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timchristiaens.bsky.social
Political philosopher working on critical theory, the digitalization of work, platform capitalism, and anything else going wrong in the world. Assistant Professor of economic ethics at Tilburg University.
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Posts 41 Comments 9

Writing about Marx, technological innovation, and AI is pretty wild nowadays because even in a few weeks, you get tons of new examples and case studies.

submitted 22 hours ago • 1 comment

Huge congratulations to @wstronge.bsky.social & @helenhester.bsky.social on this masterpiece. Lots of political shifts (to put it mildly) since this book was conceived & it’s more important than ever…#postwork @bloomsburybooksuk.bsky.social @bloomsburyphilo.bsky.social

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

Sunday reading: Joseph Roth’s Radetzky March.

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

You know how the mafia got started? Sicilian farmers were exporting valuable citrus fruits, relying on irrigation systems. The mafia got hold of control of irrigation and threatened to cut off the water if substantial protection money not paid, siphoning off the farmers’ profits. Similar thing here.

submitted 3 days ago • 8 comments

An argument for democratizing technological infrastructures if there ever was one. Today, two guys can hold an entire continent hostage just whenever they please. That is not just a problem of technological sovereignty (what I'm currently reading in the European news), but of popular control.

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

"Socialist political philosophy as a political practice should not consistently reaffirm a coherent, static doctrine of theoretical principles. Rather, it is a dynamic series of intervention in concrete political situations." Citizen Marx by @brunoleipold.com reviewed @timchristiaens.bsky.social

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

Movies you’ve watched more than 6 times (my top 2). Gifs only

submitted 3 days ago • 1 comment

Wrote a review of Citizen Marx by @brunoleipold.com for @lsereviewofbooks.bsky.social . The book will tell you everything you wanted to know about the tensions between republicanism and socialism in the 19th century and Marx’s antics with his intellectual rivals. blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofb...

submitted 7 days ago • 2 comments

First day of the year with warmth and sunshine in the Netherlands. Makes me think of one of my favorite e.e. cummings poems. “O sweet spontaneous earth how often have the doting fingers of prurient philosophers pinched and poked thee”

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

Blog by me for W W Norton on teaching difficult topics n the classroom. nortonlearningblog.com/archives/6503

submitted 5 days ago • 1 comment

Hartmut Rosa’s acceleration society and the frenetic standstill: crisis events are moving at such an incredible pace that the people is simply paralyzed and unable to muster any reaction.

submitted 6 days ago • 0 comments

"CEOs embedded in the corporate elite can extract a substantial wage premium. These premiums are then followed by reductions in wages going back to workers over the next three years." academic.oup.com/ser/advance-...

submitted 6 days ago • 0 comments

This isn’t mentioned enough in the technological unemployment debate. GenAI makes up a lot of stuff and the ability to discern the good parts from the nonsense requires *human* expertise. Yes, ChatGPT might sometimes outperform experts but the only way of knowing when is by being an expert yourself.

submitted 6 days ago • 0 comments

"Leipold @brunoleipold.com shows that Marx continuously positioned himself vis-à-vis rival thinkers and activists. ... If class struggle is the motor of history, then intellectual struggle was the motor of Marx’s life." Review by Tim Christiaens @timchristiaens.bsky.social

submitted 6 days ago • 0 comments

Wrote a review of Citizen Marx by @brunoleipold.com for @lsereviewofbooks.bsky.social . The book will tell you everything you wanted to know about the tensions between republicanism and socialism in the 19th century and Marx’s antics with his intellectual rivals. blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofb...

submitted 7 days ago • 2 comments

Very grateful to @timchristiaens.bsky.social for this generous review, which nicely highlights the historical and contemporary value of seeing Marx's texts as political interventions

submitted 7 days ago • 1 comment

NEW✨ Citizen Marx: Republicanism and the Formation of Karl Marx’s Social and Political Thought by @brunoleipold.com @lsepoltheory.bsky.social @lsegovernment.bsky.social @princetonupress.bsky.social Review by Tim Christiaens @timchristiaens.bsky.social @tilburguniversity.bsky.social 📖👇

submitted 7 days ago • 1 comment

I remember a few years back an Israeli comrade was telling me how the far-right there uses Gramsci in much of their fascist posturing and I laughed it off - no wayyy that's serious and can go anywhere. I was so wrong. The Americans are now really on it too, and it's definitely scary.

submitted 7 days ago • 3 comments

Teaching about Antonio Gramsci this week and just encountered this excellent article on the far-right recuperation of Gramsci’s theory of cultural hegemony in Italy and beyond. Comes to show that the right actually has an effective cultural war machine. foreignpolicy.com/2024/12/13/g...

submitted 7 days ago • 3 comments

Long walk while mentally preparing a talk this afternoon about the commodification of the self and its discontents.

submitted 9 days ago • 1 comment

As we all know by now, the only genuine threats to free speech and academic freedom aren’t coming from the left but from far-right cancel culture.

submitted 12 days ago • 0 comments

Started reading Can Xue’s Love in the New Millennium yesterday. Just in time for Valentine’s.

submitted 11 days ago • 0 comments

Can Xue’s Love in the New Millennium certainly knows how to create a Lynchian atmosphere of wondrous terror and bewildering mystery steeped in dream logic.

submitted 9 days ago • 0 comments

The Institute for the Cooperative Digital Economy (ICDE) at @thenewschool.bsky.social is accepting applications for the 2025-2026 Fellowship Program. Apply by Feb 28, 2025: platform.coop/blog/open-ca... cc: @nssrnews.bsky.social @netzpolitik.bsky.social

submitted 14 days ago • 1 comment

Just read Piketty & Sandel’s dialogue on equality. Funny how their distinct national backgrounds create friction. Sandel wants Piketty to talk about identity politics on the left but Piketty doesn’t take the bait. The French thinker rather criticizes Sandel for not writing about taxes and unions.

submitted 15 days ago • 0 comments

This isn’t the real world. We’re living in an STS fever dream. “The Ceylon Electricity Board issued an apology for the Sunday blackout but did not explain how one incident could have had such widespread repercussions. There was no word on the fate of the monkey.”

submitted 14 days ago • 1 comment

Started reading Can Xue’s Love in the New Millennium yesterday. Just in time for Valentine’s.

submitted 11 days ago • 0 comments

As we all know by now, the only genuine threats to free speech and academic freedom aren’t coming from the left but from far-right cancel culture.

submitted 12 days ago • 0 comments

It’s that time of the year again where I teach the first year philosophy students about French structuralism and realize yet again how brilliant Roland Barthes is.

submitted 13 days ago • 2 comments

Han Kang telling it like it is:

submitted 13 days ago • 3 comments

"We’ll bring hygge to Hollywood, bike lanes to Beverly Hills, universal health care and fact based politics might apply." What does my favourite Californian @jesawyer.bsky.social think? Danish takeover of Cali, let's go? ;D denmarkification.com

submitted 13 days ago • 3 comments

De bezuinigingen op het hoger onderwijs zijn geen neutrale financiële ingreep, maar een ideologisch gemotiveerde aanval op academische vrijheid. Uiterst rechtse partijen in Nederland en Europa richten zich steeds nadrukkelijker tegen universiteiten als bolwerken van kritisch denken.

submitted 14 days ago • 1 comment

With rising consequences of climate change, we should brace ourselves for the Uninsurable Future. A gloomy though illuminating piece on that: www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/uninsurabl...

submitted 13 days ago • 0 comments

You say "artificial intelligence"? Here is Günther Anders, in 1977, with a much better idea: "artificial imagination" -- something he says we must reclaim from ... drug users!

submitted 18 days ago • 1 comment

Google Maps this morning 🙄

submitted 14 days ago • 0 comments

This isn’t the real world. We’re living in an STS fever dream. “The Ceylon Electricity Board issued an apology for the Sunday blackout but did not explain how one incident could have had such widespread repercussions. There was no word on the fate of the monkey.”

submitted 14 days ago • 1 comment

I've got a new paper out with the brilliant Savannah Cox and Emma Colven! We took a social studies of finance lens to explore the practices of 'framing, standardization, and classification' that 'center' private finance at the core of urban climate action. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

submitted 14 days ago • 1 comment

Just read Piketty & Sandel’s dialogue on equality. Funny how their distinct national backgrounds create friction. Sandel wants Piketty to talk about identity politics on the left but Piketty doesn’t take the bait. The French thinker rather criticizes Sandel for not writing about taxes and unions.

submitted 15 days ago • 0 comments

A recent health department report says private equity investment in nursing homes led to a 11% increase in patient deaths.

submitted 18 days ago • 18 comments

More Prague sightseeing on my last day here.

submitted 15 days ago • 0 comments

Just finished prep for a talk on Marx, AI, and public ownership. Key takeaway: if we don’t want new technologies to dominate our jobs, we better make sure they are not financed, designed, and implemented by people who stand to gain from making our working lives worse.

submitted 17 days ago • 1 comment