Where would we be without the market? The stock market, the bond market, the financial markets in general—all of these institutions, journalists tell us, are the ultimate, perhaps only, check on President Trump’s power. Esteemed scholars reassure us of the same—that the world’s oldest constitution is backstopped by Wall Street and the dollar. Investors, the argument goes, need their investments protected. The courts, independent and powerful, can provide that protection. Threaten the courts, and the markets will tumble, and the dollar will drop. It is capitalism, in other words, and not citizens or politicians, that will force the White House into compliance with the courts and the Constitution. This faith in capitalism is both novel and strange. Historically, people have feared that capitalism undermines the sovereignty of the state and […]
-
Categories
Economies, Labor/Workplace, Law, The Left, The Right, The State, Violence
-
Tags Adam Smith, Donald Trump, East India Company, Elon Musk, Michał Kalecki, William Douglas
Jeffrey Toobin has an interesting piece in this week’s New Yorker on the effort of individuals to get information about themselves or their loved ones deleted from the internet. Toobin’s set piece is a chilling story of the family of Nikki Catsouras, who was decapitated in a car accident in California. The images of the accident were so terrible that the coroner wouldn’t allow Catsouras’s parents to see the body. Two employees of the California Highway Patrol, however, circulated photographs of the body to friends. Like oil from a spill, the photos spread across the internet. Aided by Google’s powerful search engine—ghoulish voyeurs could type in terms like “decapitated girl,” and up would pop the links—the ooze could not be […]
-
Categories
Economies, Media, Political Theory, The State
-
Tags copyright, Griswold v. Connecticut, Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States, Jeffrey Toobin, Jennifer Granick, privacy, property right, William Douglas