David Priestland

Historian, Oxford University

[Philipp Heimberger @heimbergecon]

This new AER paper by Acemoglu et al. shows that CEOs with a business school education pay lower wages, reduce the labour share of income and share less of firms’ revenue and profit gains with workers (prioritising shareholder value).

[Samuel Moyn 🔭 @samuelmoyn]

“Choice architecture” - or how prisons have been built in the name of freedom. Check it out! https://t.co/uZDEIQKTSP

[Daniela Gabor @DanielaGabor]

FT's @stephenkb

'The difficult truth is that if Arday were white, a professor facing allegations of plagiarism would probably still be in post. And if Arday were white, then a father of two would probably still be alive'.

https://t.co/3rHox2LiuK

[Anton Jäger @AntonJaegermm]

“This outlook, part distantly observed anthropology, part essentialism about class, made Berger quintessentially English. He spoke to a society segregated by caste yet fetishistically obsessed with the marginalised.”

https://t.co/g022MTvTYv

[Paul Holden @pauleholden]

Grateful to Novara Media for giving me the word count for a proper political obituary of Starmer!

"Starmer might not have a political economy, but he certainly has a moral one. He inhabits a world where some people are deserving of attention, grace, kindness or deference. Usually this is determined by whether he thinks they are ‘proper’ people: the suit-wearers who hold zippy ‘bilats’ or who wield the sort of institutional power he alternatingly fears or valorises. These people Starmer treats with genuine warmth, care and respect – like the media class that repeatedly defends him as a ‘decent man’ because they fall within his internal Venn diagram of respectability, cultural cache and power, so Starmer treats them decently.

But woe betide those who fall into his out-group of the contemptible. These are usually people other powerful and socially adept people think are worthy of ridicule, and will give Starmer a thumbs-up if he punches down. For this group, Starmer has nothing but disdain, or cruelty or indifference.

We know who falls into this category: leftwingers, Jeremy Corbyn and Diane Abbott, peace activists and Palestinians; those who stand up at Labour conference and demand accountability for genocide; the irresponsible idealists who refuse to put aside childish things like protest marches and human rights and justice and saving the climate in return for incrementalism, stoicism, ‘grown up’ politics, handshakes with dictators, dinner parties in Davos and accommodation with the ‘reasonable demands’ of capital.

Or, more concretely, the hundreds of thousands of members he told to leave the party – and did."

https://t.co/KOrD8xFmoP

[Samuel Moyn 🔭 @samuelmoyn]

Amazing. Those who have been working on “A Land for All” for years break through to the center of mainstream liberal discourse. https://t.co/mKhVEBnwT2 via @NYTOpinion

[Samuel Moyn 🔭 @samuelmoyn]

This is very good. “History is neither a teacher who rewards the best students nor a sweeping morality play. It is inconsistent, morally ambiguous, and often not especially helpful.” https://t.co/0HTkXhoNkj

[Joshi Herrmann @joshi]

The Manchester Model has been so focused on building flats for private rent - many owned by overseas investors - that @_isaacrose called it ��the neoliberal metropolis”...

Now its mayor says he believes in ending neoliberalism. All very strange for those of us who live here.

[The New Statesman @NewStatesman]

To the extent to which Greater Manchester has succeeded, it has done so by copying London’s economic model and creating intra-national competition, allowing it to take a larger share of the economic pie. That’s fine, but it has not grown the pie or addressed the slowdown in our financial service exports. This is not a strategy that is going to be able to pull the rest of the city region, let alone the rest of the country, forward. The same is true for Leeds, another hub of financial services. From 1998 to 2008, Leeds real per capita gross value added – a measure of economic growth – increased by 26 per cent. Since the first Leeds “City Deal” in 2012, the same figure grew by 11 per cent. Ultimately, the economic limits of Greater Manchester are not the fault of the combined authority; they are determined by global economic forces that require the full power of the nation-state to shape. The same is true for London, Leeds or any one of our cities or regions.

@ADOBrien88: Andy Burnham’s devolution delusion

https://t.co/PTqaN9UvBf

[Samuel Moyn 🔭 @samuelmoyn]

‘Hobsbawm’s canonization was a Western tribute to a great historian who had erected a monument to Europe amid its decline, when the lights and shadows of its civilization appeared, in retrospect, as a vanished past, as impressive as it was tragic.’ https://t.co/CEbbd8UqTg

[Mehdi Hasan @mehdirhasan]

If this was any other country, it would be huge news, and most western governments would be loudly condemning it.

But it’s Israel so…

[Los Angeles Review of Books @LAReviewofBooks]

"Canons are criticism without the burden of demonstration."

Ebadur Rahman discusses canon formation and The Guardian's "Hundred Best Novels of All Time": https://t.co/23ibqr06hu

[David Priestland @DPriestland]

Look at Keir Starmer’s tenure as prime minister. This is no ‘decent man’ who got unlucky | Owen Jones https://t.co/x3iXOoRzaV

[Aydin Dikerdem @AydinDikerdem]

It’s wild how Gaza is being erased from the narrative surrounding Starmer’s unpopularity. Over 50% of Labour switchers at the locals said it influenced them. It came up on the doorstep over & over again. It’s one of the greatest moral stains of our era. And yet media silence.

[Samuel Moyn 🔭 @samuelmoyn]

Yay! @LPEblog asked if I would reply to progressive skeptics of the very idea of #gerontocracy, and I elevated the great @JamesChappel while reflecting on age and the lure of class reductionism, What do you think? https://t.co/JhhI1NWnqq

[Adam Ramsay @AdamRamsay]

It is impossible to explain why Starmer rapidly lost the support of key parts of his electoral coalition without talking about his complicity in Gaza, yet most mainstream journalism simply refuses to talk about it.

[Palestine Solidarity Campaign @PSCupdates]

🚨BREAKING: New polling shows that Labour’s policy on Gaza is a significant factor in progressive voters ditching the party in huge numbers 🧵

[George Eaton @georgeeaton]

Why is the universities crisis being ignored?

Essential piece by @gsoh31 for @ArguablyMag on “the grim dribbling away of one of Britain’s great triumphs and economic advantages” – and why so few politicians seem to care. https://t.co/hmBAVu7XCS

[J. History of Ideas @JHIdeas]

Chris O'Kane presents the latest edition of Marx’s Capital as another attempt by translators to crystallize a particular political interpretation of Marx—this time, the novel synthesis misapprehended as a straightforward “Marx revival.” @chrisokane_nyc
https://t.co/z4HYeptQQk

[Ilias Alami @IliasAlami]

Fascinating thread