Max Bastow
maxbastow.bsky.social
Max Bastow
@maxbastow.bsky.social
Political economy, ecology and intellectual history.
MAPEC from University of Geneva.
Reposted by Max Bastow
Branko Milanovic will receive a doctorate honoris causa from the University of Geneva. He will give a conference open to the public on Thursday 9 October.
August 24, 2025 at 10:09 AM
Finding this and the surrounding discussion fun. Lots of disagreement over the 18th century in particular, but depending on the purpose there's very good reasons for both short (1715-1789) and long (1688-1815) periodisations. As long as we always appreciate how they are formed and why.
Ok, it’s time to settle this

1st c. SHORT
2nd c. LONG
3rd c. SHORT
4th c. SHORT
5th c. LONG
6th c. SHORT
7th c. LONG
8th c. SHORT
9th c. SHORT
10th c. LONG
11th c. SHORT
12th c. LONG
13th c. LONG
14th c. SHORT
15th c. SHORT
16th c. LONG
17th c. LONG
18th c. SHORT
19th c. LONG
20th c. SHORT
May 24, 2025 at 9:30 PM
Thrilled to have submitted my master's thesis!

I gave myself a difficult task with this one and it took me to some fascinating areas of study. I'm excited to defend it - I'll post with some of my findings once I've done so.

A big thanks to everyone who helped me along the way.
May 20, 2025 at 2:58 PM
Reposted by Max Bastow
🚨From the June 2nd to 6th, the Paul Bairoch Institute will host the inaugural doctoral summer school "Conflict in the History of Capitalism: Themes, Approaches, Methods as part of the European Laboratory Project "History of Capitalism" (CAP-HIST lab)🚨🧵👇
May 20, 2025 at 7:50 AM
Reposted by Max Bastow
Save the date:
Fanon Today: Contemporary Struggles and Theoretical Perspectives
International Symposium
Berlin, July 22-23, 2025
organized by @vethompson.bsky.social, @raulzelik.bsky.social & me
May 19, 2025 at 10:07 AM
Reposted by Max Bastow
Our book is *finally* available for pre-order! It'll ship next week on May 30th 😱 Been a long time coming, very curious about what you all will think.
@devikadutt.bsky.social
@cacrisalves.bsky.social @surbhikesar.bsky.social
May 19, 2025 at 11:32 AM
Reposted by Max Bastow
this is not an exaggeration
May 12, 2025 at 9:40 AM
Reposted by Max Bastow
OK folks, pause and digest this.

It's all over. Let the waves come.

Or maybe start teaching handwriting again, for the closed exams we're about to need.
Everyone Is Cheating Their Way Through College
ChatGPT has unraveled the entire academic project.
nymag.com
May 7, 2025 at 11:31 AM
Reposted by Max Bastow
“Islamophobia is also racism, rarely considered as such, condemned only half-heartedly. It is racism by denial. It kills. Projecting violence onto another’s body is giving permission to exercise violence against them.”
Important piece by Mohamed Amer Meziane on the recent murder of Aboubakar Cissé
« Il est urgent, pour les sciences humaines et sociales, d’explorer collectivement les questions suivantes : la racialisation de l’islam et ses mécanismes spécifiques peuvent-ils être réduits à ce que nous savons déjà du racisme ? » Par Mohamed Amer Meziane.

aoc.media/opinion/2025...
Projeter la violence sur le corps de l’autre, c’est autoriser à exercer la violence contre lui - AOC media
Alors que certains responsables politiques refusent encore de qualifier le meurtre d’Aboubakar Cissé de meurtre islamophobe, il est urgent de souligner la pertinence de ce terme, dans la mesure où la…
aoc.media
May 7, 2025 at 10:11 AM
Reposted by Max Bastow
“There is no such thing as ‘economics’—only ‘political economy’, in which the ‘political’ element is an ever-present component.”

– Ralph Miliband, 'Marxism and Politics'
May 4, 2025 at 4:34 PM
Reposted by Max Bastow
I uploaded an English version of the interview. Sorry economists, don’t get too sad.

www.academia.edu/128620967/_Y...
April 4, 2025 at 8:08 PM
Reposted by Max Bastow
A new episode of Future Histories!

This time I talk to @ceciliarikap.bsky.social (@iipp-ucl.bsky.social) about how today’s big tech hegemons build intellectual monopolies and use their power for corporate planning beyond ownership. Recorded at the @rosaluxstiftung.bsky.social!

tinyurl.com/FH-Rikap
March 16, 2025 at 10:10 AM
Reposted by Max Bastow
"Le mondialisation capitaliste est l'âge des passions tristes qui surdéterminent le conflit de classe en conflits identitaires réactifs." André Tosel, Un Monde en Abîme
February 27, 2025 at 11:42 AM
Reposted by Max Bastow
Reposted by Max Bastow
As promised, here are the slides I shared with students to convince them to NOT use chatGPT and other artificial stupidity.

TL;DR? AI is evil, unsustainable and stupid, and I'd much rather they use their own brains, make their own mistakes, and actually learn something. 🪄
February 23, 2025 at 1:45 PM
Reposted by Max Bastow
Hopefully it's now finally clear that the threat was always far-right/fascist politics rather than 'populism'

Imagine if we'd focused on racism and authoritarianism from the start rather than divert attention on a term that did more to legitimise reactionaries than help us understand the situation
February 17, 2025 at 12:14 PM
Des figures importantes (j'en compte sept, toutes intéressantes).

Kōhei Saitō ajouterait le Marx des années 1880, détourné du productivisme et de l'Eurocentrisme pour s'inspirer des sociétés qui ont "une interaction métabolique durable et égalitaire entre les humains et la nature" (2022, p. 208).
« L’expansion capitaliste n’est plus loin du moment où elle se heurtera aux limites mêmes de la surface terrestre. »

De Simone Weil à André Gorz, la décroissance n'est pas une idée nouvelle. Découvrez 8 précurseurs de cette philosophie. 👇
www.socialter.fr/article/les-...
Huit précurseurs de la décroissance
Qui sont les premiers objecteurs de croissance ? Des anarchistes naturiens du XIXe siècle à André Gorz, en passant par Simone...
www.socialter.fr
February 4, 2025 at 3:16 PM
A study of corporate emissions targets finds that:
- companies get positive coverage when announcing targets
- 9% of 2020 targets failed and 31% simply vanished, not announcing the outcome
- just 3 of the 88 failures garnered *any* media coverage

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Limited accountability and awareness of corporate emissions target outcomes - Nature Climate Change
Companies have set emissions reduction targets globally, yet whether they are held accountable for the outcomes remains uncertain. By examining the emissions targets that ended in 2020, researchers fi...
www.nature.com
February 3, 2025 at 3:03 PM
Reposted by Max Bastow
In case of interest in US #BlackHistoryMonth: why trans-Atlantic slavery was unlike any other form of slavery in history and why it still matters.

player.vimeo.com/video/101761...
Why it Still Matters on Vimeo
player.vimeo.com
February 1, 2025 at 8:31 PM
Reposted by Max Bastow
Oh no, the Chinese plagiarism machine might have plagiarized the American plagiarism machine

search.app/gLKPBELL2weQ...
Microsoft Probing If DeepSeek-Linked Group Improperly Obtained OpenAI Data
Microsoft Corp. and OpenAI are investigating whether data output from OpenAI’s technology was obtained in an unauthorized manner by a group linked to Chinese artificial intelligence startup DeepSeek, ...
search.app
January 29, 2025 at 12:54 PM
Reposted by Max Bastow
New WP. The Problem of Knowledge in the
Anthropocene.

Highlights: Hayek ecological delusion, the Hayekian subconsious of green finance, Bettelheim information forces, Polanyi epistomic case for participation in planning, the condition of ecological planning.
archive-ouverte.unige.ch/unige:182570
The Problem of Knowledge in the A... | Archive ouverte UNIGE
Archive institutionnelle de l'Université de Genève - Institutional Repository of the University of Geneva
archive-ouverte.unige.ch
January 14, 2025 at 9:01 AM