Matt Thompson

'Moon (slips away .. )
Oil Paint Sketch

This is more of an indictment of what has been considered good research than a revelation that AI can do good social science.

I'd like to see Claude go build a relationship with members of a former autocracy and then generate a clear theory to explain something no one had caught before

Refugee status to be temporary as Shabana Mahmood rips up rules on UK asylum Home secretary announces 30-month protection limit, with refugees required to leave if their home countries are later judged safe

Labour "shifting left" update: Agreeing to participate in a massive destabilising regional war while, *the same hour* announcing tighter border restrictions to limit future refugees from the same war. Somehow both infinitely barbaric and breathlessly provincial. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

A new episode of Future Histories!

This time I talk to Cédric Durand (@cedricdurand.bsky.social) about ecological planning, institutional utopias, and the idea of bifurcation.

Full episode here:
www.futurehistories.today/episoden-blo...

#FutureHistories #Podcast

Get tickets – The Solidarity Economy: Nonprofits and the making of neoliberalism – St Katharine Cree The Solidarity Economy: Nonprofits and the making of neoliberalism – St Katharine Cree, Fri 22 May 2026 - Tehila Sasson in conversation with Matt Thompson

Stir To Action has invited me to join their book festival on 22 May. I’ll be talking with Matt Thompson (@mattthompson.bsky.social) about charity, the economy, and what a genuinely solidaristic economy might require today.

Get your ticket here!

www.tickettailor.com/events/stirt...

Interregnum - Labour's Death Spiral Podcast Episode · Politics Theory Other · February 21 · 46m

Latest episode of Interregnum - PTO's show within a show with @leninology.bsky.social - we talked about McSweeney, Mandelson, and the broader crisis of legitimacy facing the British state and its key institutions:

Child’s Play, by Sam Kriss Tech’s new generation and the end of thinking

hilarious article about the horrible, no good, very bad, new tech AI startup generation

harpers.org/archive/2026...

The Berkeley School: Critical Theory, Political Economy, and the Future of Intellectual History by Jonathon Catlin This essay is part of a JHI Blog forum: “The Return of Political Economy in Intellectual History.”

In the forum on political economy, Jonathon Catlin asks what a public debate about the Frankfurt School's legacy among prominent former students of Martin Jay—the "Berkeley School"—tells us about the future relationship between political economy and intellectual history.
@joncatlin.bsky.social

The historical, political and cultural significance of Peter Mandelson Jem and Alan get deep into the historical significance of Peter Mandelson, his career and his recent fall. What has the Epstein case revealed about the ideology of our ruling elites? Why did Mandel…

The Meaning of Peter Mandelson. Me & @profafinlayson.bsky.social on the fall of Mandelson and why he ever mattered. Is the Long '90s finally totally over? Would we rather be ruled by the actual Sith than guys who hang around with Steven Pinker? It's all here:
culturepowerpolitics.org/2026/02/17/t...

New article by Phil A. Neel examining the post-2020 political order, arguing that liberal myths about law, elections, and restraint function as counterinsurgency in an era of open state violence.

illwill.com/lies

Spring 2026 Colloquium: Class, Identity, Politics In the New Conjuncture The 2025-2026 colloquium continues for the Spring semester, and we are excited to host such challenging and dynamic scholars, writers, researchers,...

I am speaking tomorrow (online) as part of the @georgemasonu.bsky.social colloquium series “Class, Identity, Politics In the New Conjuncture” on “The Gramscians of the New Right”: culturalstudies.gmu.edu/colloquium/2...

Geographies of subsumption - Thomas Cowan, 2026 This article draws on heterodox scholarship on capitalist subsumption to revise core approaches within Marxist and critical geography. The article argues that a...

New publication! In this paper I draw on heterodox marxist engagements with subsumption to revise core approaches within marxist geography. Subsumption provides us with a dynamic tool to rethink capitalist property, uneven development and difference. Do reach out for access!

doi.org/10.1177/2043...

THE HIDDEN ABODES OF CAPITALIST SPACE: Rethinking Crisis and the Built Environment This article develops a new theory of the relationship between the built environment and the reproduction of capitalism. To do so, it pursues a critical engagement with David Harvey's landmark texts ...

I have a new article out in
@ijurresearch.bsky.social!

"The Hidden Abodes of Capitalist Space: Rethinking Crisis and the Built Environment."

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Should be of interest to those writing/thinking about Hegel, Harvey, capitalism's "hidden abodes," and much more

Great piece from @dsquareddigest.bsky.social, which touches on one of the big theories for why English-speaking countries do especially badly at housebuilding:

Adversarial and litigious common law systems (Anglo) vs judge-led civil law systems elsewhere.

samf.substack.com/p/build-the-...

Phillips "This is not a country where people get thrown in jail for things they say"

@zackpolanski.bsky.social points out 2,700 people have been arrested for holding signs

And well done to Zack for challenging Phillips smear that 'from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free' is antisemitic

One year ago;

“Under capitalism, social domination is now inscribed within the productive mesh that bridges the metabolic gap. This means that non-domination must now be etched into the metabolism of the species at that same scale.” — P. Neel & N. Chávez, 2023.

~

endnotes.org.uk/posts/forest...

So say we all.

orbooks.com/catalog/we-h...

Opinion | How A.I. Companies Are Preying on College Students

“Young people are quickly becoming so dependent on A.I. that they are losing the ability to think for themselves. And rather than rallying resistance, academic administrators are aiding and abetting a hostile takeover of higher education.”

Of course, it is also true that historians jobs may in practice be vulnerable to AI, because a lot of people who control the money for historian jobs probably haven’t thought much about where history comes from, either.

🚨NEW article from me: a critique of the traditions of Ecological Marxism for neglecting working-class agency and political organization.

This one was a long strange trip (first submitted a version in 2023 before it found a home, after many revisions).

OPEN ACCESS👇👇👇

New in @finandsoc.bsky.social: ‘The non-death of Adam Neumann’, unpacking the return of WeWork’s disgraced founder. It’s about Silicon Valley’s ambivalence to failure & fraud, and how venture capital rewards already-powerful, ruthless and deceptive serial founders. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Morgan McSweeney has now resigned as Keir Starmer's Chief of Staff

The more I think about this problem, the more it seems like one of those fundamental Marxist contradictions — and it’s going to generalise. Coding is just the canary in the coalmine.

This is remarkably Stuart Hall-esque argumentation:

"many pages of intricate design [...] with a striking silence about political strategy. How does any of this become plausible? Contestable? Lovable? Winnable? [...] It cedes the terrain of technological imagination to the Thiels and the Musks"

The Socialist Charcuterie Board - The Ideas Letter Taking issue with Benanav’s institutional vision of a democratic political economy of technology, Morozov argues that generative AI exposes a deeper problem that socialism has yet to solve: how to…

I actually agree with a lot of stuff in @evgenymorozov.bsky.social's follow-up essay (which, despite the snark, I liked a lot more than the first one)! And yet, I vehemently disagree on the role of AI as sketched in the essay.

Socialism After AI - The Ideas Letter Morozov argues that socialist attempts to harness AI have merely treated it like earlier tools of capitalist production—as a neutral instrument that can simply be redirected. In fact, he says,…

I've got a new major essay in The Ideas Letter - on the need to rethink socialism in the age of AI www.theideasletter.org/essay/social...

Labour minister was provided with intelligence files on journalists Exclusive: Material gathered was personally given to Josh Simons when chair of pro-Starmer thinktank, say sources

Hard to see how Josh Simons could possibly remain as an MP after this revelation. An absolute disgrace. A police investigation is urgently needed.

Simons has brought the Labour Party into even further disrepute.

www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

BREAKING: McSweeney’s think tank paid PR firm to investigate journalists Labour Together put private investigators onto journalists writing about its funding. Starmer's right-hand man knew.

🔴 BREAKING: Labour Together paid controversial PR firm £30k to investigate journalists who were digging into how its undeclared funding

Reporters from Sunday Times, Guardian and other outlets targetted

*And* Morgan McSweeney knew about it

Full story:
democracyforsale.substack.com/p/exclusive-...

Why Slop Matters | ACM AI Letters AI-generated “slop” is often seen as digital pollution. We argue that this dismissal of the topic risks missing important aspects of AI Slop which deserve rigorous study. AI Slop serves a social funct...

Slopologia?

We're recruiting 2 PhD candidates in human geography here in Uppsala, one position focused on urban/housing issues and one in political ecology.

Please spread the word/repost etc. Being a PhD student in Sweden is a good gig.