Travel days

I’ll be traveling for the next few days. No posts then until I return. . .

Travel days

I’ll be traveling for the next few days. No posts then until I return. . .

Utopia and the critique of political economy

I am pleased to announce that an article, “Utopia and the Critique of Political Economy,” based on my 2016 Wheelright Lecture, will soon be published in the Journal of Australian Political Economy.

Here is a link to the pdf of the pre-publication draft of that article.

Travel days

I’ll be traveling for the next 3 days or so. No posts then until I arrive. . .

Travel days

I’ll be traveling for the next 4 days or so. No posts then until I return. . .

1,000,000!

Apparently, there are lots of folks out there who also, every morning, wake up on the wrong side of capitalism.

That’s the only explanation I have for the fact that, as of yesterday, this blog reached an extraordinary milestone: it has received more than one million views.

I really don’t know what else to make of the number. I started this blog (at the suggestion of a couple of former students) back in 2009. I still call it “occasional” but, as regular readers know, it’s anything but. But I don’t have a particularly good handle on why so many people from so many “countries” (212, both official countries and territories, according to WordPress) have found their way to this blog.

I do get the occasional message from readers about how they or someone they’ve met find the information and analysis useful. That couldn’t please me more—to know that what I write here travels and serves a wide variety of people who are attempting, as that hoary German philosopher once wrote, to both interpret and change the world.

So, yes, the large number of views does seem to indicate that there are many people out there—students, professors, activists, and others—who are dissatisfied with business as usual, both with the uneven recovery from the latest crises of capitalism and with the blithe assertions by economic and political elites (and those who represent their interests in the academy and media) that there are no alternatives.

We, on the other hand, are guided by the idea that something is seriously wrong with contemporary economic and social institutions—and other worlds are indeed possible.

The readership as it turns out is even wider, as many of the posts that originally appear here are reposted on the Real-World Economics Review blog, Democracy at Work, Progress in Political Economy, and perhaps elsewhere. I want to thank all of them for their continued encouragement and support.

In all honesty, the major satisfaction I derive from this blog stems from the new kinds of research and writing it has allowed me to do—mostly concerning on-going events and commentary by others about what is going on in the world, especially (but not only) with respect to the economy and contemporary economists. My goal throughout has been to carry out (or at least point toward) a “ruthless criticism of everything existing,” a project to which many others around the world are also currently contributing.

For my part, I can’t say I’ve settled on the best way to conduct that critique and present it to readers. That’s why I’m always open to feedback and suggestions—about both topics and ways I can make this work more useful.

What I can say is I derive a great of pleasure from working on a daily basis on this blog (even if there were no readers)—and even more from the fact that so many people in the United States and around the world find it worthwhile to find the time to visit the blog and read what I write.

Perhaps someday we’ll all wake up from this nightmare, on the right side of capitalism—as it becomes a distant memory.

It’s alive!