Matt Huber

I’d say our underlying agenda is socialism (of which nuclear fits nicely), but thanks for reading.

Abundance for the 99 Percent Abundance is the precondition of socialism, but socialism is also the precondition of abundance.

“We applaud Klein and Thompson’s advocacy of a ‘liberalism that builds’ through effective capacity. But they underplay the extent to which capitalism and class power will prevent their agenda from yielding the political fruit they envision.”

jacobin.com/2025/08/klei...

I was confused by the wholesale Left rejection of "Abundance" both bc it's central to the general socialist project & bc the book itself has valuable insights.

So here finally is our sympathetic/critical review of the book & its critics (w @leighphillips.bsky.social & @fredstaffordcs.bsky.social).

I am happily in the “Odd Lots coalition”:

Capitalists Love This Podcast. So Do Their Critics.

Great profile. The other day I was thinking Odd Lots is the Clifford Geertz “thick description” of economic podcasts. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/03/b...

On a new monthly best-of edition from 🌎Green Majority🌎 the panel talk climate impact vulnerability, @matthuber.bsky.social on his book 'Climate Change As Class War: Building Socialism on a Warming Planet' pushing back against PM Carney's Bill C-5 and more:

www.listennotes.com/podcasts/gre... 🔶

Trump’s climate policy is class warfare

"At its core, though, the energy culture war is being waged not between industries so much as between classes. For the new populist Right...the class enemy is not green capital per se, but the wider 'professional class'..."
unherd.com/2025/07/trum...

Trump’s climate policy is class warfare

I wrote about Trump's energy policy and the underlying class dynamics of an emergent culture war fixated on solar and wind power. unherd.com/2025/07/trum...

“Capital is a process of abstract violence to the materiality of the real world.”

- @matthuber.bsky.social

Opinion | Is Decarbonization Dead?

I also find @janeaflegal.bsky.social's clear eyed political analysis here really refreshing (particularly how hard it will be to make these massive, societal/infrastructural transformations purely in the name of 'climate action'). www.nytimes.com/2025/07/25/o...

Great convo-2 impt points.
1-Energy politics is all about affordability moving fwd.

2-There is no scientific certainty on a key boundary/tipping point where the Earth's climate becomes uninhabitable. Every .1 degree just get worse, while *uncertain risks* of feedbacks increase.

AI labs’ all-or-nothing race leaves no time to fuss about safety They have ideas about how to restrain wayward models, but worry that doing so will disadvantage them

“And stopping an ai from killing humanity is only half the battle.”

Is it though?

www.economist.com/briefing/202...

Yes indeed. From @heatmap.news and @robinsonmeyer.bsky.social

heatmap.news/politics/ele...

Opinion | The Political Legacy of Jerry Garcia

I'm a huge fan of Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead, but his "politics" amounts to a very lame form of hippie libertarianism (and there's really not a "legacy" we need to talk about in the NYT 30 years after his death).
www.nytimes.com/2025/07/20/o...

Incredible paragraph from Hobsbawm. Marxism unhinged.

I enjoyed joining the hosts of @greenmajority to conclude their on air book club engagement w/ my book.

‘Net zero’ emissions standard paused as Shell quits Energy group experts left after draft guidance on global warming plans ‘did not reflect the industry view’

“Shell and other leading energy groups have abandoned a six-year-long attempt to define a ‘net zero’ emissions strategy after being told that such a standard would require them to stop developing new oil and gasfields…” on.ft.com/4f2cGla

Yes, that's well put!

Adam Tooze Climbs the China Learning Curve Podcast Episode · Sinica Podcast · 07/16/2025 · 1h 3m

“China has shown us that…growth is the master key, to understanding how we bring about really rapid interchange in energy technology.”
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a...

I think this is a good explanation (for how those ppl think!), but my nuclear advocacy is based on facts (not meant to antagonize). And, I've always focused on the social/class relations of capitalism (the charge we just focus on changing tech not social relations just doesn't make sense to me).

Sorry but didn’t everyone already know that Donald Trump was very close friends with Jeffrey Epstein?

Sorry but didn’t everyone already know that Donald Trump was very close friends with Jeffrey Epstein?

I hate corporate publishers. They profit off our work. But I will admit I do appreciate a service they provide: email alerts for new issues/articles published.

Well for @sagepub.com even this no longer works. I get emails every day, but many include articles I've already seen.🤬

Clarifications on “Ecomodernism”* *Comments prepared for Prolekult podcast debate with Kai Heron

I wrote about this here: medium.com/@Matthuber78...

Later Hobsbawm explicitly explains how 'limits to growth' environmentalism led to a 'crisis of progress', but it's interesting how now many who claim the mantle of Marxism have also given up on this tradition.

Hobsbawm on Marxism and the anti-fascist movement of the mid 20th C.

Marxism was firmly entrenched in the modernist tradition of science, progress and 'humanist values'. This is one reason why I'm confused 'ecomodernism' has become a slur (often among self-proclaimed Marxists).

AI-Driven Worker Displacement Is a Serious Threat By many estimates, the increasing use of artificial intelligence is set to produce significant job losses. The prospect of serious disruption demands that we start formulating egalitarian policy solut...

And here's Part 1: jacobin.com/2025/07/arti...

Treat AI Like a Public Utility It seems increasingly likely that artificial intelligence will mean major changes to the economy and daily life. We need a public jobs program for displaced workers, and we should regulate AI as a pub...

Link to the piece

🚨 ‼️‼️‼️New piece in @jacobinmag.bsky.social with @hollyjeanbuck.bsky.social.

This one is Part 2 of 2 of our series on AI and labor covering 'What is to be done?' It draws from previous work with @fredstaffordcs.bsky.social on public utilities and calls for a New Deal-like public jobs program.

Such an important point.