Tara McMullin

@taramcmullin

Writer, podcaster, and producer baffled by the absurdity of neoliberal capitalism. Autistic feminist. Aspiring independent scholar. Amateur baker. Host of the What Works podcast and author of a book of the same name.

whatworks.fyi

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Now, further, there is even a sadder industry yet, which is forced on many, very many, of our workers - the making of wares which are necessary to them and their brethren, because they are an inferior class . For if many men live without producing, nay, must live lives so empty and foolish that they force a great part of the workers to produce... See more

William Morris • William Morris - Useful Work versus Useless Toil

Labor Under Capitalism

Most analysts of capitalism, following nineteenth- and twentieth-century leads, have ignored the formation of “raw” materials, taking them for granted as capitalist resources. Yet these materials have their own genealogies of production outside the capitalist purview, and our recent awareness that capitalism is destroying Earth’s livability makes... See more

Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing • Salvage Accumulation, or the Structural Effects of Capitalist…

Capitalism

I think the defining economic reality of the modern platform media world is that all the platforms realized that an infinite supply of teenage creators are cheaper to deal with than media companies or groups of media individuals or powerful creators. And I’m curious for your read on the number of YouTubers that you see retiring or taking a step... See more

Nilay Patel • NilayPatel tells Decoder guest host Hank Green why blogs are still great

The Creator Economy and

What distinguishes human economies is merely that they recognise that the chief business of any social system – or, indeed, of any system of the production and distribution of material goods – is the creation and mutual fashioning of human beings. Indeed, one could well argue that it’s only the emergence of commercial currencies that made it... See more

David Graeber • On social currencies and human economies: some notes on the violence of equivalence – David Graeber

Economics

The Creator Economy and

We need more than first responders to navigate crises and create change. Source: https://buildingmovement.org/blog/mapping-our-social-change-roles-in-times-of-crisis/

Homelessness is about more than lacking a base that offers protection from the elements and material security. It’s about lacking an integrated identity, a “home” persona that is contained and shaped by, and active within, the home as a psychological boundary.

Digital Homelessness

Broken Links

Perhaps this pattern of radicalisation followed by recuperation has even happened with each emergent technology – newspapers, novels, film, (pirate) radio, the Internet. Each time, the new medium has a progressive force, dehabituating people from expected relations, offering new channels for experimental activity, mediatised subcultures, and the... See more

Andy McLaverty-Robinson • Walter Benjamin: Art, Aura and Authenticity | Ceasefire Magazine

Media & Culture and

In some ways, the distinction between normalcy and pathology is arbitrarily defined—as well as hard to measure.

Meghan O'Rourke • The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness

The Mythical Norm

Empathy depends on a cool head as much as a warm heart | Aeon Essays

Maria Konnikova aeon.co

On Empathy