Global Humanist Shoptalk

The Right to Mobility in a Rich/Poor World

Thu, 28 Sep 2023 13:41:14 GMT

In this final miniseries for Season 2, "Migration and Mobility Rights", we reflect on the arbitrary nature of national borders, in light of humanity's much more fluid histories of movement. Over this series, we've looked at deep time and more recent histories of migration, the excessive role of technology in enforcing current borders, and the biggest moral crises that borders impede our ability to address. But does a person really need a dire, life-threatening reason to want to leave? To start over somewhere new? Or are there also more nebulous notions of seeking a better life that merit mobility rights, too?

Genocide and Civil War

Thu, 28 Sep 2023 13:41:10 GMT

In this final miniseries for Season 2, "Migration and Mobility Rights", we reflect on the arbitrary nature of national borders, in light of humanity's much more fluid histories of movement. One other problem with borders is how ill-prepared they make us, as a species, to address extreme human rights violations. Genocide and civil war are routinely difficult phenomena to mediate because of our prioritization of notions of sovereignty and the integrity of a nation's borders. But does this serve a more global humanist perspective?

Technology and Migration

Thu, 28 Sep 2023 13:41:08 GMT

In this final miniseries for Season 2, "Migration and Mobility Rights", we reflect on the arbitrary nature of national borders, in light of humanity's much more fluid histories of movement. In this episode, we reflect on how much technology has had to be developed - and often at further cost to human well-being - just to maintain our notions of rigid borders. Is this really the best use of our creative capacities? Does our fixation on upholding rigid borders come at other costs to human thriving?

Regional Histories of Fluid Mobility

Thu, 28 Sep 2023 13:41:06 GMT

In this final miniseries for Season 2, "Migration and Mobility Rights", we reflect on the arbitrary nature of national borders, in light of humanity's much more fluid histories of movement. War has routinely been a transformer of human geography, and changing borders have consistently created significant amounts of human suffering. Recognizing these facts, why then do we still place such high moral priority on their maintenance?

Human Migration in Deep Time

Thu, 28 Sep 2023 13:41:03 GMT

In this final miniseries for Season 2, "Migration and Mobility Rights", we reflect on the arbitrary nature of national borders, in light of humanity's much more fluid histories of movement. In this episode, we're going back to those deeper histories of migration, to remind ourselves how fragile and recent so many of our ideas about human group structures really are. Yes, we've had eras of more recent recorded time where mobility was restricted, but are these necessarily the examples we want to emulate today?

REFERENCES

Dowty, Alan. Closed Borders: The Contemporary Assault on the Freedom of Movement. Yale University Press, 1987.

---. "The Right of Personal Self-Determination", Public Affairs Quarterly. 1989. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40435699

Graeber, David and David Wengrow. The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity. 2021.

Gugliotta, Guy. "The Great Human Migration", Smithsonian Magazine. July 2008. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-great-human-migration-13561/#:~:text=The%20moderns%20entered%20Europe%20around,most%20of%20the%20Old%20World.

Environmental Refugees and Worldly Wars

Thu, 28 Sep 2023 13:41:00 GMT

In this final miniseries for Season 2, "Migration and Mobility Rights", we reflect on the arbitrary nature of national borders, in light of humanity's much more fluid histories of movement. With climate change disaster accelerating, and amid ongoing war, we have more pressure points than ever, challenging our notion of rigid limits to where human beings can go. But are we ready for the mental reframe? Can we prioritize actual human thriving over abstract concepts that may no longer serve us well?

REFERENCES

Adams, Destinee. "Massive fire tears through a crowded Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh," NPR. March 2023. https://www.npr.org/2023/03/06/1161248208/massive-fire-tears-through-a-crowded-rohingya-refugee-camp-in-bangladesh

AP. "25,000 Tons of Ukraine Grain Reach East Africa", VOA. 2022. https://www.voanews.com/a/tons-of-ukraine-grain-reach-east-africa-/6863518.html

"Climate Crisis Could Displace 1.2 Billion People By 2050", Earth.Org. 2020. https://earth.org/climate-crisis-could-displace-1-2-billion-people-by-2050/

Glinski, Stefanie. "In Afghanistan, a wrenching choice between drought and migration", Reuters. 2022. https://www.preventionweb.net/news/afghanistan-wrenching-choice-between-drought-and-migration

Global Peace Index 2020: Measuring Peace in a Complex World. IEP. 2020. https://www.economicsandpeace.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/GPI_2020_web.pdf

NB: Media pulled from this study for the "1.2 billion" stat. 1.2 billion might be living in untenably in 2050... but not necessarily in a position to displace themselves.

Ida, Tetsuji. "Climate refugees--the world's forgotten victims", Kyodo News. 2021. https://racetozero.unfccc.int/climate-refugees-the-worlds-forgotten-victims/

Polityuk, Pavel & Michelle Nichols. "U.N., Turkey, Ukraine press ahead with Black Sea grain deal despite Russian pullout", Reuters, 2022. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-suspends-participation-deal-ukraine-grain-exports-tass-2022-10-29/

"Sea Level Rise & Implications for Low-Lying Islands, Coasts and Communities", IPCC Special Report, 2019. https://www.ipcc.ch/srocc/chapter/chapter-4-sea-level-rise-and-implications-for-low-lying-islands-coasts-and-communities/

Spring, James. "How the Other Side Lives", This American Life. 2022. https://www.thisamericanlife.org/770/my-lying-eyes/act-two-11

Speculative Finance

Thu, 14 Sep 2023 15:59:42 GMT

In this second miniseries of Season 2, "Global Finance", we're wrestling with the strangeness of living in a world that aspires to a level of global integration that our current systems can't support - and maybe don't want to. We looked at the fragility of money transfers for average citizens, the fraught history of the IMF, and the easily abused systems of microfinancing and cryptocurrency (along with the reasons we're itching for something new). In this series closer, there are no easy solutions - some promises in tech, some challenges through arbitration - but maybe it's enough just to sit with the enormity of the problem. Once we stop buying into quick fixes, we'll finally be ready to look at root causes.

REFERENCES

Adrian, Tobias. "Tobias Adrian on the Future of Finance", Fintech Forward, IMF Podcasts. 2022. https://www.imf.org/en/News/Podcasts/All-Podcasts/2022/06/08/mcm-fintech-forward-tobias-adrian

Doran, Michael and James Tanner. “Critical challenges facing the green bond market”. Baker McKenzie, in partnership with the International Financial Law Review. 2019. https://www.bakermckenzie.com/-/media/files/insight/publications/2019/09/iflr--green-bonds-%28002%29.pdf

Jefriando, Maikel and Daniel Leussink, "In Indonesia, long-term foreign bond investors keep the faith--for now", Reuters. 2018. https://www.reuters.com/article/indonesia-economy-risks-idINKCN1LU10Y

OECD Codes of Liberalisation: User’s Guide", OECD. 2019. www.oecd.org/investment/codes.htm

Wahidin, Deni et al. “The impact of bond market development on economic growth before and after the global financial crisis: Evidence from developed and developing countries”, International Review of Financial Analysis (Vol 77). October 2021. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1057521921001952

Referenced subsection:

A full side essay exists on Better Worlds Theory, "What We Take for Granted about Global Finance", which includes a touch more explanation about the role of long-term bonds in foreign investments, along with recommendations for staying apprised of global discourse about next steps in all these difficult sub-fields. https://open.substack.com/pub/mlclark/p/what-we-take-for-granted-about-global

The Crisis from Crypto

Thu, 14 Sep 2023 15:59:39 GMT

In this second miniseries of Season 2, "Global Finance", we're wrestling with the strangeness of living in a world that aspires to a level of global integration our current systems can't support - and maybe don't want to. The rise of cryptocurrency has many stories attached to it: some about wanting to change the world, some about exploiting the world in new ways. In this episode, we reflect on the deeper story: the fact that we're hungry for alternative financial relationships in the first place. How else can we answer that underlying need for global reform?

REFERENCES

Bains, Parma. "Regulating the Crypto Ecosystem: The Case of Stablecoins and Arrangements", FinTech Notes, IMF. 2022. https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fintech-notes/Issues/2022/09/26/Regulating-the-Crypto-Ecosystem-The-Case-of-Stablecoins-and-Arrangements-523724

Clark, M L. "The crypto crisis fallout in El Salvador", OnlySky. 2022. https://onlysky.media/mclark/the-crypto-crisis-fallout-in-el-salvador/

---. "FTX to file for bankruptcy, CEO of crypto giant steps down", OnlySky. 2022. https://onlysky.media/mclark/ftx-to-file-for-bankruptcy-ceo-of-crypto-giant-steps-down/

Fuje, Habtamu et al. "Africa’s Growing Crypto Market Needs Better Regulations", IMF Blog, Fintech. 2022. https://www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2022/11/22/africas-growing-crypto-market-needs-better-regulations

Kharpal, Arjun. "IMF head says stablecoins not backed by assets are a ‘pyramid,’ hinting at UST debacle that crashed markets", CNBC. 2022. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/23/imf-head-says-stablecoins-not-backed-by-assets-are-a-pyramid-hinting-at-ust.html

Mandeng, Ousmène Jacques. "Stable coins’ rise has echoes of Bretton Woods", Financial Times. 2021. https://www.ft.com/content/4bb77dd2-ad49-4f26-990a-cf6513b54057

Martin, Eric. "IMF urges El Salvador to Strip Bitcoins Legal Tender Status", Al Jazeera. 2022. https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2022/1/25/imf-urges-el-salvador-to-strip-bitcoins-legal-tender-status

Nugent, Ciara. "Why El Salvador’s Bukele Is Doubling Down on Bitcoin Despite the Crypto Crash", Times Magazine. 2022. https://time.com/6236899/el-salvador-bukele-bitcoin-crash/

Wheatley, Jonathan and Adrienne Klasa. "Cryptocurrencies: developing countries provide fertile ground", Financial Times. 2021. https://www.ft.com/content/1ea829ed-5dde-4f6e-be11-99392bdc0788

Microfinancing

Thu, 14 Sep 2023 15:59:36 GMT

In this second miniseries of Season 2, "Global Finance", we're wrestling with the strangeness of living in a world that aspires to a level of global integration our current systems can't support - and maybe don't want to. In this episode, I reflect on a time when I was beguiled by the feel-good story of microfinancing. Nothing is ever that simple, sadly, when it comes to the easily gamified world of global finance.

NB: There is an error in the script, corrected in the show notes and transcript. Andhra Pradesh is a key location in Poverty Capital, which was written by Ananya Roy.

REFERENCES

Bateman, Milford. "The Rise and Fall of Muhammad Yunus and the Microcredit Model", International Development Series Working Paper. 2014. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272241825_The_Rise_and_Fall_of_Muhammad_Yunus_and_the_Microcredit_Model

Bernards, Nick. A Critical History of Poverty Finance: Colonial Roots and Neoliberal Failures. Pluto Press, 2022. https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745344829/a-critical-history-of-poverty-finance/

Donovan, Kevin P. "Microfinance's Imagined Utopia", Boston Review. 2023. https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/microfinances-imagined-utopia/

Donovan, Kevin P. and Emma Park. "Perpetual Debt in the Silicon Savannah", Boston Review. 2019. https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/perpetual-debt-silicon-savannah/

Meyerowitz, Joanne. A War on Global Poverty: The Lost Promise of Redistribution and the Rise of Microcredit, 2021

Nelson, Eshe. Nobel winner Muhammad Yunus wants two financial systems—one for the rich and one for the poor", Quartz. 2018. https://qz.com/1430076/nobel-winner-muhammad-yunus-wants-two-financial-systems-one-for-the-rich-and-one-for-the-poor

Roy, Ananya. Poverty Capital: Microfinance and the Making of Development. Routledge Press, 2010. https://www.routledge.com/Poverty-Capital-Microfinance-and-the-Making-of-Development/Roy/p/book/9780415876735

Yunus, Muhammad. A World of Three Zeros: The New Economics of Zero Poverty, Zero Unemployment, and Zero Net Carbon Emissions. PublicAffairs. 2017. https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/muhammad-yunus/a-world-of-three-zeros/9781610397582/

The Who, What, and for Whom of the IMF

Thu, 14 Sep 2023 15:59:32 GMT

In this second miniseries of Season 2, "Global Finance", we're wrestling with the strangeness of living in a world that aspires to a level of global integration our current systems can't support - and maybe don't want to. The IMF and World Bank are complex forces in the world today. Located in and funded by countries that caused a great deal of financial inequality in the first place, is their austerity-driven approach to loan programs truly what many struggling nations need to break from cycles of poverty?

REFERENCES

Easterly, William. "The Effect of International Monetary Fund and World Bank Programs on Poverty", World Bank/IMF External Documents, 2000. https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/staffp/2000/00-00/e.pdf

---. The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good. Penguin Press, 2006.

Elliott, Larry. "The World Bank and the IMF won't admit their policies are the problem", The Guardian. 2016. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/oct/09/the-world-bank-and-the-imf-wont-admit-their-policies-are-the-problem

Fukuyama, Francis. The End of History. 1992.

"IMF Report: 2018 Review of Program Design and Conditionality", International Monetary Find. 2019. https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/Policy-Papers/Issues/2019/05/20/2018-Review-of-Program-Design-and-Conditionality-46910

Masters, Jonathan et al. "The IMF: The World’s Controversial Financial Firefighter", Council on Foreign Relations. 2021. https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/imf-worlds-controversial-financial-firefighter

Martin, Eric. "IMF urges El Salvador to strip Bitcoin’s legal tender status", Al Jazeera. 2022. https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2022/1/25/imf-urges-el-salvador-to-strip-bitcoins-legal-tender-status

Smith, Robert and Zoe Chace. "The Dollar At The Center Of The World", NPR Planet Money. 2014. https://www.npr.org/transcripts/331743569

Stubbs, Thomas et al. "How to evaluate the effects of IMF conditionality", The Review of International Organizations. 2018. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11558-018-9332-5

Why It's So Hard to Send Money

Thu, 14 Sep 2023 15:59:29 GMT

In this second miniseries of Season 2, "Global Finance", we're wrestling with the strangeness of living in a world that aspires to a level of global integration our current systems can't support - and maybe don't want to. The internet age gives the impression of easy connectivity, but the reality is quite different for those trying to make and send money to a great many struggling nation-states. In this episode, we reflect on the fragility of money transfer systems for everyday clients.

REFERENCES

Adrian, Tobias. "Cross-Border Payments for the 21st Century", IMF Podcasts. 2023. https://www.imf.org/en/News/Podcasts/All-Podcasts/2023/01/19/tobias-adrian-cross-border-payments

Guiliano, Paola and Marta Ruiz-Arranz. "Remittances, Financial Development, and Growth", IMF Working Report. 2005. https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2005/wp05234.pdf

It's A Wonderful Life. 1946.

Migration Data Portal. "Remittances". 2023. https://www.migrationdataportal.org/themes/remittances

Rice, Tara et al. "On the global retreat of correspondent banks", BIS Quarterly Review, 2020. https://www.bis.org/publ/qtrpdf/r_qt2003g.htm

Teixeira da Silva Filho, Tito Nicias. "Curb Your Enthusiasm: The Fintech Hype Meets Reality in the Remittances Market", IMF Working Paper, 2022. https://www.imf.org/-/media/Files/Publications/WP/2022/English/wpiea2022233-print-pdf.ashx

Treanor, Jill and Dominic Rushe. "HSBC pays record $1.9bn fine to settle US money-laundering accusations", The Guardian. 2012. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/dec/11/hsbc-bank-us-money-laundering

Woodman, Spencer. "HSBC moved vast sums of dirty money after paying record laundering fine", International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, 2020. https://www.icij.org/investigations/fincen-files/hsbc-moved-vast-sums-of-dirty-money-after-paying-record-laundering-fine/

What’s the World Worth, Anyway?

Thu, 14 Sep 2023 15:59:24 GMT

In this second miniseries of Season 2, "Global Finance", we're wrestling with the strangeness of living in a world that aspires to a level of global integration our current systems can't support - and maybe don't want to. In this first episode, we "think slow" about the arbitrary and dehumanizing activity of putting a political price tag on life at all.

REFERENCES

Costanza, Robert. “The value of the world’s ecosystem services and natural capital”, Nature, 1997. https://www.nature.com/articles/387253a0

Costanza, Robert et al. “Changes in the global value of ecosystem services”, Global Environmental Change. 2014. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0959378014000685

Climate Change Business Journal. 2020. https://ebionline.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/EBJ_Infrastructure_SelectPages.pdf

Credit Suisse Research Institute. "Global Wealth Report", 2022. https://www.credit-suisse.com/about-us-news/en/articles/media-releases/global-wealth-report-2022---record-wealth-growth-in-2021-tapered-202209.html

Gonzalez, Sarah and Kenny Malone. "How much is a human life worth?", NPR. 2020. https://www.npr.org/transcripts/835571843

Laughlin, Greg. "Too cheap to meter". 2009. https://oklo.org/2009/03/12/too-cheap-to-meter/

Newitz, Annalee. "How Much Money Would an Earth-Like Exoplanet Really Be Worth to Us", Gizmodo. 2014. https://gizmodo.com/how-much-money-would-an-earth-like-exoplanet-really-be-1674561982

Williams, Oliver. "World's Wealth Hits Half a Quadrillion Dollars", Forbes Magazine. 2021. https://www.forbes.com/sites/oliverwilliams1/2021/06/10/worlds-wealth-hits-half-a-quadrillion-dollars/

Nation-Building After Oil

Tue, 05 Sep 2023 22:32:08 GMT

In this first miniseries of Season 2, we've been exploring "Petronationalism": the way corporate overlap with state enterprise around the world has created a situation of oil imperialism that underpins a great deal of national and international trauma over the last 150 years. What could we do if we were no longer reliant on, and shaping national myths around, hydrocarbon economies? What would our next steps be, with respect to notions of national identity, without global power plays framed by fossil fuel dominance?REFERENCESBallard, J. G. "The Subliminal Man", New Worlds. 1963.https://readerslibrary.org/wp-content/uploads/The-Subliminal-Man.pdfCoughlin, Father Charles. "Twenty Years Ago" (audio recording). 1937.https://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5111/Fisher, Marc. Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative?. Zero Books, 2009.https://www.collectiveinkbooks.com/zer0-books/our-books/capitalist-realism-new-editionFranklin, H. Bruce. "What are we to make of J.G. Ballard's Apocalypse?", Voices for the Future: Essays on Major Science Fiction Writers, Volume Two (Ed. Thomas Clareson). Popular Press, 1976.https://www.jgballard.ca/criticism/ballard_apocalypse_1979.htmlJameson, Fredric. "Future City", New Left Review. May/June 2003.https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii21/articles/fredric-jameson-future-city---. The Seeds of Time. 2004.http://cup.columbia.edu/book/the-seeds-of-time/9780231080590(NB: A good review of the volume is available here: https://www.jstor.org/stable/26285557)Robinson, Kim Stanley. The Ministry for the Future. Orbit, Hachette Book Group, 2020.https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/kim-stanley-robinson/the-ministry-for-the-future/9780316300162/

Iraq, Venezuela, Qatar, Morocco

Tue, 05 Sep 2023 19:28:31 GMT

In this first miniseries of Season 2, we're looking at "Petronationalism". Oil imperialism has done a number on our world. In four snapshots we reflect on the ways that this fossil fuel market has negatively impacted the shape of many cultures. When we talk about reducing oil dependency, we often speak in environmental terms--but what if what's good for "the planet" is also good for us sociopolitically?

REFERENCES

Aldroubi, Mina & Sinan Mahmoud. "The three kings of Iraq: How a short-lived monarchy changed the country forever", The National MENA. 2021.

https://www.thenationalnews.com/mena/iraq/2021/08/23/the-three-kings-of-iraq-how-a-short-lived-monarchy-changed-the-country-forever/

Barnes, Trevor. "The Secret Cold War: The C.I.A. and American Foreign Policy in Europe, 1946-1956. Part I", The Historical Journal. June 1981.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/2638793

James, Brendan & Noah Kulwin. Blowback, Season One: Iraq (podcast).

https://blowback.show/Season-1

Chavez, César. "Passing a law does not solve the problem".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8uCEYw3M44]

Earle, Edward M. "The Turkish Petroleum Company--A Study in Oleaginous Diplomacy", Political Science Quarterly. 1924.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/2142190

Gallegos, Raúl. Crude Nation: How Oil Riches Ruined Venezuela. Potomac Books, 2016.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1dwsswf

Hajbi, Maher. "Will Morocco hit the oil jackpot?", The African Report. 2022.

https://www.theafricareport.com/199829/will-morocco-hit-the-oil-jackpot/

"El Libertador", Throughline. 2019.

https://www.npr.org/2019/05/14/723260665/el-libertador

Mirabella, Valentina. "The Qatar Oil Concession Ushers in a New Era for British Relations with Doha", Qatar Digital Library. 2014.

https://www.qdl.qa/en/qatar-oil-concession-ushers-new-era-british-relations-doha

Zedalis, Rex, "Facts Regarding Iraqi Oil and Gas Reserves and Their Legal Status Prior to Self-Governance", The Legal Dimensions of Oil and Gas in Iraq. Cambridge University Press, 2009.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/legal-dimensions-of-oil-and-gas-in-iraq/facts-regarding-iraqi-oil-and-gas-reserves-and-their-legal-status-prior-to-selfgovernance/56B33DC5145CD1BB0FC0B3E14AB67F8B

Communism vs. Capitalism

Tue, 05 Sep 2023 19:28:29 GMT

In this first miniseries of Season 2, "Petronationalism", we're exploring the myths underpinning modern nation-states, and the arbitrary divisions drawn between corporate and government exercise when it comes to oil imperialism. There are certainly differences between Communism and Capitalism... but do they always show up in the way oil-seeking nation-states have exploited the modern world?

REFERENCES

Clark, M L. "Oil imperialism and the struggle for human control over our futures", OnlySky Media, 2022.

https://onlysky.media/mclark/oil-imperialism-human-agency/

Dietrich, Christopher R.W. "Suez and the United States: Oil, Lifelines, and “All of Mankind” in the Cold War", The Suez Canal: Past Lessons and Future Challenges. Palgrave Macmillan, 2023.

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-15670-0_4

Engels, Frederick. "Socialism: Utopian and Scientific", Marx/Engels Selected Works, Volume 3. Progress Publishers, 1970. [Republished online: 2003.]

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/ch03.htm

Epstein, Lee and Mitu Gulati. "A Century of Business in the Supreme Court, 1920-2020", Minnesota Law Review. 2022.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4178504

Grünbacher, Armin. "Cold-War Economics: The Use of Marshall Plan Counterpart Funds in Germany, 1948-1960", Central European History. 2012.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/41819487?read-now=1&seq=3#page_scan_tab_contents

Marx, Karl. "The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte", Works of Marx & Engels. Progress Publishers, 1937. [Republished online: 1999.]

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1852/18th-brumaire/

Totenberg, Nina. "When Did Companies Become People? Excavating The Legal Evolution", NPR. 2014.

https://www.npr.org/2014/07/28/335288388/when-did-companies-become-people-excavating-the-legal-evolution

Why We Moil for Oil

Tue, 05 Sep 2023 19:28:26 GMT

In this first miniseries of Season 2, we're exploring "Petronationalism". Why have petroleum products played such a significant role in the development of nation-states? There's a story of imperialism here with strong consequences for our ongoing crisis shaped by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, but also something deeper. For all that we treat "corporations" and "states" as distinct entities, in practice the former, economic organization is sometimes difficult to distinguish from the political state that gives it sanction.

REFERENCES

"The Day the Oil Came", The National. 2018.

https://www.thenationalnews.com/uae/heritage/special-report-the-day-the-oil-came-to-abu-dhabi-1.716597

Funakoshi, Minami Funakoshi, and Kannaki Deka. "Tracking sanctions against Russia". Reuters, 2022.

https://www.reuters.com/graphics/UKRAINE-CRISIS/SANCTIONS/byvrjenzmve/

"How Biden’s Sanctions Against Russia Fall Short", Ones and Tooze. 2022.

https://foreignpolicy.com/podcasts/ones-and-tooze/how-bidens-sanctions-against-russia-fall-short/

"How was the UAE founded?", Euronews. 2018.

https://www.euronews.com/2018/12/07/how-was-the-uae-founded

"Max Steineke’s discovery of oil in Saudi Arabia with Kellen Gunderson", TravelingGeologist. 2016.

https://www.travelinggeologist.com/2016/08/travelinggeologists-from-history-max-steinekes-discovery-of-oil-in-saudi-arabia-with-kellen-gunderson/

"May 26, 1908: Mideast Oil Discovered — There Will Be Blood", Wired Magazine Online. 2008.

https://www.wired.com/2008/05/dayintech-0526/

"Oil and petroleum products explained", EIA. 2023.

https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/oil-and-petroleum-products/use-of-oil.php

"Oil Market and Russian Supply", IEA. 2022.

https://www.iea.org/reports/russian-supplies-to-global-energy-markets/oil-market-and-russian-supply-2

"Oil, ‘Modernity’ and Law: Revisiting the Abu Dhabi Arbitration in the Age of the Climate Crisis", Third World Approaches to International Law Review. 2022.

https://twailr.com/oil-modernity-and-law-revisiting-the-abu-dhabi-arbitration-in-the-age-of-the-climate-crisis/

How Nations Make Themselves

Tue, 05 Sep 2023 19:28:23 GMT

In this first miniseries of Season 2, we're talking about "Petronationalism". After wrestling with the myths imposed on nation-states in Episode 1, especially around World War I, we turn our attention to myth-making within specific countries over much longer time spans, and the way these histories complicate our understanding of what a nation even is.

REFERENCES

Anderson, Gordon L. "The Idea of the Nation-State Is an Obstacle to Peace", International Journal on World Peace. 2006.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/20753518

Graeber, David and David Wengrow. The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity. MacMillan, 2021.

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374157357/thedawnofeverything

Laski, H.J. The Foundations of Sovereignty, and Other Essays. Harcourt, Brace and Company, 2021.

https://www.lawbookexchange.com/pages/books/36612/harold-j-laski/the-foundations-of-sovereignty-and-other-essays

Scott, James C. Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States. Yale University Press, 2017.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv1bvnfk9

Sicard, Germaine (trans. Matthew Landry). The Origins of Corporations: The Mills of Toulouse in the Middle Ages. Yale University Press, 2015.

https://yalebooks.yale.edu/2015/08/11/the-worlds-first-corporations/

NB: The original French title, from a 1952 dissertation republished in 1955, is “Aux origines des Sociétés anonymes, les moulins de Toulouse au Moyen-Age. That "Anonymous Societies" part is what we translate as "corporations", but the former term is more fitting.

Wengrow, David. What Makes Civilization? The Ancient Near East and the Future of the West. Oxford University Press, 2018.

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/what-makes-civilization-9780199699421?cc=us&lang=en&

The Making of Nations

Tue, 05 Sep 2023 19:22:56 GMT

In this first miniseries of Season 2, "Petronationalism", we look at the making of nations: our myths around a "balance of power" for sovereign states, and the way they've coloured our understanding of 20th century history. If we're going to make sense of power struggles in the world today, we need to rethink some of our fundamental ideas about the nation-state.

REFERENCES

Axworthy, Michael and Patrick Milton. "The Myth of Westphalia: Understanding Its True Legacy Could Help the Middle East", Foreign Affairs. 2016.

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/europe/myth-westphalia

---. "A Westphalian Peace for the Middle East: Why an Old Framework Could Work", Foreign Affairs. 2016.

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/europe/2016-10-10/westphalian-peace-middle-east

Beaulac, Stephane. "The Power of the Westphalian Myth in International Law", Paz de Westphalia/Peace of Westphalia (1648-2008), Sao Paulo: University Press. 2013. [Republished online: 2017.]

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2965241

Kupriyanov, Alexei. "Westphalian Myth: History and Criticism", Analysis and Forecasting, IMEMO Journal. 2019.

https://www.afjournal.ru/en/index.php?page_id=138

Mertz, Jonathan. "A Tale of Tale of Two Westphalia: The Narrative Evolution of a Historiographical Mythos from Nationalist History to Political Theory, 1808-1948". Major Paper, University of Windsor. 2018.

https://scholar.uwindsor.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1043&context=major-papers

The Humanist Light Source

Thu, 29 Sep 2022 16:03:36 GMT

In this Season One closer, we explore the history of the light bulb, and what aligning ingenuity with literal illumination has done for us as a culture (for better, and for worse). When we consider how best to uplift fellow humans today, what lessons can the light bulb and its histories teach us about how not to measure success?

The Humanist Monument

Thu, 29 Sep 2022 16:03:33 GMT

In this episode (and in the wake of a few years of toppled statues and related historical markers), we reflect on our use of public spaces to establish a specific ethos for our cultures. What do we venerate with our memorials and monuments? And what other choices exist, that we might not even realize we could make instead?

The Humanist Punk Aesthetic

Thu, 29 Sep 2022 16:03:30 GMT

Punk is a complicated term, because its history has found it appropriated by many different - and often completely contradictory - political movements and societal vantage points. How can so many ideologies fit under one umbrella term? Easily, actually. When "punk" reduces to "resistance from a perceived status quo", all manner of difficult bedfellows might show up to claim the concept as their own.

The Humanist Sneakerhead

Thu, 29 Sep 2022 16:03:27 GMT

In this episode, I grapple with a passion that I did not fully understand - but wanted to. What kinds of cultural tension points exist in the world of sneakerheads? What can the phenomenon teach us about societal priorities, and the complex interplay of capitalism and cultural identity formation?

The Humanist Fire

Thu, 29 Sep 2022 16:03:24 GMT

Climate crises require a bigger reframe with respect to how we talk about our relationship to the planet, and the work of prevention as much as crisis management. But do we really need to reinvent the wheel here? Or are there other eras and cultural contexts that already give us what we need to approach the trials ahead?

The Humanist Tweet

Thu, 15 Sep 2022 02:24:21 GMT

In this episode, we reflect on the phenomenon of blaming social media for human behaviours that showed up in pre-digital eras, too. It's not that these online tools can't be problematic; it's more that a full accounting of our problems with social media requires an unflinching look at the problems with us.

The Humanist Astronomer

Fri, 05 Aug 2022 10:37:47 GMT

Is there such a thing as a "pure" science? I'm not immune to the appeal of such a concept, and have sometimes slipped into the fantasy that a noble enough pursuit of knowledge "for the betterment of all humankind" transcends the complexities of human coexistence. Not so, though, as we explore in this episode, on the wonders of astronomy... and also the humanist importance of honouring whatever real-world struggles emerge at the sites of scientific progress.

The Humanist Carbon Footprint

Wed, 13 Jul 2022 15:50:56 GMT

Consumers sometimes get a bad rap. People making purchases for their families are often trying to do the best they can to juggle value and quality while also being mindful of the most recent social issues news media tells them to prioritize. In this episode, I reflect on some old and new ways in which labeling and company gimmicks to look eco-conscious obscure the deeper problem: the fact that the onus of "being a good citizen" is so often passed on to the end-user, when it's really an industry-scale problem we need to resolve.

The Humanist Chicken Egg

Tue, 28 Jun 2022 11:48:10 GMT

A change in cultural context can transform how one thinks about the most innocuous everyday items. That was certainly the case for me with respect to eggs, when I moved from Canada to Colombia and fell into a complete rethink about how our options as consumers and community members are both constructed and constricted by the societies in which we live.

The Humanist Childhood

Mon, 06 Jun 2022 12:33:06 GMT

In this episode, we reflect on one of the key indicators of familial wellness and a healthy childhood. It's not money exactly, but it's related! For families living with financial precarity, there is often far less opportunity to create supportive domestic environments, and that strife is felt and borne by the kids involved. If we want to do better by the next generation, we need to start advocating for kids growing up in stable homes--even if that means giving money to people we might think have "made bad choices" to invest in domestic stability.

The Humanist Quinoa Market

Fri, 08 Apr 2022 13:39:20 GMT

Sometimes the best way to move forward is to think about how we've responded to issues in the past. In this episode of Global Humanist Shoptalk, I reflect on the early-2000s trend cycle for quinoa as a super-food with key global-activist intersections. The aim isn't to criticize any of us for leaping onto a bandwagon, and then reckoning after the fact with the deeper complexities of any food economy issue. It's to think about how this sort of behaviour is in our nature, and how much trends like the quinoa craze illustrate our willingness to try to do better if the opportunity to do better is made commercially available. What could we do with that knowledge, to build better policy for other crises in the world?

The Humanist Wellness Industry

Fri, 25 Mar 2022 11:25:55 GMT

In this episode, we talk about one of the most delicate and vital issues of our time: how we address our mental health crises as a society. While neoliberalism has made a full industry out of wellness, is it really addressing the underlying reasons that so many people are having the same problems coping with our broken world? How can we reframe the problem to arrive at more comprehensive solutions?

The Humanist Sidewalk

Fri, 04 Mar 2022 14:50:15 GMT

Everyday objects like the sidewalk, and the routines we've built around them, can be sites of reflection on how we've built our societies, and for whom. In this episode, I reflect on how moving from Canada to Colombia compelled me to think differently about mobility, and the different priorities built into cityscapes on the ground. What assumptions and possibilities do you see, when travelling the sidewalks in yours?

The Humanist Pronunciation Guide

Fri, 18 Feb 2022 10:00:16 GMT

In this first main-season episode, we reflect on the role that pronunciation plays in manifesting a deeper curiosity about our world, and empathy for others in it. I will always try my best to pronounce the names of people and places "properly", but is our choice to pronounce the names of other countries the same way that locals do always a mark of moral "superiority"? Or is there a level of dehumanizing elitism in expecting everyone to know exactly the right pronunciation to use? Can we find a balance between trying to normalize a wider range of terms, and making people feel left out for not already, automatically knowing which one is "best"?

The Humanist Hook

Fri, 04 Feb 2022 11:49:26 GMT

In this podcast opener, I talk about the humanist aims of this series, and explore why learning to hold ideas in calmer tension is an important counterpoint to how we "do" discourse in much of our world.

Instead of focussing on the "hook", a highly cynical storytelling device with a fairly recent and context-driven history, what if we practised a more patient and reflective way of engaging with topics large and small?

Could we train ourselves out of the knee-jerk reactions currently cultivated by so much of our media? Learn to avoid leaping to snap judgments, and to avoid favouring "experts" who build their brand around making snap judgments, too?

Let's figure that out together, shall we?

You can also join me at onlysky.media/author/mlclark for more collaborative thinking around how global-humanist thinking can help us to build a better world.