Benanav vs Morozov on the Political Economy of AI. Now, this will definitely be quite a read...!

"Choosing among available paths may widen or contract the field of possibilities. Some futures are rendered easier to realize; others are effectively foreclosed; and people’s understandings of what matters shift as they move forward in time—much as in Morozov’s own account of technological worldmaking. The difference is that, in my framework, this process is understood from the outset as political because it unfolds under conditions of scarcity that force collective choice among rival futures.

What is puzzling about Morozov’s critique is that this political core disappears from view. A framework designed to organize conflict over investment—to make trade-offs visible, contestable, and binding when not everything can be pursued at once—is recast as a system of administrative closure that would prematurely discipline experimentation. His analysis is not simply a misunderstanding of my proposed framework but a reversal of its intent: It reads an account meant to politicize worldmaking as an attempt to suppress it."

https://www.theideasletter.org/essay/a-real-political-economy-of-technology/

#AI #GenerativeAI #PoliticalEconomy #Democratization #PublicPolicy #Municipalism #GreenTransition #Communitarianism

on looking the liberal part, past & present
https://pdbowman.studio/briefs/14-sep-2025-fashion-liberal-society-political-community-derek-guy-toby-buckle/

#DerekGuy #DieWorkWear #suit #suitcoat #menswear #clothingStyle #style #TobyBuckle #PoliticalPhilosophy #PoliticalPhilosophyPodcast #liberal #liberalism #postliberal #postliberalism #communitarianism #fascism

The far-right turn of Blue Labour and the political ontology of post-liberalism

This genuinely surprised me but it explains a lot about the direction of Starmerism given the ideological influence Glasman in particular, as well as Blue Labour in general, seem to have had over the now dominant faction around Starmer:

Glasman hit similar beats in a January appearance on Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast, (apparently facilitated by the good offices of Nigel Farage). There, Glasman expressed his long time interest in “MAGA” as “a strategy of coalition building in which workers can again have a voice”, given “the humiliation and degradation of the working class under the rule of the progressives”.

For the Labour peer, “progressives” are “the enemy … they are the enemy because they actually despise faith, they despise family, they despise love, and they don’t even want you to enjoy sexual intercourse with your wife”. Agreeing with Bannon’s comment that progressives work to “sow disunion between the races”, Glasman said that they do this “all the time”, before adding, “it’s a relentless separation of people, victim status, microaggressions, power relationships, they are single-handedly destroying the labour movement”.

https://labourlist.org/2025/02/maurice-glasman-progressives-labour-peer/

Why has post-liberal communitarianism gone in this direction? I don’t think there’s anything in the philosophical sources far upstream of this movement (e.g. Etzioni, Macintyre, Taylor, Lasch) which easily lends itself to this direction of travel. An observation in the article above possibly hints at a mechanism which drives this movement:

There is a world of difference between criticising the left because you want to help it be better able to beat the right, and criticising the left to explain and justify why you are glad that the right has triumphed

Under what circumstances does the former become the latter? I wonder if the political ontology of communitarianism, particularly the tendency to think in terms of Gadamerian ‘horizons’ in relation to which meaning is secured, lends itself to a lazy populism in which anything outside of that horizon is a threat and anything that speaks for the horizon is a friend. It’s a philosophical approach to think about political contestation which obscures the sociological complexity of the cleavages it is generalising hazily about.

#BlueLabour #communitarianism #MauriceGlasman

G.K. Chesterton, distributism, communitarianism and more

https://khanya.wordpress.com/2016/07/08/g-k-chesterton-distributism-communitarianism-and-more/

#distributism #communitarianism #chesterton

The counter-power is you and us. The idea that an opposition political party can regulate the influence of the financial markets is illusory. Pension funds like #BlackRock or #Vanguard (whose financial weight represents the famous 1% of the population) crush any attempt.
A parallel chamber made up of elected representatives chosen by lot could become a counter-power, but coercion would quickly suffocate it.

We are the only ones who can protect ourselves from the #pandemics, of #ClimateChange and #Famine.
Does this mean that we have failed? In the past and in the present, we have talked about permanent revolution, as in France. That's why so many social movements refuse to join this or that dominant or emerging political movement.
Some see this as childish, candid idealism.

Yet, in the face of the dehumanisation of our society, mainly to the benefit of the market values attributed to our health and the air and water we breathe, this act of resistance is essential and life-saving. Fortunately, we have not forgotten that it brings us closer to our social identity, which is characteristic of our species.
However disorganised these movements and our movements may be, however isolated these hashtags may be, we are the #CounterPower

#ActuallyAutistic #Anarchism #Communitarianism

The ‘false prophet’ v the pope: Argentina faces clash of ideologies in election

In one corner of the ring stands #Javier #Milei, 52, self-described former tantric sex coach, outsider #anarcho-#capitalist and #frontrunner in Argentina’s upcoming presidential elections

In the other, his compatriot #Pope #Francis, 86, world champion of the poor, repeatedly derided by Argentina’s likely next president as “a fucking communist” and “the representative of the evil one on Earth” for promoting the doctrine of “#social #justice” to aid the underprivileged.

Milei, a political unknown until 2020, has pledged to wage a “cultural battle” to transform Argentina into a #libertarian paradise where capitalist efficiency replaces social assistance, taxes are reduced to a minimum and cash-strapped individuals are allowed to sell their body organs on the open market.

From Rome, Pope Francis has expressed grave concern about the rise of such callous policies in his home country. “The extreme right always reconstructs itself, it is the triumph of #selfishness over #communitarianism,” he said in a television interview in March when asked about #Argentina’s upcoming #elections

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/27/the-false-prophet-v-the-pope-argentina-faces-clash-of-ideologies-in-election?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

This is a brilliant, even if utterly grim, essay. The takeaway should be that we’re all in this together: any “prepper” fantasy you have about how you’re gonna ride out climate change or societal mayhem is just that. We either survive together, or you die alone.
#preppers #resilience #communitarianism #socialtesponsibility

https://www.okdoomer.io/youre-not-going-to-make-it/