Science Demands a Sacrifice!

So I've been pretty focused on the literature about fascists that I almost feel like I'm not an economist anymore. To combat that, I've decided to read more of the economic literature. Obviously, I'm still going to read what I'm interested in, but my research interests have gotten...weird. I combed through the American Economic Review until I found a title that interested me. It's about scientists dying. I picked the one about scientists dying.

The Right Doesn't Like It When You Correctly Identify Racism

I guess feelings don't care about facts either. Since writing a report about the very true presence of VDare and Red Ice TV on Facebook, Guardian tech reporter Julia Carrie Wong has received a bunch of attention from right wing outlets, angrily stating that she correctly identifies racists online.

The Nazis Still Have No Concept of Security Culture

This week has certainly been one for Nazi leaks. First with Richard Spencer ranting about kikes and octoroons, then his right hand man being doxxed by other nazis, now the entirety of the Iron March forums awaiting doxxes. It totally makes sense that Nazis would have zero concept of security culture since their ideology is predicated on caring about nothing but yourself.

Richard Spencer Made Me Look Up What an Octoroon Is

Hoo boy! Apparently, Milo leaked some audio of Richard Spencer's reaction to learning of Heather Heyer's death and the negative media attention it earned him. Let's say he's displeased. Slur-filled transcription under the cut.

New Zine!

After persistent nagging by right-wing trolls, I decided to write a "how to define fascism" zine, so they can stop asking me to define fascism. They'll probably still ask me anyway. You can read the zine here.

There's No Evidence of a Robot Takeover–This Is a Bad Thing

Noah Smith wrote a pretty compelling op ed in Bloomberg on Tuesday demonstrating that worries about a robot apocalypse–the eclipse of human labor by machine labor–are unfounded. He points to the rather steady employment-to-population ratio, the positive correlation between IT investment and jobs, and low productivity growth as proof that robots do not, in fact, cost at least the macroeconomy jobs. (We can't necessarily make assertions microeconomically.)

This is a bad thing.

Fascist Economic Anxiety

The "economic anxiety" narrative of the Trumpian moment is back under the microscope this week thanks to a NYT op-ed that cited some new research in Politics & Society.. The article and the op-ed alike are riddled with the sort of neoclassical assumptions that have hampered the discussion of fascist political economy and its role in elevating Trump to the White House.