Jason Hickel

Professor at ICTA-UAB and Visiting Senior Fellow at LSE • Author of THE DIVIDE and LESS IS MORE • Global inequality, political economy and ecological economics

[Jason Hickel @jasonhickel]

New research highlights from 2025! 

This thread covers some of our latest work on capitalism, imperialism, post-growth and ecosocialist futures. It's all open access, and free PDFs are available via the link at the end of the thread. 🧵

[Jason Hickel @jasonhickel]

I recently heard a leading public figure claim that high-income countries need more GDP growth in order to increase innovation in things like renewables, EVs, and life-saving medicine.

This makes little sense:

Why do we need to increase *aggregate* production, indiscriminately, from an already very high level, in order to get these specific innovations? Why do we need continued growth in fast fashion and industrial beef in order to innovate better energy systems and medicines?

We don't. This is massively inefficient and unnecessary. Instead, we can use industrial policy and public finance to target necessary innovations directly.

And this does not require high-income countries to achieve even higher levels of GDP. It can be done right now.

Look at China. China has led major innovations in exactly these technologies - renewables, EVs and life-saving medicines, as well high-speed rail, aerospace engineering, microchips etc - with a GDP per capita that is 70% less than that of the US. How? By leveraging industrial policy and public finance.

[Jason Hickel @jasonhickel]

I spoke yesterday in Paris about how socialist policy can enable us to overcome social deprivation and ecological crisis, by aligning investment and production with democratically determined objectives.

I noticed that some people assume socialism necessarily means 100% public ownership, but this is not the case. Yes, for many important reasons, we need public ownership of public services, utilities and the commanding heights, and yes we need a public finance system, industrial policy and credit guidance...

But there's no reason we cannot have private firms producing consumer goods like watches, beer, etc - the key is that they should be democratically owned and managed, by workers or communities empowered to determine the objectives of investment and production.

We know that when people have democratic control over production they are more likely to align it with social and ecological needs.

Socialism is ultimately about economic democracy: extending the principle of democracy into the realm of production. Cooperatives are an important step in this direction.

[Jason Hickel @jasonhickel]

Following Sen's work, there were several other studies that assessed the development performance of countries that implemented socialist policy. Here are two:

One by Cereseto and Waitzkin:
https://t.co/SPhW5uIFv4.

Another by Lena and London:
https://t.co/adSD1ecAF8

[Jason Hickel @jasonhickel]

For those who are wondering, the paper I mentioned yesterday is by Amartya Sen. I said Jean Drèze was a co-author, but that's not the case. They co-authored Hunger and Public action, also a must-read! https://t.co/uxHg3NjrvC #WIC2026 #GlobalJusticeReport

[Jason Hickel @jasonhickel]

Cuba helped several African countries in their liberation struggles against brutal colonial occupiers, including against the apartheid regime in South Africa which the US backed and supported. That’s what he means by “radical left-wing terrorism”, just to be clear.

[Secretary Marco Rubio @SecRubio]

For decades, Cuba has been the world capital for radical left-wing terrorism. The regime in Havana has recruited, trained and backed violent Marxist and third-worldist movements across our hemisphere and beyond. Today, we are targeting the network that enables and funds Cuba's subversive and radical operations.

Pursuant to sanctions authorities created by President Trump’s groundbreaking Cuba Executive Order, I am designating the following entities:

1. Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Cuba (MINFAR)
2. Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP)
3. Amistur Cuba S.A.
4. Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR)
5. Minera La Victoria S.A.

Anyone providing services to these sanctioned actors is at risk of sanctions themselves. Foreign banks and other companies that provide services to these entities should freeze those activities.

The Trump Administration will no longer tolerate radical Marxist regimes in our hemisphere seeking to threaten U.S. national security and engage in influence operations to export their poisonous and evil “revolution” to our country and around the world.

[Jason Hickel @jasonhickel]

New Internationalist is an excellent magazine, and they need support to keep doing their work: brilliant independent journalism with a commitment to internationalist values. Please consider donating and subscribing. @newint https://t.co/pRqrALqTka

[Jason Hickel @jasonhickel]

We wrote about this here, for a fuller picture. https://t.co/Ijq7gbuS7J

[Jason Hickel @jasonhickel]

It is crucial to understand that this is a major reason for the West’s increasing belligerence toward China over the past decade. China’s development is challenging Western monopolies. This imposes a direct squeeze on Western profits but it also undermines a core tenet of imperialism.

The West’s monopoly power allows them to impose dependency on the global South. The South is forced to export large quantities of raw materials and intermediate goods in order to pay for imports at monopoly prices.

This produces large net flows from the global South, propping up the West’s growth and profits. If the West’s monopoly power declines, this flow gets cut off. They are desperate to prevent this from happening, to the point of fantasising about going to war with China to destroy China’s industrial base.

The West’s whole model for capital accumulation depends on Southern dependency. As that arrangement becomes increasingly unstable, the Western ruling class will become increasingly violent.

[hello world @whiteTony99]

西方对中国最愤怒是中国把他们躺赚了几十年的暴利生意，一个个砸成了���通人都买得起的日用品。
这种愤怒已经刻进了很多西方人的骨子里，他们不是不理解，而是不愿意理解，不愿意接受自己再也不能躺着剥削全世界的事实。
二十年前，中国修地铁要用盾构机，全部从德国进口。一台盾构机德国卖3.5亿人民币，一分钱都不能少。买的时候还要签霸王条款，机器坏了只能找德国工程师来修。
德国工程师来中国一天的工资是3000欧元，换算成人民币当时是3万多。他们坐飞机必须坐头等舱，住必须是五星级酒店的总统套房。
维修的时候中国人不能在旁边看，必须全部离场，修完了直接开账单，换一个小小的密封圈就要10万人民币。
有时候机器出个小故障，要等德国工程师三个月才能来，整个工地几百人就只能闲着干等，每天损失几百万。
没有人觉得这有什么不对。全世界都默认，高科技就应该卖这么贵，德国人掌握了技术，他们就有资格赚这个钱。甚至放言给中国图纸也造不出盾构机。
但到2008年，中国第一台拥有自主知识产权的盾构机下线。当时德国人根本不在乎，他们觉得中国人造出来的肯定是垃圾，用不了几天就会坏。
结果中国盾构机不仅能用，而且价格直接开到了5000万一台。后来随着技术不断成熟，产量不断提高，现在一台国产盾构机只要2000多万人民币，价格只有原来德国的十七分之一。

德国盾构机的垄断神话一夜之间破灭了。原来全世界只有德国、日本、美国少数几个国家能造盾构机，他们联合起来维持高价，想卖多少钱就卖多少钱。
现在中国加入了，他们的价格体系彻底崩溃了。现在德国盾构机想卖出去，价格也只能降到和中国差不多的水平，再也不能躺着赚暴利了。
而这样的事在各个领域都不断的上演，套用足球解说的一句话，留给西方垄断的时间不多了。

[Jason Hickel @jasonhickel]

We know of a man who was caught publishing dozens of AI-generated articles in academic journals. The journal that caught him pursued a ban not only from that journal but also from all journals by that publisher. This is a major crisis and it seems the consequences will be severe.

[Jason Hickel @jasonhickel]

@patrickmokre In my view value capture is best understood as value captured by capital, at various production nodes in a supply chain. We have a paper coming out soon that calculates this on a world scale, with an emphasis on the share that is taken as profits.

[Jason Hickel @jasonhickel]

This is a really striking paper. It shows that vehicles "Made in Germany" are mostly not made in Germany at all. 

Only 46% of the labour that goes into producing "Made in Germany" vehicles occurs in Germany. The majority of the labour is performed elsewhere (with wages as low as one-fifth the level), and the majority of the emissions occur elsewhere, but the value is disproportionately captured in Germany.

The paper was led by our colleague Laura Pérez-Sánchez at ICTA.
https://t.co/HrGLgvwszN

[Jason Hickel @jasonhickel]

The people have asked, who am I to deny them.
Spain, which has 36% less GDP per capita than the US, has a life expectancy that is 5 years longer. And Spain's advantage in terms of healthy longevity is even greater.

[Maybe @BreizhLondon]

Do versus USA now...

[Jason Hickel @jasonhickel]

Btw, Spain's advantage here is not just in raw longevity, but in *healthy* life expectancy. Spain's healthy life expectancy is 2.5 years longer than Britain's. People in Spain live longer, healthier lives.

[Jason Hickel @jasonhickel]

People are talking about how Spain has lower GDP than the UK... but look how Spain's life expectancy surpasses the UK's in the early 1970s, with progress accelerating again after 2010. Today people in Spain live 2.5 years longer than people in Britain.

[Jason Hickel @jasonhickel]

Scholars point out that rich countries enjoy this ‘exorbitant privilege’ because they issue international reserve currencies. This allows them to pull in the savings of the periphery by issuing low-yield bonds and other low-return assets denominated in their currency. Core states and corporations can then invest these inflows into more profitable ventures, pocketing the difference as a net gain.

This net flow from periphery to core not only boosts the income of the core, but also directly gives the core more power over production in the world economy – more power to determine what to produce and for whose benefit. Meanwhile, the periphery is forced to finance this capital transfer with a trade surplus or with more debt.

[Jason Hickel @jasonhickel]

The imperial core has gained $15 trillion through exorbitant privilege since 1970, getting higher returns on foreign assets than what they pay on foreign debt. This privilege is financed by transfers from the global South, outstripping aid flows many times over.

[Jason Hickel @jasonhickel]

For more charts and analysis of world-system dynamics, you can find it all here: https://t.co/Ei0W9T3HDK