Taking Back Control? States and State Systems After Globalism by Wolfgang Streeck

This was the most thought-provoking book I read in 2024. It is a Rosetta Stone for understanding today’s world and the contests that lie ahead. Though a bit academic and turgid in places, it is a masterful exposition of the tensions among capitalism, democracy, and globalization.

Over the last 50 years, power has been transferred from governments to the private sector, beyond the reach of democratic accountability. The U.S. Constitution was ingenious in its balancing of private interests and state power, but it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the United States is post-Constitutional.

Like Streeck, I think that a revivification of democracy within states requires stronger restraints on capital and a greater decentralization of political power, and that the next international system needs to accommodate greater diversity and differentiation in political and economic systems than the United States has been willing to entertain.

For more on my thinking over the years:

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The Twilight Before the Storm by Viktor Shvets

The world is going over the waterfall. Is calamity avoidable?

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Science and Human Values by Jacob Bronowski

A true society is sustained by the sense of human dignity.

The biggest winners of the zero-rate world are ushering in a technocracy. Many of these people purport to be ‘first-principles’ thinkers concerned about ‘the future of human civilization.’ It’s all a bit Soviet. The only first principle that matters is believing that each human has dignity.

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The Control Revolution: Technological and Economic Origins of the Information Society by James Beniger

Truly excellent.

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The Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch

Great book on the evolution of progress through the quest for better explanations. Wish I had read this when I was younger.

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A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy by Nathan Thrall

Heartbreaking.

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Two Cheers for Anarchism by James Scott

Loved this.

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Blue Machine: How the Ocean Shapes Our World by Helen Czerski

Oceans are where the fight against climate change will be won or lost.

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The Catastrophist by Ronan Bennett

Picked this up after reading The Lumumba Plot. Excellent book.

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The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann

Absolutely riveting. Couldn’t put it down.

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Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan

Haunting.