Politics

It is tempting to treat techno-accelerationism and technofeudalism as opposites. One says the machine should run faster, further, past every institutional brake; the other says the machine has already been captured, reorganized around rent, extraction, and centralized control. One sounds like the dream of total release. The other sounds like a diagnosis of total domination. But the more interesting possibility is that they are not opposites at all — that they are two projections of the same underlying myth, told from either side of the same platform. …

Historians of the Weimar Republic have a habit of dating its death more than once — 1929, when the crash hit; 1930, when parliamentary government effectively stopped functioning; 1932, when unemployment cracked thirty percent; 1933, when a chancellorship that was supposed to be containable turned out to be irreversible. The dates keep multiplying because no single one explains the whole collapse; each was a head, and severing it did not kill the thing underneath. A century later it has become common to feel that we are living through some recombination of those same years — not as literal repetition, since nothing repeats literally, but as a shape recurring under new names. It is the Lernaean Hydra of Apollodorus’s telling, which grows two heads for every one cut off, until Heracles’ companion Iolaus learns to sear each stump with fire before a new head can form. The comparison is not decoration. It states an actual problem: what does resistance mean against a structure that regenerates from opposition itself? …

We are taught that the world runs on reasons. The best argument wins. The facts speak for themselves. Truth has a gravitational pull. Decisions—individual and collective—flow from rational calculation: costs weighed against benefits, evidence stacked against counterevidence, the strong claim vanquishing the weak. But history, observed coldly, tells a different story. What wins is not the truest argument but the most compelling fiction. The narrative that best captures attention, simplifies complexity into a hero-and-villain arc, and offers closure. The one that feels right rather than the one that is right. The story that promises meaning, belonging, and cosmic order beats the story that promises accuracy every time. …

The argument that keeps failing is not the argument about which system is better. It is the assumption, buried inside that argument, that the categories are stable — that capitalism, socialism, mercantilism, feudalism refer to four distinct, mutually exclusive arrangements, and that the story of modern history is one of them winning. They have not been stable for five centuries. What has been stable is something more basic: there is a surplus, and someone claims it. The form the claiming takes has changed. The claiming has not. …

The United States enjoyed a remarkable period of economic prosperity and social stability between the post-World War II era and the early 1980s. During this time, the petite bourgeoisie — the small business owners, independent professionals, and middle-class workers — thrived as the backbone of the American Dream. However, recent decades have seen this group face mounting challenges. Now, the question arises: is the petite bourgeoisie waking up to the economic and political realities that have eroded their former stability? …

In the modern world, China occupies an undeniable space in the global economy. The phrase “Made in China” is stamped on everything from smartphones to sneakers, a symbol of the country’s manufacturing prowess. At the same time, “China” often evokes harsh criticism, with terms like “communist regime” and “authoritarian state” frequently making headlines. This juxtaposition exposes a glaring hypocrisy: the world decries China’s politics but thrives on its economic output. …