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Martijn Konings

@mkonings.bsky.social
4.3K followers 1.1K following 445 posts

Political economist at University of Sydney. Most recent book The Bailout State: Why Governments Rescue Banks, Not People (Polity, 2025). Now working on property and democracy.

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Martijn Konings @mkonings.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Good to see this get some mainstream attention - by @jessicaslice.bsky.social in The Cut. "PANS ... is a form of brain inflammation caused by infection. Almost any description of its impact on a child comes across as hyperbolic to those who don’t know about it." www.thecut.com/article/pans...
thecut.com
When a Sore Throat Attacks the Brain
My child caught a cold and then lost her ability to function. The fight to access treatment for her illness, called PANS, has overtaken our lives.
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Merijn Oudenampsen @merijnoudenampsen.org · 30/07/2026
Today my book on the Dutch neoliberal turn is officially out with Verso Books! Thanks for the wonderful blurbs from @quinnslobodian.com, @mkonings.bsky.social, Stephanie Mudge, Niklas Olsen and @ingridrobeyns.bsky.social. Will be presenting the book in september. More info below
versobooks.com
No Nonsense
In the 1980s, Dutch politics underwent a neoliberal turn overseen by the Christian Democrat Ruud Lubbers. It formed part of an interna­tional trend, famously spearheaded by Reagan and Thatcher. What w...
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Adam David Morton @morton.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
Details for the 2026 Wheelwright Lecture, the marquee event of the year for Political Economy, at the University of Sydney with Geoff Mann on *Climates of Uncertainty* @geoffmann.bsky.social @garethbryant.bsky.social @sydney.edu.au @mkonings.bsky.social @clairerhiannon.bsky.social
ppesydney.net
2026 Wheelwright Lecture | Geoff Mann | Climates of Uncertainty - Progress in Political Economy (PPE)
What can the ways we wrestle with uncertain futures—like climate models, prediction markets, high-tech promises, or reactionary revanchism—tell us about a world without a “normal”?
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Adam David Morton @morton.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
Over @ppesydney.bsky.social we are celebrating Martijn Koning's new book *The Bailout State* with this interview on state theory, the Minsky “moment”, the Keynesian revolution, Modern Monetary Theory and so much more @politybooks.bsky.social @mkonings.bsky.social
ppesydney.net
The Bailout State - Progress in Political Economy (PPE)
How did we end up in a world where social programs are routinely cut in the name of market discipline and fiscal austerity, yet large banks get bailed out whenever they get into trouble?
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Frank Pasquale @frankpasquale.bsky.social · 31/05/2026
“The regulatory state is so compromised, and wealth so concentrated, that the investor-class just keeps pumping money in. The endgame seems to be that the AI industry achieves too-big-to-fail status, &… can demand a bailout once the whole thing implodes.” davekarpf.beehiiv.com/p/the-data-c...
davekarpf.beehiiv.com
The Data Center Bankshot
The
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Martijn Konings @mkonings.bsky.social · 31/05/2026
"What makes universities particularly valuable as a ‘space for exceptions’ is the same thing that makes people hate them." newleftreview.org/sidecar/post...
newleftreview.org
Lorna Finlayson, Irreversible — Sidecar
On Britain’s universities.
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Martijn Konings @mkonings.bsky.social · 31/05/2026
My best guess re the near future: Warsh and Bessent will push for inflation to be managed with more direct instruments like price controls, freeing the Fed up to be responsive to Trump's demands for lower (or at least not higher) interest rates. From 2029, a Democratic administration 1/3
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Martijn Konings @mkonings.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
Wrote on the twilight of independent central banking (always a myth, but a plausible one for some time) for Jacobin. While central bankers "may want to stay out of politics, they simply have no moves left that do not contradict the neutrality they profess." jacobin.com/2026/05/wars...
jacobin.com
The Era of Central Bank Independence Is Coming to an End
Central bank independence has been a sacred cow for the last generation in the major capitalist economies. Donald Trump’s appointment of Kevin Warsh as Fed chair symbolizes the beginning of a new era ...
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Anna Kornbluh @annakornbluh.bsky.social · 08/05/2026
get caught up on the backstory while you can't get caught up on grading theamericanvandal.substack.com/p/historyofc...
theamericanvandal.substack.com
The Secret History of Canvas LMS, Corporate Raiders, & The Chatbot Bubble (Vandal Live at UVU)
Listen now (112 mins) | with Christa Albrecht-Crane, Angie McKinnon Carter, and Chiler Moore
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Ntina Tzouvala @ntinatzouvala.bsky.social · 24/03/2026
This has been a LONG time in works: my paper on how dollar hegemony is a form of international law-making power. It includes a long methodological/theoretical section on why strong versions of the 'law constitutes political economy' aren't convincing papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
papers.ssrn.com
Dollar Hegemony as International Law-making Power
The so-called weaponisation of the dollar as part of the escalating geopolitical competition has drawn attention to dollar hegemony within the fields of interna
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Amin Samman @aminsamman.bsky.social · 24/03/2026
My new book Currency of Nihilism is officially out today! In it, I develop a history and theory of financial nihilism that speaks directly to the ongoing merger of digital technology with finance. Use the code SAMMAN20 for 20% off: www.sup.org/books/politi... mngbookshop.co.uk/978150364586...
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Will Beaman @greenbackbetter.bsky.social · 14/03/2026
It's not Marxism. It's not post-structuralism. It's a secret third thing. 🥸 The Ontology of the Monetary Image (Wonkish)
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FREE @freefreeforum.bsky.social · 18/02/2026
A lot of the money behind the AI boom is coming from pension funds of working class people and when parts of the AI bubble burst, private capital gets protected, while ordinary people can be left with the losses. The AI Data Center Gold Rush: The Bailout State Behind It - youtu.be/fHwYIFa1mNE
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Martijn Konings @mkonings.bsky.social · 06/03/2026
Terrifying thought, just imagine - "Without solutions, America’s anxiety will become rage — and political backlash will follow" www.nytimes.com/2026/03/06/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | America Cannot Withstand the Economic Shock That’s Coming
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Matt Seybold @mattseybold.bsky.social · 06/03/2026
“Much of the American public associates abundance with the ideas put forth by Ezra Klein & Derek Thompson...While they are certainly part of the picture, the incomplete policy ideas championed in the airplane book are only a glimpse of the entire abundance universe." Read the report. If you can. 🤢
therevolvingdoorproject.org
Who is Behind the Growing Abundance Movement? | Revolving Door Project
Who is behind the fast-growing abundance movement? Who are the billionaires and media figures helping it gain popularity?
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Barry Cynamon @cynamon.bsky.social · 27/02/2026
People referring to Claude Code in fifty years.
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Martijn Konings @mkonings.bsky.social · 27/02/2026
Once nostalgia starts, it's unstoppable..
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Martijn Konings @mkonings.bsky.social · 27/02/2026
Like 99% of people on here, I now have a stake in the financial future of Anthropic - so I feel deeply conflicted about their surprisingly ethical stance. Will have to learn to live with this unresolvable tension.
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Martijn Konings @mkonings.bsky.social · 26/02/2026
So good - "In a bit of profound irony, data-center construction has broken free of the choke points decried by abundance to the point that it is now bidding up land value and resulting in further constraints on the supply of housing" newrepublic.com/article/2064...
newrepublic.com
The Abundance Gang Has a Big AI Problem
The faddish political movement’s ties to industry figures may help attract funding, but it comes with a political cost.
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Martijn Konings @mkonings.bsky.social · 26/02/2026
@dylangyauchl.bsky.social could you follow me so I can message you? (Can't seem to find an email address).
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Dylan GL @dylangyauchl.bsky.social · 11/02/2026
Go read my latest in the monthly about affordability politics and why it's deeper than just price levels!
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Revolving Door Project @revolvingdoordc.bsky.social · 25/02/2026
The abundance clique has an AI problem. Beyond being funded by Silicon Valley, the ecosystem features an array of tech libertarians, a smattering of technofascism, and no answers for our anti-AI moment. Read @dylangyauchl.bsky.social in @newrepublic.com! newrepublic.com/article/2064...
newrepublic.com
The Abundance Gang Has a Big AI Problem
The faddish political movement’s ties to industry figures may help attract funding, but it comes with a political cost.
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Martijn Konings @mkonings.bsky.social · 21/02/2026
"what the politics of private finance teaches is the inadequacy of considering only what we can achieve in the short term, given the political constraints" www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/fin...
phenomenalworld.org
Finance in the Dark | Lenore Palladino | Finance in the Dark
An opaque sector is reshaping the US. Only ambitious regulatory reform can check its power.
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Anna Kornbluh @annakornbluh.bsky.social · 18/02/2026
nil impact no use case fortune.com/2026/02/17/a...
fortune.com
Thousands of CEOs just admitted AI had no impact on employment or productivity—and it has economists resurrecting a paradox from 40 years ago | Fortune
In the 1980s, economist Robert Solow made an observation that reminded economists of today’s AI boom: “You can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity statistics.”
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Stephen Semler @stephensemler.bsky.social · 16/02/2026
It wasn’t just the child tax credit. And it’s not just the Republicans.
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Phenomenal World @phenomenalworld.bsky.social · 12/02/2026
“Any discussion of rent regulation has to grapple with the fact that owners of residential buildings pay most of their rent earnings not on maintenance or operations, but to service their debts to their creditors.” NEW by @jwmason.bsky.social www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/aft...
phenomenalworld.org
After the Rent Freeze | JW Mason
The cost of affordable housing in New York City
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Markus Patberg @mpatberg.bsky.social · 12/02/2026
The Oxford Handbook of Constituent Power is out today! Peter Niesen (based @politikuhh.bsky.social), Lucia Rubinelli (@luxirubsi.bsky.social) and I consider ourselves incredibly fortunate to be able to publish the contributions of so many wonderful colleagues. global.oup.com/academic/pro...
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Martijn Konings @mkonings.bsky.social · 06/02/2026
Oren Cass or David Harvey?
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The New Statesman @newstatesman1913.bsky.social · 06/02/2026
What Jeffrey Epstein knew about money Epstein’s emails show how the financial elite consolidated their wealth amid global turmoil 🖊️ @willdunn.bsky.social
newstatesman.com
What Jeffrey Epstein knew about money
Epstein's emails show how the financial elite consolidated their wealth in global turmoil
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INET - Institute for New Economic Thinking @ineteconomics.bsky.social · 06/02/2026
Democratic elites chose donors over workers. Without an aggressive economic agenda they risk becoming the permanent minority party, warns Thomas Ferguson. @bostonreview.bsky.social  www.bostonreview.net/forum/how-no...
bostonreview.net
Macroeconomics is the driver, not median voters.
Thomas Ferguson responds in a forum on “How Not to Defeat Authoritarianism.”
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Martijn Konings @mkonings.bsky.social · 04/02/2026
I often wonder if the tendency to mistake basic emotions (whether cruelty or despair) for deep insight is a distinctive feature of our era or something of all times. It seems to require both a definite capacity for critical thinking and a willingness to abuse it.
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Barbara Pocock @barbarapocock.bsky.social · 02/02/2026
Australians are bracing for another interest rate rise because Labor has turbo-charged the housing crisis & refused to tackle corporate price gouging. If you're a mortgage holder or a renter, you face being hit by the RBA to “fix” the government’s "inflation problem".
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Martijn Konings @mkonings.bsky.social · 01/02/2026
👉 "You know you've got "research culture" right when people stop talking about research culture and just talk about their research."👈
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Daniel Bond @dwbond.bsky.social · 01/02/2026
ONE DAY LATER Larry Summers fleshed out his complaints in a Washington Post column
washingtonpost.com
Larry Summers: Here’s what Bernie Sanders gets wrong – and right – about the Fed
Larry Summers responds to Bernie Sanders op-ed on the Fed
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Benjamin McKean @blmckean.bsky.social · 01/02/2026
Hard to imagine how Larry Summers’s humiliation could be any more complete tbh
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Martijn Konings @mkonings.bsky.social · 31/01/2026
“Pantomime of thinking” is a great phrase
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Martijn Konings @mkonings.bsky.social · 30/01/2026
I've spent way too much time trying to understand Kevin Warsh's thinking, but there's not much there in the end. This is the upshot, I think:
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Martijn Konings @mkonings.bsky.social · 29/01/2026
This is subtly savage. www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives...
ineteconomics.org
Education of a Grandmaster
Kenneth Rogoff, Our Dollar, Your Problem: An Insider’s View of Seven Turbulent Decades of Global Finance, and the Road Ahead. Yale 2025.
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Tim Christiaens @timchristiaens.bsky.social · 22/01/2026
New book officially out 🚨 If you ever wanted to know what Italian philosophy has been up to in the last 10-20 years, look no further. “An introduction to Contemporary Italian Thought” is out today with chapters on cyberfascism, technology & work, pandemic biopolitics, and posthumanism.
bloomsbury.com
An Introduction to Contemporary Italian Thought
Over the past three decades, Italian thought has emerged as a major field within continental philosophy. But what are the latest developments since Italian theo…
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Martijn Konings @mkonings.bsky.social · 23/12/2025
New paper out - on why there won't be a return to the golden age of inflation targeting. Empirical material focused on the Reserve Bank of Australia, but the argument applies broadly, I feel. www.ppesydney.net/content/uplo...
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James Crane @jamescrane.bsky.social · 14/01/2026
Recently stumbled on a more or less complete, unpublished Adorno fragment on fascist propaganda & mimesis while looking thru archival materials from the early phases (ca. 42/43) of writing Dialectic of Enlightenment. Just finished a translation—you can read it here! open.substack.com/pub/jamescra...
open.substack.com
Adorno: On Propaganda (ca. 1942/43)
Translation of an unpublished fragment from the materials for ‘Elements of Anti-Semitism.’
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Ned Resnikoff @resnikoff.bsky.social · 12/01/2026
The case against Graeberism and for Mamdanism dissentmagazine.org/article/the-...
Instead of retreating into facile cynicism about the safety net and regulatory state, people on the left should be trying to occupy the bureaucracy at the state, local, and, after the MAGA putschists are finally expelled from power, federal level—not simply because we need good people in those jobs, but because enough good people in any given department can change its internal culture for the better. A lot depends, for example, on whether state and local transportation departments are staffed by car-brained traffic engineers or planners who are genuinely invested in walkability and developing viable mass transit networks. Just as much hinges on whether state health agencies are staffed by people with a genuine commitment to the cause of universal healthcare, even in the face of brutal federal Medicaid cuts.

There’s another reason for occupying the bureaucracy, too. For a movement that wants to transform the state, there is tremendous value in understanding how policy implementation and institutional change happens on a granular level. If you spend some time working inside the bureaucracy and you keep your eyes open, you can learn a lot about the points of leverage that leftist politicians and outside advocacy groups can press to their advantage. On the flipside, you can also learn a great deal about the tradeoffs associated with certain approaches and how well-intentioned but undercooked policy initiatives can produce unintended consequences. These are all important lessons for anyone trying to push any level of government in a more humane direction. But they’re especially important lessons for leftist officials who have ambitious agendas, a finite amount of time in which to implement them, and little room for error.
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Martijn Konings @mkonings.bsky.social · 12/01/2026
Perhaps "the markets" are just telling us that their concern with central bank independence was never that principled to begin with.
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Timothy Noah @timothynoah.bsky.social · 12/01/2026
Dear Stock Market: Trump is trying to throw the Federal Reserve chair in jail on charges even his fellow Republicans recognize as phony. Why aren’t you alarmed? Have you gone COMPLETELY deaf, dumb and blind? Love, Tim newrepublic.com/article/2052...
newrepublic.com
The Market Met Jerome Powell’s Warning With Deep Denial
What’s a Fed chair got to do to get people interested in the criminalization of monetary policy?
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Martijn Konings @mkonings.bsky.social · 12/01/2026
Bipartisanship is what's needed right now.
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Martijn Konings @mkonings.bsky.social · 12/01/2026
Jason Furman preaching about not playing politics while the Gestapo is banging down the church doors. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/12/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | Trump’s Attack on the Fed Is Already Backfiring
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Martijn Konings @mkonings.bsky.social · 12/01/2026
Different scenarios, but the attack on Powell illustrates in a very direct way that there won’t be a return to normal for central bankers.
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Martijn Konings @mkonings.bsky.social · 12/01/2026
MAGA understands that "to be truly transformative, it will need to control monetary policy. As the MAGA juggernaut makes a politics centred on defending the status quo increasingly incoherent, time is running out for its opposition to learn the same lesson." newleftreview.org/sidecar/post...
newleftreview.org
Martijn Konings, Fiscal Dominance? — Sidecar
Trump and the Federal Reserve.
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Jay Jaffe @jayjaffe.bsky.social · 09/01/2026
"A chronic, devastating cancer in American society is prominent Democrats outright refusing to share their constituents' urgency and horror in the face of what is being done to society by Republicans..."
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Martijn Konings @mkonings.bsky.social · 09/01/2026
The interview itself is such an unbearable exercise in legitimation, but this part is just a mental health problem.
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