The perfect symbol of a rigged economy

This week's Seeing like Chicago post revisits Hofstadter's Age of Reform, and its analysis of agrarian populism ca. 1890 and the coalition it formed with the Progressives in the next decade. seeinglikechicago.substack.com/p/the-age-of...

This week's Seeing like Chicago post revisits Hofstadter's Age of Reform, and its analysis of agrarian populism ca. 1890 and the coalition it formed with the Progressives in the next decade. seeinglikechicago.substack.com/p/the-age-of...

Wondering why no one likes your posts anymore, even among your friends? It's because @jay.bsky.team and team have decided to hide a huge amount of content from all of our feeds by default. Here's how to turn it off. First go to the hamburger menu in the upper left corner

New paper alert Toward an Austrian Theory of the Self in The Review of Austrian Economics. It's Open Access! In the paper I explore connect the Austrian theory of subjectivism to the philosophical sociology of George Herbert Mead and argue that we to explain, not assume, individual heterogeneity

New paper alert Toward an Austrian Theory of the Self in The Review of Austrian Economics. It's Open Access! In the paper I explore connect the Austrian theory of subjectivism to the philosophical sociology of George Herbert Mead and argue that we to explain, not assume, individual heterogeneity

On the left, the refurbished Lincoln bathroom. On the right, picture I took in Saddam Hussein's palace in Basra in 2005.

This week's Seeing like Chicago post talks about the importance of 'seeing through the eyes of others' and how it became a moral-political project among sociologists. With several shout-outs to the great new book Liberal Emancipation by Mikayla Novak. seeinglikechicago.substack.com/p/seeing-thr...

Among the suspected effects are a higher frequency of tropical storms, which scientists earlier linked to climate change.

I continue to sincerely want the term “Kavanaugh Stop” to be a badge of shame for the rest of Brett Kavanaugh’s days; the only bit of writing he’s known or remembered for; his sole contribution to the Law; for him to perceive, in little stabs of self-awareness, that this will be his rancid legacy.

So they didn’t like the ad. Let’s just post Reagan’s 5 min speech against tariffs as it appears on YouTube. Over and over. On all platforms (some of y’all are still on X). *1981 Sherrilyn horrified by 2025 Sherrilyn saying “let’s post Reagan’s speech.” youtu.be/5t5QK03KXPc

New Seeing Like Chicago post discusses real and imagined differences between the city and countryside. With a discussion of Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio and Albert Blumenthal's Small Town Stuff seeinglikechicago.substack.com/p/the-rural-...

New Seeing Like Chicago post discusses real and imagined differences between the city and countryside. With a discussion of Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio and Albert Blumenthal's Small Town Stuff seeinglikechicago.substack.com/p/the-rural-...

The 7 million Americans who took the streets for 'No Kings' made history, and they did something even more important They got under the skin of Donald Trump and his dictatorial regime, on a day that showed that most Americans love democracy instead My new column www.inquirer.com/opinion/no-k...

This week's Seeing Like Chicago's post discusses some very surprising links between the Studs Lonigan trilogy (a coming of age story about the Irish-American Studs) and hip-hop culture, including a 1920's Dapper Dan O'Doul. seeinglikechicago.substack.com/p/chicagos-s...

This week's Seeing Like Chicago's post discusses some very surprising links between the Studs Lonigan trilogy (a coming of age story about the Irish-American Studs) and hip-hop culture, including a 1920's Dapper Dan O'Doul. seeinglikechicago.substack.com/p/chicagos-s...

Hyped to read the special issue that goes with this introduction by @vhalsmayer.bsky.social and Eric Hounshell. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

This week's Substack post discusses the links between Richard Wright's classic Chicago novel, Native Son, and Harold Garfinkel's early (ethnomethodological) studies of the way juries work in Chicago. Or simply, how institutional racism was understood in the 1940s.

This week's Substack post discusses the links between Richard Wright's classic Chicago novel, Native Son, and Harold Garfinkel's early (ethnomethodological) studies of the way juries work in Chicago. Or simply, how institutional racism was understood in the 1940s.

The following is REAL footage from Portland, 2025. Viewer discretion is advised.

Rousseau, Adaptive Preferences, and Social Entrepeneurship open.substack.com/pub/digressi... Shout outs to @erwindekker.bsky.social, @lastpositivist.bsky.social, @serenekhader.bsky.social

I feel like this photo of masked, armed men pepper spraying a pastor protecting his community is going to be a defining picture of this moment in America for a long, long time.

Then, in 32(5), Lenfant reviews Bridel (following on their interview also in the same issue), Greitens reviews a new translation of Schurtz, @madelinew.bsky.social reviews @arnaudorain.bsky.social, @erwindekker.bsky.social reviews Slobodian www.tandfonline.com/toc/rejh20/3...

“People over Papers, a crowdsourcing project that maps sightings of US immigration agents, was taken offline yesterday by Padlet, the collaborative bulletin board platform on which it was built. It’s just the latest ICE-tracking initiative to be pulled by tech platforms in the past few days.”

BREAKING: A federal judge has granted a restraining order blocking President Trump's call-up of the National Guard in Portland. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

ICE says I cause assaults on ICE by reciting facts about ICE’s recent shooting but refuses to link to the thread. Only posting a picture. ICE lies and ICE hides. You can read the facts for yourselves

This week's post tells the story of Joseph D. Lohman who could not defend his dissertation because of death threats from the gang he had studied. Chicago sociologists did much to 'normalize' crime, but this for them too must have been unusual. seeinglikechicago.substack.com/p/on-not-fin...

My colleague Mikayla Novak has a new edited volume out called "Liberal Emancipation." She has brought together a great group of scholars, including @erwindekker.bsky.social, @ottolehto.bsky.social, and even me, to analyze the emancipatory aspects of liberalism! Read on to learn what I argue... 🧵

This week's post tells the story of Joseph D. Lohman who could not defend his dissertation because of death threats from the gang he had studied. Chicago sociologists did much to 'normalize' crime, but this for them too must have been unusual. seeinglikechicago.substack.com/p/on-not-fin...

And here is the first post, on Ben Hecht and his humanism. In my eyes Hecht was the best and most characteristic observer of Chicago in the interwar period seeinglikechicago.substack.com/p/ben-hechts...

I will be writing about my research on Chicago once a week at this new Substack: Seeing like Chicago Do subscribe, for a weekly note! seeinglikechicago.substack.com

And here is the first post, on Ben Hecht and his humanism. In my eyes Hecht was the best and most characteristic observer of Chicago in the interwar period seeinglikechicago.substack.com/p/ben-hechts...

I will be writing about my research on Chicago once a week at this new Substack: Seeing like Chicago Do subscribe, for a weekly note! seeinglikechicago.substack.com

Great new paper on enactivism and expectations in economics: "Rather than understanding expectations as internal representations, it argues that engagement with institutional temporal affordances gives rise to distinct modes of expectation – institutionally enacted ways of relating to the future."

A new issue of Œconomia. History | Methodology | Philosophy is available now journals.openedition.org/oeconomia/18...

I do not regret to inform you that we are going to win www.cnn.com/2025/09/22/e...

New PhD-student run journal in the history of economics, Oikonomos, has just published its first issue oikonomosjournal.com/index.php/oi...

I’m in Vienna right now. A city which went from being the intellectual and cultural capital of the world to a “provincial backwater” (to quote Brian Barry) in a couple of decades due to nationalism, anti-semitism and fascism which drove away the leading scholars and artists it didn’t murder.

I remember when economists spoke of premature deindustrialization in Asia and Africa. Now the Trump administration appears set on turning back the clock, and reindustrialize the USA. It might well mean that the supposedly 'premature' can pick up the baton of the knowledge and tech economy.

This hits so close to home. We are only off the H1B for a year and a half. On the one hand very thankful my employee was so supportive with the green card procedure, on the other hand very angry at the closing of opportunities for so many.

This Disney cancelation is not the easiest thing to explain to the kids. But our no. 2 is now explaining to her younger brother what a boycott is using Rosa Parks as an example. Great parenting moment. Admittedly, it also involved negotiations over what they could finish right now before canceling.

This hits so close to home. We are only off the H1B for a year and a half. On the one hand very thankful my employee was so supportive with the green card procedure, on the other hand very angry at the closing of opportunities for so many.

A very Shklarian day, I’m afraid.

Was sent a very nice image from the WINIR conference in Prague

"Don't have empathy because he didn't" is precisely wrong. If we strive to be good, and we must, that means striving to be better than those who aren't. It means being ethical towards even the unethical. It means being virtuous towards even the unvirtuous. It means maintaining our humanity.

Under any system, meaning is something that people need to find or make. The idea that restricting freedom of movement, restricting trade, etc. will give people meaningful lives is wrong. Instead, these illiberal policies coercively limit the range of ways that people can find and create meaning.

Powerful piece. And how goddamn sad we find ourselves here

This is the official spokesperson for the White House, stating that the President hopes to deploy the United States military to occupy every city controlled by the political party that opposes him. Explicitly.

The September issue of JHET is out (vol. 47:3) We have six new articles (4OA), on the Road(s) to Serfdom, the origins of financial economics, Fred Taylor and Frank Knight, Teaching GE Theory, Smith on the East India monopoly and Hayek and Aristotle. As well as five OA book reviews. Check it out!

We are now on Bluesky. Follow us from updates about new articles and book reviews in the journal, as well as the JHET writing workshops and other relevant events, workshops and conferences! The new editorial team Erwin Dekker, Catherine Herfeld, Alexandre Mendes Cunha, Harro Maas