In my latest article in Journal of Agrarian Change, I argue that through the categories of world-ecology, the history of Australian capitalism is rendered legible. The article emerges from my 2023 doctoral thesis, which placed sugar alongside histories of invasion, pastoralism, and fossil [...]
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Through the Past & Present Reading Group we have experienced an organic, collective strategy of reading and writing that makes collective intellectual labour a little easier, and much more fun. This has come to the fore most recently in both our collective reading of György Lukács’ History and [...]
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We have travelled with Lukács. Despite the global pandemic conditions of lockdown induced by Covid-19, as a group of scholars forged through collective intellectual labour, we each picked up György Lukács’ History and Class Consciousness and travelled, at least intellectually. Based in [...]
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What is the purpose of theory? What utility is offered by our concepts and frameworks? Why do we group social phenomena in some ways and separate them in others? These fundamental questions probably seem simple—or simplistic—to a seasoned academic. But as a political economist coming to the [...]
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Do we need another analysis of Thatcherism? Alexander Gallas must think so, because that is exactly what he has produced, in The Thatcherite Offensive: A neo-Poulantzasian analysis.
Understanding the implications of Margaret Thatcher’s prime-ministership, and Thatcherism more broadly, [...]
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Around the world more and more states are introducing or tightening government debt limits, or considering constitutional balanced budget amendments. In 2015 the democratic wishes of the Greek polis were summarily disregarded by the European Union, as a referendum was ignored in favour of [...]
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“So, what did you do over the summer”? Most students respond to this ubiquitous question with the familiar answers: “caught up with family”, “earned some money” or (perhaps more commonly) “lots of daytime drinking”. For a small group of political economy students from the University of [...]
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What do we mean when we call an idea or policy ‘neoliberal’? Does the term signify anything other than trends which are simply embedded in the process of capitalist development? Is it at all useful? That’s right – yet another article trying to figure out exactly what this ‘neoliberalism’ [...]
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