Chris Hesketh

Disgusting factionalism by the Green Party in Gorton and Denton by…’checks notes’ ….actually appealing to the electorate

Essential reading on how to conceptualise the current state of the world from a historical materialist perspective

ICE murdered Renée Good in broad daylight. Less than 3 weeks later, they killed Alex Pretti, shooting him 10 times. Every day, we watch as people are ripped from their cars, their homes, their lives.

We can't allow ourselves to look away from this cruelty. Abolish ICE.

Heide Gerstenberger, Market and Violence - Progress in Political Economy (PPE) From the shores of present-day Namibia via Heide Gerstenberger, Slavoj Žižek and Byung-Chul Han, what can a real picture postcard reveal about the specificity of past and present forms of market and v...

What are the specificities of past and present forms of market and violence in Heide Gerstenberger’s *Market and Violence*? @alexcallinicos.bsky.social @abieler.bsky.social @chrishesketh.bsky.social @drmeljohnston.bsky.social

Narco-Myths and Neoliberal War: Why Colombia’s Conflict Escalated - Progress in Political Economy (PPE) Rather than a deviation from capitalist modernisation, how has political violence in Colombia been a constitutive outcome of a project of "passive revolution" through which capitalist modernisation wa...

Drawing on his recent @risjnl.bsky.social article, Oliver Dodd explains why framing Colombia’s civil war as a narco problem fundamentally misunderstands how and why the conflict escalated
@abieler.bsky.social @chrishesketh.bsky.social

People who fancy quoting the Melian Dialogue ("the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must") ignore the fact that Thucydides was clearly portraying this as the kind of hubris that squandered Athens' primacy and paved the way for a devastating peer war that it ultimately lost.

Given the decline of the Pink Tide the current timing has presented a major opportunity to re-engineer political power in the region, including the longstanding obsession with regime change in Cuba

There is a then a confluence of regional and wider geopolitics that provide the further motivation

Chile has recently elected the most far right government since Pinochet and Javier Milei represents Trumps’s biggest regional cheerleader in Argentina.

At the present conjuncture the Pink Tide is at its lowest ebb. Although Lula was returned to power after a fascist interregnum and Columbia and Mexico broke the trend the trend of being neoliberal outliers, the MAS have now fallen from power in Bolivia (as perhaps the key regional ally of Venezuela)

Among other things, this collective identity being forged in Latin America rejected the proposals for a US dominated Free Trade Area of the Americas (with Venezuela leading plans for an alternative trade arrangement based on mutual solidarity).

However, the 2003 war in Iraq led many to claim the US had focused its attention on the wrong region, allowing the Pink Tide era of left and centre left governments to consolidate and build a new form of state-led developmentalism (with greater control over natural resources)

Venezuela has been a geopolitical thorn in the US side since Hugo Chavez came to power in 1999. He was subsequently the target of numerous campaigns to displace him and regain control of the oil industry (all very well documented).

There are plenty of conspiracy theories going round regarding why the US has taken the actions it has in Venezuela. In my view the explanation is rather more simple and has much more to do with the politics of Latin America itself.

Trump Gives the Country an Economics Lesson on Tariffs The textbook story comes through loud and clear

Trump gives the country an economics lesson on tariffs. The textbook story comes through loud and clear deanbaker22.substack.com/p/trump-give...

Your Party continue to be more satirical than the People’s Front of Judea

Cultivating Socialism - Progress in Political Economy (PPE)

All the blog posts on @bolshierowbot.bsky.social book forum *Cultivating Socialism* - a diverse set of engagements and a wonderful rejoinder from Rowan Lubbock himself
www.ppesydney.net/forums/culti...

'Real household disposable income is going to grow about 0.4% annually this parliament. That is the second worst growth in living standards we've had since the late 1970s.'

@ckfarquharson.bsky.social discusses living standards in our #Budget2025 podcast.

🎧 Listen here: ifs.org.uk/articles/aut...

They want to read Poulantzas now!

New Directions in Vernacular Security Research This book provides a fresh perspective on vernacular security, featuring diverse case studies and unique sources to enrich your understanding.

Out now! New edited book “New Directions in Vernacular Security” with Palgrave. Great working with @leejarvis.bsky.social & @akinoyawale.bsky.social to bring it together. Great contributions-from Rohingya refugee camps, to military self help books & more in between

link.springer.com/book/10.1007...

Congratulations Michael!

Great to be able to use @alkejenss.bsky.social fantastic book ‘Selective Security in the War on Drugs’ for MA teaching yesterday - sparked some important ongoing debates

Stuart Hall and Us in the Global South - Progress in Political Economy (PPE) How does reading and rereading Stuart Hall’s work bring out his stunning intellectual agility and the “this-worldliness” of his thinking for the Global South as a master dialectician?

Brilliant piece by @alfnilsen.bsky.social on Stuart Hall as a master dialectician from and for the Global South @dukepress.bsky.social
@versobooks.bsky.social
@chrishesketh.bsky.social
@abieler.bsky.social
@ingridhk.bsky.social

I'll bite. What is the benefit we gain from politicians being able to 'thoughtfully' say in private 'blacks, British Bangladeshis, British Pakistanis, British Indians, mulattos....all the same, and clearly from the look of them not-integrated?'

Cultivating Socialism - Progress in Political Economy (PPE)

So excited to share this symposium on my book, Cultivating Socialism, at the @ppesydney.bsky.social . Check out our first two posts from @chrishesketh.bsky.social and Kyla Sankey. More to come each Tuesday!

www.ppesydney.net/forums/culti...

The State of the Revolution - Progress in Political Economy (PPE) First post of a new forum on Rowan Lubbock's book Cultivating Socialism, which focuses on how peasants, workers, and states attempted to redress the inequities of commercial agriculture across the Lat...

First post in a new forum on Rowan Lubbock's book *Cultivating Socialism: Venezuela, ALBA, and the Politics of Food Sovereignty*, with the engagement started by @chrishesketh.bsky.social -- more to follow in subsequent weeks!!

Next time someone on the right claims all the political violence in this country is coming from the left, not the right, do please show them this.

You're welcome

Great to see this out. Fantastic contributions and very happy to be part of this collective endeavour

Reframing the Geopolitics of Global Capitalism - Progress in Political Economy (PPE) In our latest essay in Socialist Register 2024 on the Ukraine War we deliver a contribution to understanding contemporary geopolitics without shying away from placing our concerns within an analysis o...

Revisiting, this week, this piece in Socialist Register 2024, written with @abieler.bsky.social, following various conversations on the geopolitics of war (and peace) and global capitalism @therealelliotde.bsky.social @shaharhameiri.bsky.social @tomchodor.bsky.social @chrishesketh.bsky.social

Beyond intersectional political economy - Progress in Political Economy (PPE) Is gender oppression a structurally necessary feature in the constitution and reproduction of capitalism, and is discrimination based on race also an in-built necessary element in the making and remak...

Looking forward to dialoguing today with @iliasalami.bsky.social on raced finance in IPE. Here’s a contribution to the debate on the “dialectical tensions” that exist in raced finance; or with @abieler.bsky.social what we call the dialectical matrix of class, gender, race—beyond a “trinity formula”