prepping for week 3 of my seminar - an intro to green industrial policy. really impressed by the quality of discussion so far, w students sharing perspectives on singapore, turkey, hungary, china, and more. big thanks to @bhbradlow.bsky.social for the inspiration. dm for the full syllabus!

what do we talk about when we talk about energy? my answer features (among many others) adorno, bogdanov, and the austrian communist wilhelm frank, who experimented with national exergy balances in the 1950s. out april 2026.

On 19th March 2026 from 9:30AM-3PM UTC+1 at SciencesPo Salle 900, 9 rue de la Chaise, Paris, we are organising a workshop about ecological planning with @gkahan.bsky.social and LIEPP’s Environmental Policies research group. Register here: www.indep.network/event/worksh...

📣 News from the OBFA-TRANSFORM project 📣 Our Emmy Noether research group is fast approaching its halfway point and we’ve recently received confirmation of funding from @dfg.de for the second project period from 2026 to 2029 🎊 That's why we are launching our new website at obfa-transform.eu

New euphemism for "bottomless corruption and naked abuses of power" just dropped

cover art is juuuuust about final

Landmark move: New York City's comptroller @bradlander.bsky.social, with hundreds of billions under his control, recommends dropping investment giant Blackrock because they won't reckon with climate change. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Thinking back to this excellent concluding paragraph from @lioneltrolling.bsky.social's Substack post after Zohran Mamdani's initial primary victory:

the password to the louvre surveillance server was "louvre" www.thesocialpost.it/2025/11/02/f...

NEW 📰: Building a more effective government that moves beyond the status quo requires honest reflection. Drawing on interviews with more than 45 former senior Biden officials, our latest report offers 161 practical recommendations for better governance. https://bit.ly/4312Zid

Everyone wants to streamline bureaucracy, but maybe we'd get better results by making it *harder* for university admins to chase fads. Imagine the money we'd save with a mandatory cooling-off period before launching a "Center for Blockchain Studies" or dumping millions into the latest edtech toy.

🌍 New in @nature.com: The geoeconomic turn in decarbonization, with data from Simon Evenett et al. and @industrialpolicy.bsky.social @ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social @natureatcal.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🧵

In a world riven by inequality and devastated by climate + ecological crisis, what would it take for "green industrial policy" to empower the working class in Global North + South, and be truly green? New @cplusc.bsky.social report by me and Isabel Estevez (1/3) t.co/78sQQe4d1g

Ten days left to submit proposals for the inaugural ALPE conference in Richmond. Come join us for this exciting launch! lpeproject.org/blog/cfp-ina...

For Europe, the lesson is sobering: we talk “sovereignty funds,” but GGFs already operate as a parallel financial infrastructure on a scale we haven’t matched. This is how China turns finance into an industrial weapon.

it’s articles like these that give new meaning to Arrighi’s argument that organizational innovations help reconsolidate hegemonic orders. if the American century was powered by vertical integration, the Chinese century will be powered by competitive high-tech sectoral planning

Organizing this workshop with @solveigdegen.bsky.social and @cominsitu.bsky.social, in case you'd like to join via zoom: hu-berlin.zoom-x.de/j/6969547647... Meeting ID: 696 9547 6478 Passcode: 800441 registration here: criticaltheoryinberlin.de/event/democr...

Very good @brusselermel.bsky.social - and what timing to publish this call for planning the American economy. Wonder what the Fed does in that progressive future :)

📣 New article w/ @iliasalami.bsky.social & @tomchodor.bsky.social on the return of industrial policy globally @globalpolicy.bsky.social. Does this signal a 'New Washington Consensus'? And does the return of industrial policy 'rebuild the ladder' of economic development? 🔗➡️ tinyurl.com/yk2wvttc 1/12

Fabulous lede from @jemima.bsky.social www.ft.com/content/0e24...

“This moment need not be seen as a crisis. Rather, it presents a pivotal opportunity for Brazil to assert itself as a sovereign economic power – less reliant on Washington and more engaged with an emerging multipolar global order.” -Pedro Rossi www.aljazeera.com/opinions/202...

Glad to share my review essay “Changing China in Sociological Eyes” (AJS, July 2025). It reviews three recent books, while urging historicizing China’s reform and discussing the relationship between area studies and sociology. I’d love to hear your thoughts! www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

I love that former NYT public editor @sulliview.bsky.social is public-editing from the outside. "With this made-up scandal, combined with the pre-election editorial, the Times looks like it’s on a crusade against Mamdani. "And no lofty explanation about the mission can disguise it."

New policy brief that I co-authored with @akentikelenis.bsky.social for @plataformacipo.bsky.social, entitled "BRICS and the Green Industrialization of the Future." plataformacipo.org/en/publicati...

Meet the new NYT city editor, Joseph McCarthy

Jesus Christ, Bill de Blasio is cooking here. nymag.com/intelligence...

“Politics is not just about the problems we have,” the authors rightly observe. “It’s about the problems we see.” Unfortunately, Abundance itself suffers from a severe case of myopia. Sandeep Vaheesan, legal director of @openmarkets.bsky.social, reviews ABUNDANCE:

say it again: 4 million people work in higher ed, the largest employer in 10 states, second largest employer in 10 more, and in 60 of the 100 biggest cities ROI for NIH and NSF for local economies is conservatively 4x, often close to 10x demolishing higher education is economic sabotage

Got public luxury on my mind at the moment... See this wonderful, concise post from Phil Jones.

It’s not all bad news.

I wrote about the Sheinbaum government’s industrial policy, and what it might have to teach aspiring post-neoliberals in the U.S. newrepublic.com/article/1948...

I have a new article out on wage-earner funds, a famous attempt at economic democracy in Sweden in the 70s & 80s. It explores the funds' defeat, emphasising the issue's stronger resonance with businesses compared to workers & the Social Democratic Party journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

This is very good and anticipates some of my own thoughts on the geopolitics of this moment. I have much more to say, but this is an excellent starting point.

Al Gore citing Theodor Adorno

This whole piece is great but this paragraph especially:

Excellent op-ed by @abenanav.bsky.social. The Trumpist mess isn’t just a crisis, but also a prime opportunity to push for bold redistributive policy. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/21/o...

Thanks for the great academic action shot @gkahan.bsky.social ! :) I really enjoyed talking to you all about how we can make economic sociology more relevant to our times. I'm excited about the possibilities for interdisciplinary work bringing het econ and IPE into econ soc!

some wonderful moments this weekend at WSES 2025, with folks tuning in from many time zones. our central problematic: does economic sociology have a future? two tentative yet recurring points of discussion👇

Fascinating survey of policymakers etc in India, Brazil, South Africa, and Germany. It was carried out from mid-Oct to early Dec, so before the world really changed. h/t @chinagsproject.bsky.social koerber-stiftung.de/en/projects/...

Submitted the final version of my next book on AI, Big Tech, and the geopolitical struggles over them. Now hopefully nothing important happens on those topics before it comes out... Pre-order here: www.amazon.co.uk/Silicon-Empi...

Very excited to share that we've put together our first print issue of @the-breakdown.bsky.social feat. some incredible contributors 🥲 Join us 7 May in London where I'll be in conversation w/the excellent @quinnslobodian.com and @geoffmann.bsky.social Tix @ the link

I often tell my students this Joan Robinson quote, and not as a joke “The purpose of studying economics is not to acquire a set of ready-made answers to economic questions, but to learn how to avoid being deceived by economists.”

is it good when people are recommending they take burner phones when visiting you or scoop from @andybounds.bsky.social Gift link: on.ft.com/3XXuB5h

🚨Responding to Trump’s tariffs, Chinese officials now restrict exports of rare earths and magnets. In my book EXTRACTION: The Frontiers of Green Capitalism, I present two futures for critical minerals. These are simplified stylizations—but clarify the stakes of this trade war.

In a rational 2025, countries would rewrite trade rules to improve living standards in poor and working class communities, while fighting the apocalyptic threat of climate breakdown. Trump is doing the opposite.

Really looking forward to the second annual Wisconsin School of Economic Sociology meeting next week at the University of Wisconsin, Madison! I'm particularly honored to be giving the opening keynote, entitled "The Problem of Climate Change and the Analogy of Development." wses.mmm.page/2025

it’s been an honor to collaborate with colleagues on this. the response has been overwhelmingly positive and seems to signal a clear message: economic sociologists are in search of a new paradigm. join us as we look for answers. in madison & via zoom: wses.mmm.page/2025

“For decades, Mexico has been characterized by the micropolitics of clientelism. The return of ‘democratic planning’ would mark a sea change in the country’s political economy.” NEW: David Adler, Vanessa Romero Rocha, and Michael Galant on Claudia Sheinbaum www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/the...

"Specifically, when currency and banking crises co-occur, regimes whose support coalitions include both mobile and fixed capital face contradictory demands over adjustment policy, and as a result authoritarian regimes are likely to break down across this political cleavage." Thinking about this!