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Kathyrn Loeb Reviews “Capital City: Gentrification and the Real Estate State”

Samuel Stein’s (2019) book uses New York City as a case study for gentrification and urban development. Kathyrn Loeb (John Jay MA) reviews it in the Review of Radical Political Economics:

“In Capital City, Samuel Stein looks to instill hope in a profession and practice that overthe past eighty or so years has led to some of the worst entrenchments of global capital—urban planning. He focuses on the urban planner as a nice person trying to do good while operating in a system where they literally cannot win. The stranglehold of financialized real estate on urban planning, federal policy, and the incentive structure for local government cannot be untangled by a nice person trying to do good. This has placed urban planners at the center of a series of contradictory directives, navigating thorny political issues, and ultimately working to uphold the regime of capital while displacing the working class through gentrification. By confronting the politicalforces underlying these economic structures, Stein hopes to show a way forward for planners that
can undo these destructive dynamics and build a better future.”

Professor J.W. Mason: “Democrats Lost on the Economy. What Voters Felt That the Politicians Missed.”

“Commentators have written off voters’ concerns as mere vibes or the result of misleading media coverage. But a more careful look suggests that there is something to voters’ perception that they are worse-off economically. Although wages have more than kept pace with inflation, especially at the bottom, wages are not the only source of income. The withdrawal of pandemic-era welfare policies has left many people materially worse off than in the first year of the Biden administration, even as their paychecks have grown.”

Full article at Barron’s.

Professor Christian Parenti: “Why RFK Must Take on the CIA”

“Robert F. Kennedy told his children that physical courage was important because it served as preparation for the much more difficult and essential test of moral courage. If confirmed as secretary of health and human services, his son and namesake will need both. Implementing Kennedy’s agenda to “Make America Healthy Again” will require confronting extremely powerful and entrenched interests: not just Big Food, Big Ag, and Big Pharma, but also the Intelligence Community—more on which in a moment.”

Article at Compact Magazine

10 ways that mass incarceration is an engine of economic injustice

Eric Seligman (JJay Economics MA ’22) and  Brian Nam-Sonenstein write on the relationship between economic justice and mass incarceration.

“Money is power in the United States, and mass incarceration plays a major role in determining who can wield power and who can’t. As we’ve noted repeatedly over the years, it is no coincidence that the poorest and most vulnerable communities are also the most policed. The criminal legal system erects significant barriers to employment and the ballot box, economically and politically weakening entire communities. The criminal legal system erects significant barriers to employment and the ballot box, economically and politically weakening entire communities. Importantly, this arrangement impacts all workers: employers use this massive class of disadvantaged people to threaten all workers with replacement and increasingly risky unemployment if they dare to demand better wages and conditions. Mass incarceration also weaves a narrative that pits people with similar economic interests against one another, reducing systemic inequality to matters of individual choice. Fortunately, understanding mass incarceration as the wealthy’s preferred economic policy clarifies that ending it is necessary for all movements for justice and equality — all working people benefit from solidarity with criminalized people.”

Read the full article at the Prison Policy Initiative.

Professor Zhun Xu on Sustainability, Industrial Agriculture and the Case of North Korea

“It is fair to conclude that the lessons from North Korea, Cuba, and the other models of agriculture strongly suggest that industrial agriculture—though seemingly productive and even “scientific”—is unreliable and unsustainable. We must acknowledge that twentieth-century socialists have usually taken the industrial agriculture model for granted. This was clear in the vision of a future socialist society shared by Kim. Socialism, or any attempts to sustainably feed the working people, must move beyond the model of industrial agriculture.”

– Professor Zhun Xu

Read the full text at Monthly Review.

Economist Magazine Quotes Professor Michelle Holder on Black Workers in Current Labor Market

“One reason that a strong labour market is valuable for black Americans is that many work in highly cyclical sectors such as freight delivery. That makes them vulnerable to recessions but also well placed during periods of growth (a similar dynamic exists for Hispanics). A tight labour market also blunts some of the discrimination that black applicants may face when looking for jobs. “During cyclical downturns employers can afford to pick and choose, but when workers are really needed, they are penalised for their biases,” says Michelle Holder, an economist at John Jay College, City University of New York.”

Read full article at: https://www.economist.com/united-states/2024/02/14/black-workers-are-enjoying-a-jobs-boom-in-america