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At a high level of abstraction, the current period of globalization is defined by a trilogy of ideal-typical economies: super-industrial (coastal East Asia), financial/tertiary (North Atlantic), and hyper-urbanizing/extractive (West Africa). “Jobless growth” is incipient in the first, chronic in th…

In the epilogue to my 2006 book Planet of Slums, I asked: To what extent does the informal proletariat, the most rapidly growing global class, possess that most potent of Marxist talismans, “historical agency”? Although I was not aware of it at the time, Eric Hobsbawm had asked exactly the same que…

There can be no question that Marx saw far beyond the horizon of his century and that Capital, as the Economist (which Marx read faithfully) pointed out a few years back, remains startlingly contemporary even in the age of Walmart and Google. But in other cases Marx’s vision was limited by the anom…

I want to feel calm. I want a signature scent. I want to be the kind of woman who whips up a galette. I want to enjoy stretching. I want to mean it when I tell someone, ‘no worries’. I want to be good at sports or at least a good sport. I want a partner who thinks my best qualities are the Real Me …

She smiled happily. ‘I know, right? I’m like an empath. I adjust to the emotional output of people around me, even if it’s all goth and intense like yours.’

‘I’m wearing Reformation,’ I said.

‘Sure,’ she said. ‘But you are exuding a gothic energy.’