JW Mason

Arno Mayer is writing about Europe. Would be interesting to think about how this worked in the US.

One could argue that the past 100 years have seen a series of different experiments in finding a stable political structure consistent with capitalism. One could further argue that socialism and labor unions played an important role in many of these experiments. Capitalists can’t govern themselves.

Possibly relevant here: The argument (by Arno Mayer among others), that capitalists were dependent on the old feudal elite to represent them politically right down to the first World War.

Is it, tho? Or is this a list of things which the university is promising to deliver to the administration, in return for getting federal funding?

A relevant consideration: who is it that will decide if the agreement has been fulfilled?

That is a good question. It’s easy to imagine reasons, but hard to know which are the decisive ones.

So when next year there are even more international students and they’re all getting more financial aid, Columbia is going to come back and tell Stephen Miller, we never actually promised to reduce enrollment, and he’ll say, yep, good one, you got me?

Let’s try being grownups here.

So when next year there are even more international students and they’re all getting more financial aid, Columbia is going to come back and tell Stephen Miller, we never actually promised to reduce enrollment, and he’ll say, yep, good one, you got me?

Let’s try being grownups here.

In addition to the agreement with Columbia, the Trump administration has enacted or proposed other policies to make it more challenging for students to come to America and work after graduation. Joseph Edlow said during his confirmation hearing for USCIS director that he wanted to eliminate the ability of international students to work on Optional Practical Training and STEM OPT after graduation. An upcoming rule would utilize salary “weighting” to modify the H-1B selection process, likely disadvantaging early-career individuals, particularly international students.

Another rule, not yet published, would end duration status and require international students to obtain extension approvals if they wish to continue their studies beyond two or four years. The administration also threatened to deport thousands of international students for minor infractions, banned students from entering the United States to attend Harvard, suspended visa interviews, said it would revoke visas for many Chinese students, imposed new social media review policies and prohibited international students from coming to the United States from several countries under the recent travel ban proclamation.

Just part of a larger program of driving international students out of American universities.

The agreement includes a controversial provision that commits Columbia University to decreasing international student enrollment. The measure has received little attention. On page nine, the agreement states, “Columbia will examine its business model and take steps to decrease financial dependence on international student enrollment.”

First I’d heard of this. Trump’s agreement with Columbia also commits them to reducing their enrollment of international students. www.forbes.com/sites/stuart...

Also: what fraction of workers in New York do you think are members of unions? How many in Dubai? Or does that not matter, to you?

The piece is not about exploitation.

The biggest point you are missing is that the commonalities between Dubai and other societies isn’t a refutation of the piece, but the whole point of it.

Ok, at least that’s an argument. But I still don’t agree with it.

Read the article

Did you read the piece?

I disagree

Yes, Dubai is the fullest realization of this, but there are lots of mini Dubais and aspiring Dubais elsewhere.

I am ashamed to have visited. There are some experiences that journalism cannot excuse. I add nothing to the record by having gone. I thought the trip would be the subject of a grotesque tapestry that might disclose some new truth about the reordering of the world. It got the better of me. I imagined a gonzo-style reveal about ordering a mojito in Russian from an Indian barman while gazing towards Iran. All of this is possible, but none of it makes my visit worthwhile. If you try to humanise the place you will lose your mind. If you ask yourself what the woman at the hair-braiding stand left behind to be here, and why, you will lose your mind. If you accept the kindness of the staff with whom you make a paltry effort to speak each morning as they clear your dirty breakfast plate, you will lose your mind, because your tip is the only kindness you can meaningfully offer in return. Trying to attend to your own towel by the pool might cost the man who stands for hours in the ferocious sun to do so for you. Being served makes us cruel infants. It demeans us all. Dubai is where the doctrine of free trade has been made into a mode of human relation.

Here's an eloquent piece by Caitlín Doherty on trying and failing to write about Dubai, the place where the commodification of human life has been carried further than perhaps anywhere else on earth. newleftreview.org/sidecar/post...

We need to be more careful to distinguish between two claims: that the tariffs are paid by the US, and that the tariffs are paid by US *consumers*. The first is more fully the case than the second.

Well, the whole tariff has to show up somewhere. Any part of it that is not passed on to final prices has to translate into lower profit margins (or wages) somewhere along the supply chain. On the second point: Yes, that’s a good question!

Just read the Brown University agreement and this really jumped out.

"The University will not perform gender reassignment surgery or prescribe puberty blockers or hormones to any minor child for the purpose of aligning the child's appearance with an identity that differs from his or her sex."

Well, first of all, the aggregate effect is what matters substantively. Second, this figure clearly shows that most of the tariffs have *not* been passed through to retail prices, given that tariff rates are well above 1 percent. This is showing that tariffs are mostly absorbed by profit margins.

I’ve always been partial to the Marglin-Bhaduri idea that the relative importance of demand and profitability in determining investment is something that varies across economies.

I am kinda fascinated by the emerging joint deployment of “Mamdani would take away the NYPD’s ability to effectively deal with shootings like the one that happened on Monday” and “It’s impossible to prevent shootings like the one that happened on Monday”, sometimes on the same page of the newspaper.

It seems to me that historically, investment spending leads rather than follows consumption.

I would say there’s a lot of heterodox theory exploring that very question! What I usually say in the classroom is that investment requires strong demand, *and* available financing, *and* sufficient profitability.

To be clear, inflation plus recession is also a possibility. But the idea that tariffs translate directly to higher consumer prices seems like a misleading simplification, to me.

Right. What I am saying is that the terms describe two extremes - a price change over zero time, and one continuing over infinite time - while real world cases are always intermediate points on the continuum between.

Well it’s not snags in the sense of a few years ago, it’s just straight up higher prices. I agree that interest rates are also a factor.

I'm afraid I don't agree. The concerts only have content insofar as they describe developments in the real world. And in reality, "inflation" only ever continues for a finite period, while "price level shifts" are never instantaneous.