iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Matt Huber @matthuber.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

So, so bad politically when the technologies we promote for the energy transition don’t work well. My district bought some too and they were a disaster (particularly in the cold). www.nytimes.com/2026/09/23/n...

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Matt Huber @matthuber.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

I'm late to this, but this is simply an incredible way to open an essay. 🔥

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Matt Huber @matthuber.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

So hey I've spent much of the last 2.5 years thinking about ecology & imperialism. It has resulted in a massive essay (I'm still revising), but was happy @jacobin allowed me to lay out some of the core ideas in this interview in the new issue!

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Matt Huber @matthuber.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

A follow up post on the write up of the report (follow the QPs). I have to say it's amazing that in the year of our lord 2026, the Marxist definition of the working-class is a subject of great debate in mainstream discourse. matthuber.substack.com/p/who-is-in-...

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Matt Huber @matthuber.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

Wrote about the report for @jacobinmag.bsky.social. jacobin.com/2026/08/clim...

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Matt Huber @matthuber.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

Marx: Malthus was a tool of the ruling class (he later points out Malthus's theory of population was "nothing more than schoolboyish, superficial plagiarism." Daly: You know I think Marx and Malthus make a great combination!

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Matt Huber @matthuber.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

I will write more when this is publicly available, but so distressing to read neo-Malthusian analysis in a Marxist journal. Argues zero-sum mercantilism is rational in a "full world" reaching biophysical limits (a concept from neo-Malthusian Herman Daly...JB Foster also uses).

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Matt Huber @matthuber.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

This basic idea shapes so much of my thinking on electricity. clcouncil.org/publications...

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Matt Huber @matthuber.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

Must read by @fredstaffordcs.bsky.social on how a naive “just build transmission” policy could unwittingly enrich private renewables & their corporate tech buyers. Also lays out a practical historical example of the Pacific intertie that works w/ not against the public utility system.

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Matt Huber @matthuber.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

I was given a lot of flak for saying exactly the above in the NYT piece. This targeted, class-focused data on a whole host of questions makes it entirely clear. Read the whole climate change section -- pages 62-69. drive.google.com/file/d/16IoK...

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Matt Huber @matthuber.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

Validating new report from Joan Williams & Jared Abbott: "Liberal college grads run 29 pts more supportive of climate change initiatives than working-class respondents—the 4th-largest class gap we found (87% vs. 58%)...[WC] ranked [it] as only their 27th priority (out of 30)."

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Matt Huber @matthuber.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

Apropos of nothing, this is one of my absolute favorite passages from Capital: “When the worker co-operates in a planned way with others, he strips off the fetters of his individuality, and develops the capabilities of his species.” 🔥

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Matt Huber @matthuber.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

Yes the working class is broad and heterogenous, but we should be especially concerned with the specific portions shifting toward the right.

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Matt Huber @matthuber.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

Hard to understand when the level of labor productivity growth would be sufficient? I think Marx had a bit more optimistic take on how that 'frenzied drive' does make possible different kind of society (based on free time, etc). Compare with this:

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Matt Huber @matthuber.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

Well even though the absolute pop number won't peak soon, the rate is in deep decline - and that does help! But, yeah, surely not enough.

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Matt Huber @matthuber.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

“In reality, machinery embraces a host of possibilities, many of which are thwarted, rather than developed, by capital” (159).

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Matt Huber @matthuber.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

It’s not the fossil petro state vs the green electro-state, but a rivalry between two fossil states (the US predominantly oil-gas, China predominantly coal).

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Matt Huber @matthuber.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

Call it the Christophers law (@brettchristophers.bsky.social). www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

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Matt Huber @matthuber.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

Thanks to @camillaroyle.bsky.social for arranging this. socialistworker.co.uk/in-depth/tak...

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Matt Huber @matthuber.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

One of my favorite finds in the archives - an internal Ford Administration report (1975) on inflation and the 1973-74 oil shock by Alan Greenspan. Classic scarcity-mindset. We simply can't afford nice things.

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Matt Huber @matthuber.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

"...Marx redefines freedom as existing apart from social labor. This freedom can only be gained as the consequence of capitalism's ever-greater economic & productive power" (p. 79). (1/3)

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Matt Huber @matthuber.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

This brilliant definition of neoliberalism, often attributed to Adolph Reed alone, comes from this 2015 Socialist Register article co-authored w/ Mark Dudzic. socialistregister.com/index.php/sr...

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Matt Huber @matthuber.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

Here's me literally hand scrawling page numbers on the print out of the article for review.

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Matt Huber @matthuber.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

What is wild about this chart is not only how long it took electricity technology to show up in productivity gains, but also how short lived it was. www.ft.com/content/8e9a...

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Matt Huber @matthuber.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

"Changing society's relation to nature more broadly remains a worthy project" (206). This by @ueberdruss.bsky.social is a brilliant Marxist analysis of energy history that deserves its place alongside Malm, Mitchell and other classics of the last couple decades.

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Matt Huber @matthuber.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

I'm also frankly surprised but delighted to see him citing (implicitly) Marx's Grundrisse and the concept of "the general intellect" here. I did not know he was a "fragment on machines" guy. www.nytimes.com/2026/06/01/o...

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Matt Huber @matthuber.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

Warms my heart to see Bernie Sanders take exactly the right (and socialist!) line on AI technology.

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Matt Huber @matthuber.bsky.social · 30/05/2026

“It all makes for a gloomy outlook. Already, more than 40 Chinese solar firms have gone bankrupt, been acquired or delisted from stock exchanges since 2024. One-third of the workforce of the country’s five biggest solar-industry firms has been laid off, according to Reuters…”

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Matt Huber @matthuber.bsky.social · 24/05/2026

Boarding a plane shortly for a trip to Spain for 2 events in Barcelona and 1 in Valencia. 🇪🇸☀️

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Matt Huber @matthuber.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

And this simplistic narrative clean=cheap really understates the very costly investments we will need to fully decarbonize. Nowhere in the world currently runs on “solar & storage” for good reasons. This advice=lying to voters on a much more complicated effort. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/14/o...

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Matt Huber @matthuber.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

NYT letters. 1 more or less supportive, but 3 of 4 very critical (unsurprisingly). Gist is climate crisis is real & we have a moral duty to lead/explain to voters. I would hope in the year of our lord 2026, ppl realize politics isn’t won by asserting moral principles.

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Matt Huber @matthuber.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

A follow up post fleshing out why the core thesis of the essay and the book remain the same. I think many Green New Deal supporters underplay the extent in which their own movement was culpable in poisoning the issue. It had a lot of potential!

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Matt Huber @matthuber.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

I went on the "History Behind the News" podcast to talk about oil and American capitalism (the topic of my first book "Lifeblood" - a nice refresher for me on my many years becoming an oil expert!). podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/c...

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Matt Huber @matthuber.bsky.social · 13/05/2026

I know some are very angry, but this is pretty cool.

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Matt Huber @matthuber.bsky.social · 10/05/2026

I will say I think this new headline is a better summation of the piece. I actually care a lot about climate change! (I do not think we should “forget” it!).

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Matt Huber @matthuber.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

A great proposal from the Center for Working Class politics: The leading subsector of US manufacturing is "transportation equipment." So, "For a relatively modest investment we could electrify our entire public municipal vehicle fleet. And make them all right here in the USA."

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Matt Huber @matthuber.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

The FT lays it out clearer than most as usual.

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Matt Huber @matthuber.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

What this very sad country needs more than anything else is a political movement that can restore ordinary peoples' faith in collective agency, the public good and that politics can actually improve things.

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Matt Huber @matthuber.bsky.social · 26/04/2026

There's a rampant conspiracy theorizing on the Left these days on how the Iran war is destroying the petrodollar and thus the dollar system more broadly. Not really!

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Matt Huber @matthuber.bsky.social · 19/04/2026

"‘Green jobs’ is a somewhat nebulous term, and it would appear that there is little concrete evidence of what these jobs actually are."

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Matt Huber @matthuber.bsky.social · 18/04/2026

If you think we can somehow extricate ourselves from synthetic nitrogen dependence, this amazing book will disabuse you of that notion.

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Matt Huber @matthuber.bsky.social · 18/04/2026

He does lose me here. This is the typical left line anti-industrial ag. But the methods he promotes here would require far more labor & land in a context where ag land use is a major cause of both the biodiversity & climate crisis. Also we can make nitrogen w/out fossil fuels.

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Matt Huber @matthuber.bsky.social · 18/04/2026

Adam Hanieh FT Weekend Essay! “The Gulf’s ammonia exports are especially important for markets outside N. America & western Europe. In 2024, for instance, Saudi Arabia, Oman & Qatar together supplied more than three-quarters of India’s ammonia imports and 30 % of Morocco’s.”

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Matt Huber @matthuber.bsky.social · 18/04/2026

The "lawyerly society" strikes again. heatmap.news/politics/inf...

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Matt Huber @matthuber.bsky.social · 15/04/2026

I've often argued that capitalism doesn't really need 'growth' as much as profit/accumulation for capitalists, but it appears in China that's not true: it really is all about growth!

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Matt Huber @matthuber.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

“Over the past two years, 19 households have added $1.8 trillion to their coffers, the economist Gabriel Zucman told me — roughly the size of the economy of Australia. Into this fragile state enters artificial intelligence. It threatens to make a bad situation much worse.”

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Matt Huber @matthuber.bsky.social · 05/04/2026

These stories are 7 years apart. It not only illustrates Marx’s theory of capital as a “vampire” (literally), but also how it progressively erodes working-class life: “Accumulation of wealth at one pole is…at the same time accumulation of misery…at the opposite pole.”

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Matt Huber @matthuber.bsky.social · 01/04/2026

What Wolf can’t fathom is that it is US hegemony itself that laid the conditions for Trump (twice): by overseeing a global neoliberal order that enriches capital and degrades the conditions of working class life everywhere, it creates angry (& rightful!) backlash.

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Matt Huber @matthuber.bsky.social · 31/03/2026

“Carbon capture doesn’t work!” “Hold my beer…”

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