Ed Walker — The Dialectical Imagination by Martin Jay: Economics in Critical Theory

In The Dialectical Imagination, Martin Jay says that economics was not a central part of Critical Theory, but that several scholars of the Frankfurt School worked in the area. One of the leading economists was Friedrich Pollock, especially after the Institute moved to New York. Like the other scholars of the Institute for Social Research, Pollock was trained in Marxist economics. This school mosttly followed Marx in thinking that capitalism would collapse under the weight of its own contradictions. One of those contradictions was that the aggressive accumulation of capital would impoverish the working class, which would then rise up and lead the revolution. 

By the early 1900s, it was obvious that the problem of pauperization of the proletariat was at least partially solved, and capitalism didn’t collapse. The leading Marxist explanation was the rise of what Marxists call “monopoly capitalism”, as taught by the Austrian economist Rudolf Hilferding, discussed here. Classical economics treated the economy as made up of many firms (or, as Marx called them, capitals) each too small to affect prices, and all responding to the demands of buyers....

emptywheel
The Dialectical Imagination by Martin Jay: Economics in Critical Theory
Ed Walker

Bob Sutton — The Baboon Troop that Mellowed Out After the Alpha Males Died

The No Assholes Rule.

Work Matters
The Baboon Troop that Mellowed Out After the Alpha Males Died
Bob Sutton | Professor of Management Science and Engineering and a Professor of Organizational Behavior (by courtesy) at Stanford. co-founder of the Center for Work, Technology and Organization, which he co-directed from 1996 to 2006, and also co-founder of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program and the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (which everyone calls “the d school”).
(ht Lambert Strether at Naked Capitalism)

Izabella Kaminska — There can be only one

Facebook’s acquisition of Oculus provides an excellent opportunity to expand on my ongoing thesis that what we’re witnessing in the tech sector is a Highlander-style fight to the death in which only one name can survive and in so doing inherit THE WORLD.

The battle consequently isn’t just another rendition of the standard game of monopoly. This time, the stakes are much, much, greater because the technology involved opens the door to potential godhood itself. Consider what’s being played for: robot armies, artificial intelligence, control of all the data, all the electric power, all of space and probably the ability to manage matter if not biology itself — and on a totally borderless basis. Sovereigns don’t stand a chance against the power that could emerge.

Conventional economics won’t matter either when that day comes because we will all be serfs to the one guy who knows all the crypto command codes.

This is Bond villain megalomaniac territory....

It's about dominance.

Dizzynomics
There can be only one
Izabella Kaminska