Pauline von Hellermann#FollowTheMoney 𧔠21/n Suddenly remembered that at the end of 2022 I posted this here. So embarrassing - cringe, as my children would say! That I actually wrote âthe new world is almost bornâ. No itâs not. The time of monsters is in full, full swing, the new world really is not born yet. All we can do is to keep on trying to organise to make it happen one day. #Gramsci
Pauline von Hellermann (@pvonhellermannn@mastodon.green)
Attached: 1 image 2023 marks the 50th anniversary of Schumacherâs 1973 book #SmallIsBeautiful. Letâs make it a turning point year for everyone recognising that indeed Small Is Beautiful, a year of #Transition towards #CommunityBuilding #Commoning, #Degrowth #AgroEcology #2023 1/5 The new world is almost born
#FollowTheMoney 𧔠22/n Last point and then I will stop for today: saw #Hamilton a few weeks ago and was really struck by how then it was possible to start a revolution, raise an army and WIN! Like, that would just be totally impossible now. The imbalance in military power, just as in wealth (and control over media etc etc) is just so VAST now. Itâs impossible to beat. Thatâs why noone really even tries anymore.
#FollowTheMoney 𧔠23/n. Sorry- one more! Just to end on a less bleak note: seeing this toot reminded me that, of course, that billionaire military might AI bleak dystopia is real,IS our world, but there is actually an even bigger reality here every day, in all of us, since forever. Which is that the vast majority of us humans basically just want a simple life, with family, friends, barbecues (ok maybe not perfect example but since itâs here). #FrugalAbundance
Archaeo-Histories (@archaeohistories@ohai.social)
Attached: 1 image Stone cooking supports used to grill skewers of meat by Minoans on Santorini, 3600 years old. The line of holes in the base supplied coals with oxygen. Many consider modern "souvlaki" street kebabs a direct descendant of this portable food system. Museum of Prehistoric Thera, Greece #archaeohistories
#FollowTheMoney 𧔠24/n. Like, watching the blue tits busy building their nest in the box outside our kitchen window, feeding their young, flying back and forth: most of us humans are so much closer to them than to scheming billionaires.
And: this forever (i hope forever- in peril due to other!) reality - of birds, trees, parents hugging children, just enjoying being together - this is perhaps the real reality. Or at least always also there. Mustnât forget!
#FollowTheMoney 𧔠25/n back to a reality most of us in the UK inhabit on a daily basis: the crumbling public sector. Found this report on NHS dentistryâs struggle for survival really very moving just now. #NHS #dentistry #UKpolitics
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001y0kf?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile
#FollowTheMoney 𧔠26/n An outstanding review by Will Davies (my Goldsmiths colleague) of Brett Christopherâs âThe Price is Wrongâ: about our neoliberal political economy (using a Braudelian distinction btw âthe marketâ and âcapitalismâ - SO useful) and how this explain why investments in fossil fuels continue to vastly outstrip those in renewables. Key point: Capitalism IS rent-seeking.
#ClimateEmergency
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n07/william-davies/antimarket
#FollowTheMoney đ§”27/n The piece btw contains a necessary critique of my sci-fi âmoney rulesâ take a few posts above. Although i still like the idea of all this being a kind of superorganism. But yes, it is about power - political economy, not just economy.
#FollowTheMoney 𧔠28/n But honestly, just read this piece - everything in this 𧔠in one brilliant analysis. And, crucially, using to explain lack of climate action. This is what everyone, each one of us, needs to think about! âEcologically speaking, neoliberalism couldnât have come at a worse time.â
Here Christopherâs book itself:
The Price is Wrong. Why Capitalism Wonât Save The Planet.
https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/3069-the-price-is-wrong
#FollowTheMoney 𧔠29/n Another overlap with #AcademicVenting đ§”- because itâs all of a piece! Because the crisis in HE is a key phenomenon in all this!
This great piece by Jessica Wildfire really needs to be read in full, but this extract most apt here:
âUniversities aren't institutions of knowledge anymore. They're assets. They're revenue streams. If they're not generating money for the top, then they only pose a threat, and they have to be weakened and destroyed.â
Aral Balkan (@aral@mastodon.ar.al)
âA lot of rich people donât actually want an education system or the educated population that would come along with it. Sure, it would be better for everyone. But it would also mean having to share, and these people have let their greed literally drive them insane.â https://www.okdoomer.io/im-a-professor-heres-why-im-walking-away-from-my-tenure/ 1/2
#FollowTheMoney 𧔠30/n
Wow. As Bregman says: Stunning graph: the plummeting tax rates of the richest Americans. For the first time in history, billionaires have a lower effective tax rate than working-class Americans.
Look at 1980 - I do continue to think that *everything* could have been different if Carter hadnât lost to Reagan.
#FollowTheMoney 𧔠31/n I think the graph came from this New York Times piece but donât have a subscription so canât check.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/05/03/opinion/global-billionaires-tax.html
#FollowTheMoney 𧔠32/n Watched âThe Founderâ on Netflix yesterday, about McDonalds. Really interesting- would recommend it. Particularly how the real breakthrough came when Kroc, advised by Sonneborn, went for real estate. Checked it on Wikipedia:
âMcDonald's present-day real-estate holdings represent $37.7 billion on its balance sheet, about 99% of the company's assets and 35% of its annual gross revenue.â
#FollowTheMoney 𧔠33/n
Today an overlap with #ClimateDiary: British farmers are struggling due to climate change, Brexit AND supermarket power:
Most farmers receive less than 1% of the profit made from the food they grow. Of the 20% food inflation experienced by the public a minuscule proportion made its way back to the farmer. Tesco made a ÂŁ2.3bn profit last year, while 49% of fruit and veg farmers fear theyâll be out of business before the end of this one.
#FollowTheMoney đ§”34/n #ClimateDiary
We had a veg box for 12 years from Hankham Organics; 3 weeks ago we suddenly had a note with our box that they were closing, as it wasnât working financially any more. đąđąđą
And a fish merchant who we got smoked salmon for Christmas from closed this year too, for the same reasons. Plus Goldsmithsâ woes of course (#AcademicVenting). So many good, small organisations struggling and ending.
#FollowTheMoney 35/n #ClimateDiary #AcademicVenting
This is why:
#FollowTheMoney 𧔠36/n Here a positive, progressive use of money flows:
1400+ Columbia University alumni from its 20 schools have pledged to withhold all âfinancial, programmatic, and academic supportâ until school meets demands related to divestment, student discipline, and community safety.
Group website says over $63 million of donations at risk. #Gaza #studentprotests
#FollowTheMoney đ§”37/n
Even though all of us living in the UK know that homelessness is terrible (and has grown exponentially since 2010), it is still shocking to see this graph.
(There are notes on methods: all countries included both rough sleeping and invisible homelessness).
#FollowTheMoney 𧔠38/n
A rare silver lining to severe cuts in local council budgets: for the last few years Eastbourne have stopped spraying our streets and I love this time of year, flowers reclaiming the streets everywhere. #Rewilding #ClimateDiary
#FollowTheMoney 𧔠39/n
Have to add this here. The last 14 years summarised in 4 images #UKPolitics #GE2024
EDIT: here link itself too as images in screenshot i complete
#FollowTheMoney 𧔠40/n havenât added anything here in a while - but this needs to be posted!
Trumpâs victory adds record $64bn to wealth of richest top 10
Share surge increases Elon Muskâs fortune by $26bn in a day as Jeff Bezos, Sergey Brin and Bill Gates also benefit
#FollowTheMoney 𧔠41/n Ok so the reason for the long pause in this 𧔠was being made rdundant in July, by my lovely (not) employer of 13 years, Goldsmiths University. You can read all about it in this long #AcademicVenting đ§”, tracing the whole sorry saga from first rumblings in Nov â23 to the bitter end. But of course, #redundancy is all about money, and I think about money all the time now (I have to), so really should write it about it all here a bit
Pauline von Hellermann (@pvonhellermannn@mastodon.green)
Half thinking of starting an #AcademicVenting hashtag here, about the dire, dire state of UK (global?) higher education. Sharing nuggets of senior management decisions, neoliberal language, and overall slow collapse. Wonât work of course because most of us canât risk honesty, but honestly: the everyday reality of what is happening deserves recording in all its depressing and damning detail. #Universities #AcademicChatter #neoliberalism
#FollowTheMoney đ§”42/n Firstly, I am conscious of my own #redundancy being very much part of the wider hollowing out, draining out of both public services and professional, creative industries everywhere (see many posts âŹïž). I am really scared about this - itâs strange how this is happening but not really talked about; no #unemployment crisis narrative at all, as of course most people, like me, end up not being âunemployedâ but doing smaller, precarious jobs; very few of us on benefiso no stats
#FollowTheMoney 𧔠43/n Now of course Elon Musk - having made 2/3 of Twitter staff redundant - has been hired by Trump to head the new âEfficiency Departmentâ. i find this prospect alone deeply, deeply scary - both in terms of public services disappearing and the 1000s who will lose their jobs. As you all know: there is absolutely nothing âefficientâ about these kinds of cuts whatsoever. They are deeply destructive, nothing else.
#FollowTheMoney 𧔠44/n but also: #Redundancy has made me think deeply (of course!) about the role of money in personal decision making. I may be wrong but it feels like this is something we donât talk about much, and yet it is is so central to everything! I DO want to talk about it, even if I have nothing insightful to say actually. Just a few observations.
1. Money was at core of my decisions around redundancy. I have two teenage children and a high mortgage.
#FollowTheMoney 𧔠45/n
I could not go for lovely 0.5 offered, or for tribunal; I had to opt for enhanced redundancy. If had chosen tribunal route i would have probably been able to keep my job as the 12 who did (who were able to do so due to different financial circumstances) were all reinstalled in an even lovelier deal btw management and union. (The 64 of us eho accepted enhanced redundancy by deadline did not know this would happen).
#FollowTheMoney 𧔠46/n
2. Money is now also so core to all my decision-making in how to spend my time, what jobs to go for - and balancing the need for money with wanting to do good, environmental work, and things I enjoy and am good at. It is quite strange, I gave a lecture at SOAS in Feb this year on âDoing Work You Believe in and be paid for itâ, on the very day the Goldsmiths mass redundancies were announced (will see if I can upload recording here)
#FollowTheMoney 𧔠47/n
This was a combination of two papers: one on unpaid Eastbourne climate activism, one on sustainability professionals in the palm oil sector. It is very strange that I gave that lecture and wrote that paper - this is me now! I am out here in the wilderness, having to make a living, and yes, doing consultancy work. Which, of course, as I am rapidly learning, does not have to mean âselling out â - my current work for the RSPB is really rewarding.
https://journals.librarypublishing.arizona.edu/jpe/article/id/4717/
#FollowTheMoney 𧔠48/n here also a link to the other paper on Eastbourne climate activism, iâve shared it before but doing so again as it has a brief section on what kind of work is rewarded by high salaries, and what isnât. I still feel this is an incredibly important topic and not really talked about enough in #ClimateAction circles. Maybe we can talk about it more together here?
From Ecophany to Burnout? An Anthropologistâs Reflections on Two Years of Participating in Council-Citizen Climate Governance in Eastbourne
In July 2019, Eastbourne Borough Council declared a climate emergency and committed to making Eastbourne carbon neutral by 2030. In order to achieve this, citizens together with Council created a unique model of council-citizen collaborative climate governance, the Eastbourne Eco Action Network (EAN). EANâs main strategy has been the setting up of targeted working groups, each bringing together Councillors, engaged citizens and providers, and each tackling a specific area of climate action through a combination of infrastructure, institutional and behavioural changes. As an environmental anthropologist living in Eastbourne, I was involved in this process right from the beginning, having had my own âecophanyââthe realisation that the climate emergency required urgent actionâin February 2019. Two years and one pandemic later, in this paper I reflect on the overall experiences and challenges of EANâs and Eastbourne Borough Councilâs work towards town-wide carbon neutrality to date, discussing possible factors (structural and other) determining varying successes and failures. At the same time, this paper provides an auto-ethnographic account of what âengaged anthropologyâ means in practice, mapping out the real contributions anthropologists can and should make in local climate action, but also reflecting on challenges encountered along the way.
#FollowTheMoney 𧔠49/n Anyway, just to end for today: a huge, HUGE shout out â€ïž to everyone on here who works âfreelanceâ, going from one projec to another (more on âprojectsâ and projectification later - so important in itself). I am now realising the immense privilege of a secure job (not secure in my case, as it turned out), where you donât have to think about where your money will come from in 6 months or whatever. It is a fundamentally different state of being. Everything now existential.
#FollowTheMoney 𧔠50/n Today adding this excellent video by @RichardJMurphy on how âthe Cityâ is not our âJewel in the Crownâ, as Rachel Reeves put it, but a parasite extracting huge amounts of money for self-enrichment. It does not add any value to the economy.
So important to see the City for what it is.
Do the people who work in the City of London add value?
#FollowTheMoney 𧔠51/n Richardâs video has spurred me on to do a few posts now on #PrivateEquity. Long overdue here, because private equity is at the heart of how our world works!
(Just to state again: i am not an expert, just someone who is trying to make sense of our world by #FollowingTheMoney, in an eclectic đ§”)
To start with basics: what is private equity? I like this clear definition by Justin Robertson
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13563460903288270
#FollowTheMoney 𧔠52/n
The amount of wealth and assets held by private equity is vast. The biggest private equity firm of all is of course #BlackRock, founded by Larry Fink in 1988. Here is a lovely Statistica chart showing how its âassets under managementâ grew from $1.31 trillion (i mean, not bad) to $10.41 trillion in 2024. Bloomberg predicts they will hit $15 trillion in a few years
https://www.statista.com/statistics/891292/assets-under-management-blackrock/
#FollowTheMoney 𧔠53/n I have to go now but over the next few days just want to talk about what this means: it means that so much of the world around us - restaurants, care homes, appartment blocks, student accommodation, etc etc, is all owned by private equity; that there is no escape.
#FollowTheMoney 𧔠54/n
This article is hard to stomach for all those of us currently looking for work, and not finding anything suitable, or anything at all. But itâs good that at least rising #unemployment is recognised now.
My own #redundancy last year and subsequent struggles have made me so alert to all these wider structural changes; I am really scared that this may be just the beginning. Terrible combination of AI and money going only to the rich
#FollowTheMoney đ§”55/n
âKeri said her father had been âpowered by unconditional loveâ but he felt the government took advantage of the nearly 6 million people like him who care for a loved one, saving the taxpayer at least ÂŁ162bn a year.â
This reminded of a thought I had a while back: how salaries/wages are directly negatively correlated with love.
When you do something you love, or out of love, this is instantly punished by capitalism.
Carers, nursery workers -
âNobody found him in timeâ: how neglect and stress led to the deaths of a full-time carer and his son
David Lodge died after being found next to his father and full-time carer Peterâs body. His sister Keri believes the strain of caring and lack of government support contributed to their deaths
#FollowTheMoney đ§”56/n
- nurses, art gallery workers, conservation NGOs, academics, etc - all these jobs that people do out of love for something/one are poorly paid. Love is exploited. More love = less money.
Only love of money itself and nothing else is rewarded with money (high salaries, bonuses, etc). Maybe not surprising - what do you expect in capitalism - but not much honesty about it. All that neoliberal motivational #Passion talk (âmy work is my passionâ) - exploitative bollocks.
#FollowTheMoney đ§”57/n
This LinkedIn post resonates ⊠wanted to share here just in case there are others who are in this situation too.
Also one reason I hardly ever add to this đ§”any more is that, of course, I am literally trying to #FollowTheMoney, or rather, divert some from somewhere to my bank accountđ #JobSearch #FediHire
This week, a friend told me theyâd taken a job with lower pay and a⊠| Catherine Stagg-Macey | 158 comments
This week, a friend told me theyâd taken a job with lower pay and a smaller title. âItâs not my dream job,â they said. âBut I need the money.â My heart ached for him. The last two years have been the hardest Iâve seen in 30 years of watching the job market. Talented people who once had their pick of opportunities are taking lower salaries/titles because they donât have any choice. This in a world thatâs full of âFind your purpose.â And âDo work that lights you up every damn day.â F**k purpose for a minute. Thereâs no shame in taking the job that feeds your family. Thereâs no shame in staying in an industry you donât love if it keeps the lights on. Some of us are just trying to get through the month. And thatâs okay. This season wonât last forever. I used to believe I had to âlove what I doâ every day. That if I wasnât perfectly aligned with my highest values, I was failing. What a load of privileged bullshit. I once seriously considered selling used knickers on eBay. It was twenty years ago and I was broke and desperate. I never went through with it but it tells you where my head was. To those of you who are between jobs, just remember you more resilient, more adaptable, more courageous than any job title can measure. And this too shall pass. | 158 comments on LinkedIn
#FollowTheMoney 𧔠58/n
I think so much about middle class-ness at the moment. More research in news this week how itâs the top 10%, those with incomes over ÂŁ36,000, who are largely responsible for CO2 emissions; but itâs even more than that; middle-class aspirations shape everything. So conscious of this now as I am so driven in finding work so as not to have to sell our (nice, middle class, highly mortgaged house). Then a friend just sent me this - must read. #ClimateDiary
#FollowTheMoney đ§”59/n
Meanwhile our lovely king..
Meanwhile also, as I am listening to the radio as I am typing this: yet another horrific attack in northern #Gaza. Another 50 killed, after yesterdayâs 80. This is our world.
#FollowTheMoney đ§”60/n
âThe wealth of the worldâs 3,000 billionaires has surged by $6.5tn (ÂŁ4.8tn) in real terms over the past decade, according to Oxfam, equivalent to 14.6% of global outputâ
Capitalism is shit.It is by the rich for the rich and destroys everything else in the process. Letâs keep saying it!
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2025/jun/26/billionaires-wealth-oxfam-report?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
Greenpete@pvonhellermannn
When I read "enough to end annual global poverty 22 times over", it hits hard that it IS the billionaires causing poverty.
I'm not sure that's stating the obvious or not.
Either way, the billionaires are destroying everything, ultimately including themselves!
This level of wealth has to end, and soon.
Juha Autero@greenpete @pvonhellermannn Taxing the rich is not about ending poverty, but about stabilizing the economy. Stock markets are nowadays basically a Ponzi scheme based on speculation and lot of that wealth is make-believe. Taxing that wealth would keep valuations in realistic level.