I’ve written about the phenomenon of ‘fandom’, especially how it was fetishised and commercialised in the early 1990s, in the latest London Review of Books, in a review of Paul Campos’s A Fan’s Life.
‘A dog in the fight’
‘Madman Economics’
Article in London Review of Books about the new economic turmoil in Britain, and how the Tories have abandoned traditional neoliberal reverence for ‘the markets’.
‘The era of low interest rates is ending – its legacy is inequality and toxic politics’
Comment piece for The Guardian, on the end of the era of ultra-cheap money, and who ultimately benefited from it.
Trussonomics will be a reckless exercise in slashing the state when there’s nothing left to cut
Opinion piece in The Guardian on the revival of failed ‘supply-side’ economic dogma, as the inspiration of Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng.
‘Where the internet went wrong – and how we can reboot it’
Review essay in The New Statesman, discussing The Internet Is Not What You Think It Is by Justin E. H. Smith and Internet for the People by Ben Tarnoff.
Extract from Unprecedented?
Unprecedented?: How Covid-19 Revealed the Politics of Our Economy is published this week, co-authored by me and three colleagues in the Department of Politics at Goldsmiths. You can read an extract from the book in the new issue of The New Statesman here.
‘The Problem of Trust in the Digital Public Sphere’
In February I was invited by Marion Fourcade to give a lecture at Social Science Matrix, UC Berkeley. The lecture, based on various recent arguments and pieces of mine on neoliberalism, platforms and the crisis of liberalism, was entitled ‘The Problem of Trust in the Digital Public Sphere’. You can watch it here.
Podcast interview on neoliberalism & post-neoliberalism
I discussed neoliberalism and the recent edition of Theory Culture & Society on ‘Postneoliberalism?’, edited by me and Nick Gane, with Mark Pennington for the KCL Governance Podcast. You can listen here.
‘Post-Neoliberalism?’
Nicholas Gane and I have co-edited a special issue of Theory Culture & Society on the theme of ‘Post-neoliberalism?’. It features articles by Melinda Cooper, Quinn Slobodian, Dorit Geva, Roger Burrows and Harrison Smith, Alan Finlayson, Nicholas Gane and me, on various aspects of the challenges to neoliberalism, especially those from the political Right. The special issue was accepted and the pieces commissioned prior to 2020, so they don’t confront the most recent upheavals and challenges to the political-economic order. However, the Introduction (which is open access) does address the significance of the Covid-19 pandemic, and what it means for the status of ‘neoliberalism’.
‘The secret of Johnson’s success lies in his break with Treasury dominance’
New column for The Guardian, on the long shadow of Gordon Brown, and how Johnson has escaped it.
The decline of the ‘state effect’
Comment piece on the crisis of trust in British government, originally drafted in October, now shared on the PERC blog.
What was Corbynism?
Blogpost at PERC, seeking to relocate Corbynism in the political and economic context that gave rise to it: Osbornite austerity.
William Davies 