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Jochen Schmon @jochenschmon.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

My interview w/ @jensensuther.bsky.social on his brilliant book “True Materialism” for the @jhideas.bsky.social: What’s wrong with old and new materialisms? What do we need art for? Why still Aristotle? Why always Hegel? Or, on the aesthetic conditions of a good life www.jhiblog.org/2026/06/24/m...

jhiblog.org

Materialism and Critical Theory: An Interview with Jensen Suther

by Jochen Schmon

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Reposted by Jochen Schmon

Journal of the History of Ideas @jhideas.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

Jochen Schmon interviewed Jensen Suther about his book, True Materialism: Hegelian Marxism and the Modernist Struggle for Freedom and ongoing research. @jochenschmon.bsky.social @jensensuther.bsky.social @stanfordpress.bsky.social

web.sas.upenn.edu

Materialism and Critical Theory: An Interview with Jensen Suther

by Jochen Schmon

071

Jochen Schmon @jochenschmon.bsky.social · 30/09/2025

In their rejection of slavery as a "private" matter, I argue that abolitionists inaugurated the true quarrel between the ancients and the moderns—making possible radical conceptions of patriarchy and capitalism as different, but interrelated forms in which the "tyranny" of slavery exists

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Jochen Schmon @jochenschmon.bsky.social · 30/09/2025

Here, I focus on 18th century abolitionist writings, theorizing them as acts of translating the muted demands of the Caribbean slave revolts into the imperial public spheres—the very sites of empire that would also become the discursive staging ground of radical feminist and proletarian movements

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Jochen Schmon @jochenschmon.bsky.social · 30/09/2025

My "Abolition" is finally published at Political Concepts: A Critical Lexicon: politicalconcepts.org/abolition-jo... first sketch of my dissertation that explores the conceptual reverberations of abolitionism in Enlightenment discourses as well as in early radical feminist and proletarian movements

120

Reposted by Jochen Schmon

Sandipto Dasgupta @sandipto.bsky.social · 25/09/2025

2. @jochenschmon.bsky.social on 'abolition'. www.politicalconcepts.org/abolition-jo...

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Reposted by Jochen Schmon

Journal of the History of Ideas @jhideas.bsky.social · 27/08/2025

Alyssa Battistoni discusses her book, Free Gifts, a value-theoretical study of capitalism's appropriation of nature, with Jochen Schmon. They cover the "new materialism," reproductive labor, existentialism, and activism. @alybatt.bsky.social, @jochenschmon.bsky.social, @princetonupress.bsky.social

jhiblog.org

The Production of Nature: An Interview with Alyssa Battistoni

by Jochen Schmon

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Jochen Schmon @jochenschmon.bsky.social · 27/08/2025

Instead of “environmental side-effects” or the economy’s “external byproducts,” it is the “ability to impose pollution on others as another aspect of class power—and the inability to refuse it a form of unfreedom in its own right”

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Jochen Schmon @jochenschmon.bsky.social · 27/08/2025

Against the "naïve materialism" that is so-called new materialism and the "moral naturalism" of much Marxist ecology & social reproduction theory - for a critical denaturalization of social relations without "dematerializing" them

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Jochen Schmon @jochenschmon.bsky.social · 27/08/2025

It was a great pleasure interviewing @alybatt.bsky.social about her new book "Free Gifts: Capitalism and the Politics of Nature" @princetonupress.bsky.social for @jhideas.bsky.social: “Class rule consists in the power to produce the environment itself"

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Jochen Schmon @jochenschmon.bsky.social · 19/03/2025

Is the liberal-republican ‘common good’ not the good of the oligarchs, with the rich continuing to be rich & the poor continue to be poor? The good of democracy is not the good of all, for the poor's good is the wrong to all the other parts that are merely—and only—the rich 10/10

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Jochen Schmon @jochenschmon.bsky.social · 19/03/2025

Shays’ Rebellion as the return of the repressed oligarchic unconscious of the Federalist debate: Popular struggles against economic inequality exposed the oligarchic nature of liberal republicanism in its constitutional exclusion of the majority from government 9/10

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Jochen Schmon @jochenschmon.bsky.social · 19/03/2025

The majority of citizens, which are poor, could not be politically trusted with their “rage for paper money, for an abolition of debts, for an equal division of property” (Madison)—an implicit reference to demands of the Massachusetts Peasant Rebellion led by Daniel Shays 8/10

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Jochen Schmon @jochenschmon.bsky.social · 19/03/2025

Liberal Republicanism & the Constitutionalization of Oligarchy: Federalist proponents were not only perfectly aware of the oligarchic possibilities of their Constitution, but they even preferred to pave the way for the rich for public office as the ‘most virtuous’ citizens 7/10

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Jochen Schmon @jochenschmon.bsky.social · 19/03/2025

Antiquity conceived the rich as incapable of virtuous government, for modern liberals and republicans they are the ‘incarnation of virtuous character’—and thus the part of the citizenry most likely tending to govern in the common interest 6/10

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Jochen Schmon @jochenschmon.bsky.social · 19/03/2025

Liberalism’s oligarchic unconscious: Adam Smith not only naturalizes, against the ancients, oligarchic desires as the ‘human condition’ but even claims the individual pursuit of economic self-interest as the ‘invisible’ condition for the achievement of the ‘common good’ 5/10

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Jochen Schmon @jochenschmon.bsky.social · 19/03/2025

Ancient & modern republicans see economic inequality as the central antagonism. But while oligarchy is seen as internal danger (republics only authorize ‘a few’ to rule, thus open to the rich) democracy is an external threat (republics always exclude ‘the many’ from ruling) 4/10

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Jochen Schmon @jochenschmon.bsky.social · 19/03/2025

We reconstruct the oligarchic unconscious in Aristotle’s ideal Mixed Regime where, similar to modern republics, the ‘virtuous few’ should rule impartially against the direct participation of the rich (oligarchy) and the poor (democrats) 3/10

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Jochen Schmon @jochenschmon.bsky.social · 19/03/2025

Based on Federalists & A. Smith, we offer a conceptualization of liberal republicanism as the modern constitutionalization of oligarchy—threatened by Shays’ Debt Rebellion, to be prevented was a ‘pure Democracy’ always resulting in the poor ruling over the rich 2/10

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Jochen Schmon @jochenschmon.bsky.social · 19/03/2025

Entering the blue sky with my new Constellations article co-authored w/ Udeepta Chakravarty We inquire the “essentially oligarchic character” of the US Constitution, making Trump its illiberal radicalization Part of forthc. Oligarchy Special Issue 1/10 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...