The Guardian: Freedom without constraints: how the US squandered its cold war victory

As the Soviet Union passed out of existence, Americans were left not just without that enemy, but without even a framework for understanding the world and their place in it. However imperfectly, the cold war had, for several decades, offered a semblance of order and coherence. The collapse of communism shattered that framework. Where there had been purposefulness and predictability, now there was neither. [...]

The final element of the consensus was presidential supremacy, with the occupant of the Oval Office accorded quasi-monarchical prerogatives and status. Implicit in presidential supremacy was a radical revision of the political order. While still treated as sacred writ, the constitution no longer described the nation’s existing system of governance. Effectively gone, for example, was the concept of a federal government consisting of three equal branches. Ensuring the nation’s prosperity, keeping Americans safe from harm, and interpreting the meaning of freedom, the president became the centre around which all else orbited, the subject of great hopes, and the target of equally great scorn should he fail to fulfil the expectations that he brought into office. [...]

Arguably, Americans were enjoying more freedom than ever. Were they happier as a consequence? Polls suggested otherwise. In the 2007 “world happiness” standings, the US had ranked third among developed countries. By 2016, its position had plummeted to 13th. [...]

What role did Trump play in shaping this US that worked nicely for some while leaving many others adrift and vulnerable? None at all. Globalisation, the pursuit of militarised hegemony, a conception of freedom conferring rights without duties, and a political system centred on a quasi-monarchical chief of state each turned out to have a substantial downside. Yet the defects of each made their appearance well before Trump’s entry into politics, even if elites, held in thrall by the post-cold war outlook, were slow to appreciate their significance. None of those defects can be laid at his feet. [...]

The post-cold war recipe for renewing the American century has been tried and found wanting. A patently amoral economic system has produced neither justice nor equality, and will not. Grotesquely expensive and incoherent national security policies have produced neither peace nor a compliant imperium, and will not. A madcap conception of freedom unmoored from any overarching moral framework has fostered neither virtue nor nobility nor contentment, and won’t anytime soon. Sold by its masterminds as a formula for creating a prosperous and powerful nation in which all citizens might find opportunities to flourish, it has yielded no such thing. This, at least, describes the conclusion reached by disenchanted Americans in numbers sufficient to elect as president someone vowing to run the post-cold war consensus through a shredder.

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Social Europe: Class struggle à la droite

Populism is a method. It works by mobilising an imaginary homogenous entity called ‘the people’ against an equally ill-defined and generally despised ‘elite’, thus radically simplifying the political and social field. Such simplifications have served to orchestrate conflicts since the 19th century and in particular during economic and cultural crises—on the left, in terms of a class struggle against the powers that be; on the right, in terms of a confrontation with an ‘other’, be it foreigners or minorities. [...]

As a catchphrase in political debates, populism may be useful; a productive analytical concept it however certainly is not. The ‘people’ our modern-day, nationalist populists champion are no longer defined socio-economically (as in the ‘proletariat’). Rather, the populists employ ethnic constructs (such as Biodeutsche or français de souche), which suggest a homogenous community with a shared ancestry, a long history and a solid identity. [...]

In this view, there is no legitimate ‘representation’ through democratic processes. Instead, ‘the people’ form movements which back charismatic leaders and legitimise them retroactively by means of plebiscites. Right-wing movements may be diverse, but what they all have in common is a worldview that is utterly authoritarian (and usually patriarchal and homophobic too). [...]

While the majority of supporters and voters of right-wing parties are middle-class or well-off (and male, for that matter), we do also find among them low-skilled, low-income workers in precarious employments who are afraid of declining even further and are categorically opposed to a global economy that is merciless but has generally been described as without alternative—not least by social-democratic governments.

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Foreign Policy: Russia’s New Prime Minister Augurs Techno-Authoritarianism

Between this public service and his private sector background, many commentators say, Mishustin’s nomination underscores President Vladimir Putin’s concerns about the resuscitation of Russia’s stagnant economy. They are not wrong. But to view the significance of Mishustin’s nomination only in terms of its first-order implications for Russia’s economic growth is to indulge a myopia that would itself advance the farther-sighted strategic vision for Russia that his appointment likely reflects: a pivot toward a new brand of techno-authoritarianism. [...]

If the direction in which Mishustin’s appointment signals Putin’s Russia is about to head has any contemporary analogue, it lies in a country that is increasingly its ally and also the world’s epicenter of techno-authoritarianism: Xi Jinping’s China. Like Xi, for Putin, economic growth is likely only part of an overall strategic vision. By his own admission, in spite of his Ph.D. in economics, Mishustin’s role as tax czar was more technologist than economist. And so he is poised to fill the prime minister slot within Putin’s authoritarian regime, in effect, having thrived in a government post as a self-identified technologist who developed new and impressive ways of extending the state’s surveillance of the economy.

As taxman, Mishustin developed a set of futuristic technologies that allowed Russia’s government to raise revenues. But these technologies also enhanced surveillance capabilities of Putin’s authoritarian state. For it’s not as if Russia’s tax authorities simply set an algorithm on heaps of data to do the impersonal bidding of state administration. Putin’s political appointees, like Mishustin, also maintain the ability to identify subjects and dredge up transaction-level data at their own discretion. [...]

The new Russian prime minister arrives with a track record of success at this task from his days as tax czar. Putin draws no shortage of Western criticism for security and human rights issues. But economic technocrats even in bastions of Western liberalism praised the economic panopticon Mishustin constructed for him. One official with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) conceded that addressing “Big Brother”-type concerns would require additional work but praised the system as a “game changer” that could allow the world’s governments to raise “hundreds of billions” of dollars in new tax revenue. The OECD was founded in 1961, amid the heights of the Cold War, at least in part to serve as a mechanism to promulgate Western liberalism.

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Like Stories of Old: Praying Through Cinema – Understanding Andrei Tarkovsky

Video essay on the legendary filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky, the purpose of art, and a lifelong search for truth and meaning.

The Art Assignment: Why Do Corporations Buy Art?

Corporate lobbies and board rooms are often graced with impressive art, but why? What's the rationale behind this expense, and what impact does it have on the rest of the art world? We look at the history of corporate collecting, starting with Chase Manhattan Bank in 1959, trace its meteoric rise since, and work through the reasoning behind it.

PolyMatter: How IKEA Became Sweden’s National Brand

Creative Boom: Photographs of abandoned factories and industry in the former Soviet state of Georgia

Koopmans and Wexell visited some of the country's most striking industrial sites and found a fascinating collision of the past and present. "Many places seem to be frozen in time," says Koopmans. "It's as if the machines have suddenly stopped working and as if the workers left from one day to the next.

"Some question the beauty and value of these places, as they come with a history that many, especially Georgians, find to be very problematic. However when you look at them as archeological relics, as indicators of a unique past in place and time, there's an interest that draws us to photograph them before they disappear forever."

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