Erwin Dekker
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erwindekker.bsky.social
Erwin Dekker
@erwindekker.bsky.social
1.4K followers 1.3K following 220 posts

Historian of economics, culture and econ, author of 'Realizing the Values of Art' the biography of 'Jan Tinbergen and the Rise of Economic Expertise' and 'Viennese Students of Civilization'.

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Economics 45%
Political science 19%
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erwindekker.bsky.social
Erwin Dekker @erwindekker.bsky.social · 1d
The perfect symbol of a rigged economy
A Two-Headed Coin That Always Comes Up ‘Trump’
www.nytimes.com

erwindekker.bsky.social
Erwin Dekker @erwindekker.bsky.social · 3d
This week's Seeing like Chicago post revisits Hofstadter's Age of Reform, and its analysis of agrarian populism ca. 1890 and the coalition it formed with the Progressives in the next decade.

seeinglikechicago.substack.com/p/the-age-of...
The Age of Reform (1)
Reading Hofdstadter's classic from Bryan to FDR
seeinglikechicago.substack.com

Reposted by Peter Thorne, Rosemary A. Joyce, Erwin Dekker , and 5 more

astridoverthere.bsky.social
I said abolish and I fucking meant it @astridoverthere.bsky.social · 4d
Wondering why no one likes your posts anymore, even among your friends? It's because @jay.bsky.team and team have decided to hide a huge amount of content from all of our feeds by default.

Here's how to turn it off.

First go to the hamburger menu in the upper left corner
Screenshot of the top of a Bsky feed, with a red circle around the hamburger menu in the top left.

erwindekker.bsky.social
Erwin Dekker @erwindekker.bsky.social · 5d
"The alternative is to start with Hayek’s idea that the theory of the individual should be a theory of the individual in society. This theory should explain how society generates individual heterogeneity and enables individual subjectivity."

erwindekker.bsky.social
Erwin Dekker @erwindekker.bsky.social · 5d
New paper alert

Toward an Austrian Theory of the Self in The Review of Austrian Economics. It's Open Access!

In the paper I explore connect the Austrian theory of subjectivism to the philosophical sociology of George Herbert Mead and argue that we to explain, not assume, individual heterogeneity
Toward an Austrian theory of the self - The Review of Austrian Economics
One of the key distinguishing features of Austrian economics is subjectivism. Subjectivism has been understood as the foundation for why individuals are different from each other, and as a basis for i...
doi.org

Reposted by Will Jennings, Peter Thorne, Brendan Nyhan , and 15 more

andrewmueller.bsky.social
Andrew Mueller @andrewmueller.bsky.social · 10d
On the left, the refurbished Lincoln bathroom. On the right, picture I took in Saddam Hussein's palace in Basra in 2005.

erwindekker.bsky.social
Erwin Dekker @erwindekker.bsky.social · 10d
This week's Seeing like Chicago post talks about the importance of 'seeing through the eyes of others' and how it became a moral-political project among sociologists. With several shout-outs to the great new book Liberal Emancipation by Mikayla Novak.

seeinglikechicago.substack.com/p/seeing-thr...
Seeing through the eyes of others
Emancipation and social science
seeinglikechicago.substack.com

erwindekker.bsky.social
Erwin Dekker @erwindekker.bsky.social · 13d
Among the suspected effects are a higher frequency of tropical storms, which scientists earlier linked to climate change.

Reposted by Brendan Nyhan, Frank de Vocht, Jonathan Wolff , and 4 more

reuters.com
Reuters @reuters.com · 13d
RFK Jr. directs CDC to study alleged harms of offshore wind farms, Bloomberg News reports reut.rs/4hxHgEh
RFK Jr. directs CDC to study alleged harms of offshore wind farms, Bloomberg News reports
U.S. health secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. ordered the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention staff to probe the potential harms of offshore wind farms, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter.
reut.rs

Reposted by Jennifer Pett‐Ridge, Steve Peers, Evelyne de Leeuw , and 15 more

sifill.bsky.social
Sherrilyn Ifill @sifill.bsky.social · 17d
So they didn’t like the ad. Let’s just post Reagan’s 5 min speech against tariffs as it appears on YouTube.

Over and over. On all platforms (some of y’all are still on X).

*1981 Sherrilyn horrified by 2025 Sherrilyn saying “let’s post Reagan’s speech.”

youtu.be/5t5QK03KXPc
President Reagan's Radio Address on Free and Fair Trade on April 25, 1987
YouTube video by Reagan Library
youtu.be

erwindekker.bsky.social
Erwin Dekker @erwindekker.bsky.social · 17d
New Seeing Like Chicago post discusses real and imagined differences between the city and countryside. With a discussion of Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio and Albert Blumenthal's Small Town Stuff

seeinglikechicago.substack.com/p/the-rural-...

Reposted by Shannon Vallor, Anna O. Law, Erwin Dekker , and 12 more

davidjbier.bsky.social
David Bier @davidjbier.bsky.social · 17d
What a sick world.

Reposted by Erwin Dekker

willbunch.bsky.social
Will Bunch @willbunch.bsky.social · 22d
The 7 million Americans who took the streets for 'No Kings' made history, and they did something even more important

They got under the skin of Donald Trump and his dictatorial regime, on a day that showed that most Americans love democracy instead

My new column www.inquirer.com/opinion/no-k...
Then they fight you: How the No Kings protests are winning America | Will Bunch
A massive turnout of 7 million and a panicked White House showed Saturday why the No Kings protests matter, a lot.
www.inquirer.com

erwindekker.bsky.social
Erwin Dekker @erwindekker.bsky.social · 24d
This week's Seeing Like Chicago's post discusses some very surprising links between the Studs Lonigan trilogy (a coming of age story about the Irish-American Studs) and hip-hop culture, including a 1920's Dapper Dan O'Doul.

seeinglikechicago.substack.com/p/chicagos-s...
Harlem Dapper Dan in 2019

Reposted by Erwin Dekker, Kris Inwood

nbrisset.bsky.social
Nicolas Brisset @nbrisset.bsky.social · Oct 12
Hyped to read the special issue that goes with this introduction by @vhalsmayer.bsky.social and Eric Hounshell.

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

erwindekker.bsky.social
Erwin Dekker @erwindekker.bsky.social · Oct 10
This week's Substack post discusses the links between Richard Wright's classic Chicago novel, Native Son, and Harold Garfinkel's early (ethnomethodological) studies of the way juries work in Chicago.

Or simply, how institutional racism was understood in the 1940s.
From Native Son to Ethnomethodology
On Richard Wright and Harold Garfinkel
seeinglikechicago.substack.com

Reposted by Anne Applebaum, Joanna Bryson, Joe R. Feagin , and 44 more

thedailyshow.com
The Daily Show @thedailyshow.com · Oct 9
The following is REAL footage from Portland, 2025. Viewer discretion is advised.

Reposted by Erwin Dekker

Digressionsimpressions @nescio13.bsky.social · Oct 9
Rousseau, Adaptive Preferences, and Social Entrepeneurship
open.substack.com/pub/digressi...
Shout outs to @erwindekker.bsky.social, @lastpositivist.bsky.social, @serenekhader.bsky.social
Rousseau, Adaptive Preferences, and Social Entrepeneurship
Near the start of The Social Contract (1762), in his criticism of Aristotle, Rousseau (recall) diagnoses the phenomenon of adaptive preferences. What we desire is not just shaped by society, but what ...
open.substack.com

Reposted by Anna O. Law, Rebecca Solnit, Jonathan A. Eisen , and 28 more

darrigomelanie.bsky.social
Melanie D’Arrigo @darrigomelanie.bsky.social · Oct 7
I feel like this photo of masked, armed men pepper spraying a pastor protecting his community is going to be a defining picture of this moment in America for a long, long time.

Reposted by Erwin Dekker

mdtremblay.bsky.social
Maxime Desmarais-Tremblay @mdtremblay.bsky.social · Oct 7
Then, in 32(5), Lenfant reviews Bridel (following on their interview also in the same issue), Greitens reviews a new translation of Schurtz, @madelinew.bsky.social reviews @arnaudorain.bsky.social, @erwindekker.bsky.social reviews Slobodian www.tandfonline.com/toc/rejh20/3...
The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought
Controversies on the concept of progress in Progressive Era American Economics. Volume 32, Issue 5 of The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought
www.tandfonline.com

Reposted by Erwin Dekker

davidho.bsky.social
David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · Oct 7
“People over Papers, a crowdsourcing project that maps sightings of US immigration agents, was taken offline yesterday by Padlet, the collaborative bulletin board platform on which it was built. It’s just the latest ICE-tracking initiative to be pulled by tech platforms in the past few days.”
Another effort to track ICE raids was just taken offline
People over Papers was removed by Padlet, the platform it was built on, yesterday.
www.technologyreview.com

Reposted by Joanna Bryson, Kim L. Scheppele, Steve Peers , and 8 more

kyledcheney.bsky.social
Kyle Cheney @kyledcheney.bsky.social · Oct 4
BREAKING: A federal judge has granted a restraining order blocking President Trump's call-up of the National Guard in Portland.

storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Reposted by Richard S.J. Tol, Michael A. Clemens, Erwin Dekker , and 7 more

davidjbier.bsky.social
David Bier @davidjbier.bsky.social · Oct 4
ICE says I cause assaults on ICE by reciting facts about ICE’s recent shooting but refuses to link to the thread. Only posting a picture. ICE lies and ICE hides. You can read the facts for yourselves

Reposted by Erwin Dekker

nathanpgoodman.bsky.social
Nathan Goodman @nathanpgoodman.bsky.social · Oct 3
My colleague Mikayla Novak has a new edited volume out called "Liberal Emancipation."

She has brought together a great group of scholars, including @erwindekker.bsky.social, @ottolehto.bsky.social, and even me, to analyze the emancipatory aspects of liberalism!

Read on to learn what I argue... 🧵
The cover of the book "Liberal Emancipation: Explorations in Political and Social Economy." It features a lot of pink as well as a photo with a stairway and a sunny blue sky with some white clouds.

erwindekker.bsky.social
Erwin Dekker @erwindekker.bsky.social · Oct 3
This week's post tells the story of Joseph D. Lohman who could not defend his dissertation because of death threats from the gang he had studied.

Chicago sociologists did much to 'normalize' crime, but this for them too must have been unusual.

seeinglikechicago.substack.com/p/on-not-fin...
Joseph D. Lohman, still alive in 1959, but without a Ph.D

erwindekker.bsky.social
Erwin Dekker @erwindekker.bsky.social · Sep 26
And here is the first post, on Ben Hecht and his humanism. In my eyes Hecht was the best and most characteristic observer of Chicago in the interwar period

seeinglikechicago.substack.com/p/ben-hechts...
Ben Hecht's Chicago
Living in Chicago in the early twentieth century meant getting the urban experience.
seeinglikechicago.substack.com

erwindekker.bsky.social
Erwin Dekker @erwindekker.bsky.social · Sep 26
I will be writing about my research on Chicago once a week at this new Substack: Seeing like Chicago

Do subscribe, for a weekly note!

seeinglikechicago.substack.com
Seeing like Chicago | Erwin Dekker | Substack
Observations about Chicago economics, sociology, literature and more by Erwin Dekker. Click to read Seeing like Chicago, by Erwin Dekker, a Substack publication. Launched 11 minutes ago.
seeinglikechicago.substack.com

erwindekker.bsky.social
Erwin Dekker @erwindekker.bsky.social · Sep 25
Great new paper on enactivism and expectations in economics: "Rather than understanding expectations as internal representations, it argues that engagement with institutional temporal affordances gives rise to distinct modes of expectation – institutionally enacted ways of relating to the future."
Enacting the future: institutions, temporal affordances, and the formation of expectations | Journal of Institutional Economics | Cambridge Core
Enacting the future: institutions, temporal affordances, and the formation of expectations - Volume 21
doi.org

Reposted by Erwin Dekker, Daniel Kuehn

economicthought.bsky.social
Economic thought @economicthought.bsky.social · Sep 23
A new issue of Œconomia. History | Methodology | Philosophy is available now
journals.openedition.org/oeconomia/18...