Monthly Archives: September 2025

Wolfgang Streeck: First, an economy is capitalist if its stability – its current reproduction – depends on the successful open-ended accumulation of privately-owned capital for investment in continued open-ended private capital accumulation. Second, a society is capitalist to the extent … Continue reading →

I Es dringt kein Laut bis her zu mir von der Nationen wildem Streite, ich stehe ja auf keiner Seite; denn Recht ist weder dort noch hier. Und weil ich nie Horaz vergaß bleib gut ich aller Welt und halte … Continue reading →

Display celebrating 80 years of the Soviet nuclear industry. Hiroshima, top, Nagasaki bomb left, 1945 US nuclear attack plan for the USSR bottom center, USSR’s first atomic bomb, 1949, bottom right.

Many Eastern European nations face an odd predicament. They possess a surplus of history, but a deficit of useful narratives. That is, plenty of things have happened to them, but not enough has been done by them to establish a … Continue reading →

I guess one could argue this is technically not the Pacific, but it is close enough for my purposes. Very happy to be here.

Going to have to say, Lenin is much more compelling when lit by floodlight and without the pigeons.

You know Yul Brenner was born in Vladivostok? Until this last year I was unaware of that fact.

Lenin is often depicted beckoning: “Come, see what the workers have accomplished” or “here, this is the way to the worker’s paradise,” however across from Владивосток’s main rail station he is definitely pointing, not beckoning.