TLP Weekend Edition (November 2-3, 2024)
What we're reading, watching, and listening to this weekend.
📖 “Social Democracy, Immigration, and the Working Class,” by Sohrab Ahmari. In the relatively new “heterodox” Substack, The Ideas Letter, Compact founder and editor Sohrab Ahmari engages in an interesting debate with Bhaskar Sunkara on what went wrong with social democracy and how it might be fixed. He mostly agrees with Sunkara except on one big issue—immigration.
To put it more bluntly: He thinks it’s a mistake for proponents of social democracy to offer any sop to the working class on immigration. He singles out Sahra Wagenknecht, a former leader of Germany’s Left party who has since launched her own political movement, for doing just that.
But Sunkara’s critique of Wagenknecht’s approach—which presumably extends to that of Denmark’s Social Democrats, among other left formations shifting right on migration—rests on flimsy analysis.
At the heart of social democracy is the primacy of politics over the economy. In the 18th and 19th centuries, nascent market societies promised political equality, but the pledge was withdrawn as soon as workers walked through the factory gates…
Fast-forward to our time, and asserting the primacy of the political means representing working-class people when they oppose massive, low-wage, unskilled migration, the perennial fetish of the likes of the Koch Brothers, the Cato Institute, and The Wall Street Journal editorial page. As the writer Michael Lind has documented, such migration is one of two chief forms of labor arbitrage by which the employer class plays populations and jurisdictions against each other to lower costs (the other being offshoring).
In other words, opposition to mass, low-wage migration isn’t an expression of working-class people’s irrational or atavistic cultural illiberalism, as Sunkara implies. It’s part of a rational calculation that in a primarily services-based economy, high migrant flows diminish what little bargaining power native-born workers enjoy. Newcomers who lack language proficiency and fret about their legal status aren’t going to organize to push back against management; they aren’t going to turn to federal regulators to complain about wage theft and abysmal working conditions.
Read both pieces and decide for yourself!
📰 “Why Trump Has a More Plausible Path to the Presidency, in 19 Maps,” by Doug Sosnik. Former Bill Clinton political mastermind and senior advisor Doug Sosnik takes a clear-eyed look at the various paths to 270 for both Harris and Trump this coming Tuesday. In a series of useful Electoral College scenarios, he correctly notes the harder lift for the vice president:
What has remained a constant all along is this: Pennsylvania and Georgia are the two most pivotal states in the campaign. If Mr. Trump is able to carry Pennsylvania or Ms. Harris prevails in Georgia, either would have a decisive advantage in winning the election…
Given Mr. Trump’s resiliency and his advantages in the Sun Belt states, I believe he has a more plausible path to winning the Electoral College than Ms. Harris does. Still, I would not count Ms. Harris out, because of the potency of the issue of abortion, her superior ground game and the fact that a majority of Americans do not want four more years of Mr. Trump as president. Not to mention that in the closing days of the campaign, Mr. Trump has become increasingly erratic, which may magnify any concerns voters have about his return to the White House.
Keep these maps handy as the results come in Tuesday night.
📕 Playground, by Richard Powers. Powers is one of the sharpest fiction writers around and his numerous books offer a heady yet enjoyable mix of science, technology, philosophy, politics, humanism, and darn good storytelling. His latest book examines the future of the ocean, artificial intelligence, and human relationships through the intersection of four different people with wildly different backgrounds, perspectives, and talents:
Twelve-year-old Evie Beaulieu sinks to the bottom of a swimming pool in Montreal strapped to one of the world’s first aqualungs. Ina Aroita grows up on naval bases across the Pacific with art as her only home. Two polar opposites at an elite Chicago high school bond over a three-thousand-year-old board game; Rafi Young will get lost in literature, while Todd Keane’s work will lead to a startling AI breakthrough.
They meet on the history-scarred island of Makatea in French Polynesia, whose deposits of phosphorus once helped to feed the world. Now the tiny atoll has been chosen for humanity’s next adventure: a plan to send floating, autonomous cities out onto the open sea. But first, the island’s residents must vote to greenlight the project or turn the seasteaders away.
🎨 Paris 1874: The Impressionist Moment, at the National Gallery of Art. This recommendation comes from a longtime TLP reader, art fan, and family member from southern Virginia (Hi, Mom!) who made a special trip to D.C. just to see this rare exhibit.
How did impressionism begin? Discover the origins of the French art movement in a new look at the radical 1874 exhibition considered the birth of modern painting.
A remarkable presentation of 130 works includes a rare reunion of many of the paintings first featured in that now-legendary exhibition. Revisit beloved paintings by Paul Cézanne, Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot, and Camille Pissarro and meet their lesser-known contemporaries. See the art norms they were rebelling against and learn what political and social shifts sparked their new approach to art.
Don’t miss the unique chance to immerse yourself in the dynamic Parisian art scene of 1874—we are the only American stop for this historic exhibition.
🎸 Masana Temples, by Kikagaku Moyo. This is my favorite album from the now sadly disbanded Japanese folk-psych-prog greats out of Tokyo. The whole record flows by in a mesmerizing manner with soft touches and full on Krautrock moves. Perfect for an afternoon stroll—or with some headphones and a Double Duckpin.
Enjoy the final weekend before Election Day and don’t forget to vote if you haven’t already!