
A little over a week ago, I tried to make the case for a more relaxed view of the current inflation situation than might be gleaned from the alarmist analyses emanating from top Fed officials and some prominent commentators — not least Jason Furman, former chief economist in the Obama administration and a notable voice of inflation hawkery.
Inflation Is Set to Fall. The Fed Should Back Off.
A little over a week ago, I tried to make the case for a more relaxed view of the current inflation situation than might be gleaned from the alarmist analyses emanating from top Fed officials and some prominent commentators — not least Jason Furman, former chief economist in the Obama administration and a notable voice of inflation hawkery.
The Latest Bout of Inflation Doom-Mongering Doesn’t Add Up
Over the past few weeks I’ve been writing a series of articles about inflation and theories of inflation, and how and why those theories have changed over time. I’m not done yet — we’re only up to the late 1950s and Milton Friedman has only just made his appearance — but I think it’s worth pausing to take stock of the current inflation situation. What can those theories, and that history, tell us about the post-COVID outbreak of inflation we’re still dealing with today?
The Latest Bout of Inflation Doom-Mongering Doesn’t Add Up
If you’ve read any of my recent articles, you’ve probably noticed by now that I’m partial to the view of inflation advanced by John Maynard Keynes and his closest followers (most importantly Joan Robinson and Richard Kahn). For them, the key long-run driver of the price level is the level of wages relative to labor productivity. The logic is straightforward: the level of wages is the most important single determinant of both the supply of and the demand for goods and services.
Why Joan Robinson Blamed Unions for Inflation While Milton Friedman Did Not
In the late 1950s it dawned on the world that inflation — for the first time in history — had become a chronic, permanent peacetime condition. The puzzle that was on the minds of economists and policy makers worldwide was why.
Why Joan Robinson Blamed Unions for Inflation While Milton Friedman Did Not
In the late 1950s it dawned on the world that inflation — for the first time in history — had become a chronic, permanent peacetime condition. The puzzle that was on the minds of economists and policy makers worldwide was why.
How Inflation Became a Fact of Life
Inflation might seem to be one of those afflictions, like death or taxes, that has always been with us, but until the middle of the twentieth century, the kind of inflation we’ve experienced all our lives — a steady, long-term upward slope in the price level — had never been seen. Before World War II, the tendency of prices was to rise during economic booms but then fall in the subsequent busts.
How Inflation Became a Fact of Life
We tend to associate the inflation problem with the 1970s. But it was years earlier, in the era of Sputnik and Elvis, that the world first woke up to the reality of chronically rising prices. We're still coping with that episode's wrongheaded "lessons" today.
“Runaway Inflation” Won’t Be Getting Very Far on Foot
Trade unionism — or its absence — profoundly shapes inflation. This fact first dawned on John Maynard Keynes and other leading economists in the 1920s, and it was taken for granted in much of the mainstream analysis of inflation at least through the 1980s. Some faint, residual awareness of the connection is still ambient in the discourse, but by the time COVID-era inflation arrived, understanding of the idea, both in the broad public and among experts, had become murky and confused.
“Runaway Inflation” Won’t Be Getting Very Far on Foot
Trade unionism — or its absence — profoundly shapes inflation. This fact first dawned on John Maynard Keynes and other leading economists in the 1920s, and it was taken for granted in much of the mainstream analysis of inflation at least through the 1980s. Some faint, residual awareness of the connection is still ambient in the discourse, but by the time COVID-era inflation arrived, understanding of the idea, both in the broad public and among experts, had become murky and confused.
The Start of Inflation as We Know It
“The laws of economics, it’s often forgotten, are like the laws of engineering. There’s only one set of laws and they work everywhere.” That remark, which Larry Summers delivered more than thirty years ago in connection with the economics of the postcommunist transition countries, remains one of his all-time greatest hits. It’s fun to laugh at the naivete of such ideas.
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The Start of Inflation As We Know It
A scene from the British General Strike of 1926. Share Informer "The laws of economics, it’s often forgotten, are like the laws of engineering. There’s only one set of laws and they work everywhere." That remark, which Larry Summers delivered more than 30 years ago in connection with the economics of the post-Communist transition countries, remains one of his all-time greatest hits. It’s fun to laugh at the naivete of such ideas.
In 2021, Larry Summers Won the Inflation Debate. But His Victory Was Transitory.
Inflation is a complicated subject, but there’s one theory of prices everybody knows, even if they know nothing about economics: holding all else equal, when the price of something goes up, less of it is bought. This simple idea goes by a pretentious name: the Law of Demand. The Law of Demand is an equilibrating tendency.
Democrats May Have Won More Suburban Votes in the Midterms. That Doesn’t Bode Well.
Matt Karp Yeah, it’s interesting. There’s obviously some kind of abstraction between Biden and the Democratic Party going on. Maybe there’s a sort of general agreement that Biden is a different kind of president somehow. I don’t know quite what to make of that. Whether that actually says something about what the quality of disapproval for Biden is in its intensity or whether it has to do with a consciousness that doesn’t identify Biden with the Democrats, I’m not sure.
To Win a Political Revolution, We Need a New Mass Organization
It is premature to write a precise blueprint for what this party-like organization should look like. But there are a few principles that should guide us. First, socialists and progressives should call on Bernie and the Squad to participate in building and leading this new organization. For better or worse, only these national political figures have the resources and legitimacy to bring together millions of supporters and many disparate threads of progressive activism into a single organization.
To Win a Revolution, We Need a New Mass Organization
It’s hard for leftists in the United States to find much to celebrate these days. After the excitement of Bernie Sanders’s victories in the early 2020 Democratic primaries, our hopes were dashed when the center consolidated around Joe Biden and handed him the nomination. The wave of inspiring uprisings against police brutality later that summer was followed by disappointment too, as demands for serious reforms to attack racial and economic injustice were co-opted or sidelined.
Dems Promised Universal Pre-K, Paid Leave, and Free Community College. Now It’s All Gone.
In the spring of 2021, breathless commentators were comparing Joe Biden to FDR and LBJ. In addition to the temporary relief he’d already signed into law, the lofty comparisons were based on the ambitious spending Biden was proposing — most obviously a $2 trillion infrastructure package. Then something strange happened.
Recession or No Recession, This Economy Sucks
Is the US in a recession or not? That’s the big question that’s obsessed Washington this past week. But here’s maybe a better question: Who cares? We should, of course, care deeply about the very real, rising economic hardship ordinary Americans are enduring right now. But in the face of this suffering, meta-debates about whether these conditions technically count as a recession or not seem exceedingly trifling.
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