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Tim Christiaens

@timchristiaens.bsky.social
3.9K followers 2.1K following 1.2K posts

Political philosopher (they/them) working on critical theory, technology, and labour. Assistant Professor of economic ethics at Tilburg University. Genderfluid 🏳️‍⚧️

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Reposted by Tim Christiaens
Peter Lamb @peterlamb1.bsky.social · 9h
Important contribution to democratic theory, making the case that an active role for workers is crucial to the success of workplace democracy, but also that the latter can only go so far without real economic democracy, which requires capitalist control of society to be restricted effectively.
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Political Studies @polstudies.bsky.social · 10h
Can workplace democracy exist in practice or do democratic organisations inevitably devolve into new hierarchies? @timchristiaens.bsky.social argues channels for plebeian contestation from below are needed to withhold the formation of new hierarchies. OPEN ACCESS: buff.ly/c0RacFk #polsky #polsci
buff.ly
Plebeian cooperativism: Reconciling workplace democracy with the iron law of oligarchy - Tim Christiaens, 2026
Worker cooperatives are often lauded as the ideal institutional form of workplace democracy. While the traditional firm subjects workers to hierarchical authori...
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Reposted by Tim Christiaens
Bruno Leipold @brunoleipold.com · 11h
Paperback of Citizen Marx published today. Now available for the (slightly) more reasonable price of $29.95/£25.00 (+30% off with code PUP30) 🙂
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Tim Christiaens @timchristiaens.bsky.social · 13h
I am still amazed how journalists never ask those academic “freedom of speech” bros about the suppression of Palestine support. Promoting racial eugenics is fine, but criticizing a genocide is “too controversial”.
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Tim Christiaens @timchristiaens.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Fitting metaphor. If he takes one more step into the "future", he jumps of a cliff.
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Tim Christiaens @timchristiaens.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
EM Forster quickly becoming one of my favourite authors ever. With here a page from Room with a View, where a father is worrying about his son’s melancholy and the need to say yes to the universe.
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Sebas @ohlookbirdies.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Slightly blurry lino print of a cartoon possum running away and the text "I HOPE THIS EMAIL DOES NOT FIND YOU"
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Tim Christiaens @timchristiaens.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Dear Copenhagen, will miss you again!
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Reposted by Tim Christiaens
Danish Society for Marxist Studies @dkmarxsoc.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Day 2 and the second keynote is underway: The brilliant @pashukanist.bsky.social on “Palestinian Liberation, Racialisation and the Limits of International Law”
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Tim Christiaens @timchristiaens.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
I need more cis people to notice what is happening in the UK. I need the cis people who notice to speak up and tell other cis people. It feels like the majority of the country have no real idea what is happening, which is systemic, top-down efforts to make trans lives unliveable in the UK.
growinguptransgender.com
Leaving the UK with a heavy heart
Today, as a family, we have booked our flights and our one-way ticket out of the UK. This has not felt like a choice. This feels like fleeing to protect ourselves. For the past 7 years we have look…
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Tim Christiaens @timchristiaens.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
I can report that it was amazing. She showed the fascist implications of liberal freedom and offered an ecological and social notion of freedom to replace it. I am free only if all are free!
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Tim Christiaens @timchristiaens.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
There are clearly some people in the world who have never genuinely suffered or witnessed any injustice, so they have to invent “social justice puzzles” to sound relevant. www.404media.co/someone-tort...
404media.co
Someone ‘Torturing’ LLMs in a Robot Prison Has Triggered the Dumbest Debate in AI Yet
The "AI Torture Chamber" has opened an upsetting and absurd window into the effective altruist obsession with "model welfare."
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Tim Christiaens @timchristiaens.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Discovered some of Gemma Anderson-Tempini’s work last summer in the UK. It’s pretty cool and heavily inspired by the beautiful drawings you find in historical science books.
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Tim Christiaens @timchristiaens.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Most EU countries are failing to meet the deadline for the Platform Work Directive. @benwray1989.bsky.social explains why. thegigeconomyproject.substack.com/p/why-govern...
thegigeconomyproject.substack.com
Why governments are not worried about missing the deadline for Platform Work Directive transposition
Newsletter + report from Platforum in Gdansk
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Sonia Chabane (she/her)| سنية @soniachabane.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Not now ancient sheep virus
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Tim Christiaens @timchristiaens.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
My latest paper in Political Studies 👇 how can worker cooperatives retain a democratic culture if there are pressures to re-establish managerial hierarchies?
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Tim Christiaens @timchristiaens.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Preparing my talk for the Danish Marxist Society Conference. Will be talking about Silvia Federici, climate change, and political ecology in the history of Italian Marxism. @dkmarxsoc.bsky.social
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Tim Christiaens @timchristiaens.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Preparing a new course on the Frankfurt School and critical theory.
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Tim Christiaens @timchristiaens.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
This is really crucial evidence on Uber’s dynamic pricing model. Using data analytics to maximuze its cut on every single fare and ignoring collective labour agreements when lack of government enforcement allows it. Just shows how good regulations are not enough without proper control.
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Tim Christiaens @timchristiaens.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
My latest paper in Political Studies 👇 how can worker cooperatives retain a democratic culture if there are pressures to re-establish managerial hierarchies?
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Tim Christiaens @timchristiaens.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Will be presenting my new book on Italian Thought soon in Amsterdam. People around Amsterdam on 9 December more than welcome! ash.uva.nl/content/rese...
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Political Studies @polstudies.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Can workplace democracy exist in practice or do democratic organisations inevitably devolve into new hierarchies? @timchristiaens.bsky.social argues channels for plebeian contestation from below are needed to withhold the formation of new hierarchies. OPEN ACCESS: buff.ly/c0RacFk #polsky #polsci
Abstract
Worker cooperatives are often lauded as the ideal institutional form of workplace democracy. While the traditional firm subjects workers to hierarchical authority, cooperatives establish workers as owners and managers of their own venture. However, since 1911 Robert Michels popularised the phrase of an “iron law of oligarchy” to argue how nominally democratic institutions, like worker cooperatives, often fall back into hierarchical patterns. I claim that this criticism against workplace democracy is based on a misreading of Michels’ philosophy and a misrepresentation of today’s empirical research on cooperative management. Both present worker cooperatives as hybrid institutions torn between oligarchic and democratic pulls. By counterbalancing tendencies towards a concentration of power at the top with countervailing institutions that help rank-and-file workers contest managerial decision-making, worker cooperatives can safeguard themselves against degeneration and the iron law of oligarchy. This proposal of instituting workplace democracy through constant anti-hierarchical conflict, I call “plebeian cooperativism."
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Tim Christiaens @timchristiaens.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
This is really crucial evidence on Uber’s dynamic pricing model. Using data analytics to maximuze its cut on every single fare and ignoring collective labour agreements when lack of government enforcement allows it. Just shows how good regulations are not enough without proper control.
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Reposted by Tim Christiaens
claudia-cristalli.bsky.social @claudia-cristalli.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
❗️A bunch of really cool papers that puts the discourse on values in science in historical perspective. Étienne Raduly and myself wrote chapter 10 on the philosophy of Charles W. Morris: “Value as Meaning and as Behavior” 🦫🦫🦫
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Tim Christiaens @timchristiaens.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Preparing a new course on the Frankfurt School and critical theory.
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Annie McClanahan @anniemcc.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
I have a new piece--"Labor Organizing in the Age of Service Work"--in New Labor Forum and it's open access! journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....
journals.sagepub.com
Labor Organizing in the Age of Service Work - Annie McClanahan, 2026
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Tim Christiaens @timchristiaens.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Harsh review of Negri and Hardt’s legacy as authors of Empire.
jacobin.com
Hardt and Negri’s Empire Got Everything Wrong
Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri’s Empire became a campus sensation because it offered a master theory for globalization at a moment when old Marxist categories seemed exhausted. But the capitalist int...
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Tim Christiaens @timchristiaens.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
A great piece on Deleuze’s thinking about Israel and Palestine. When political theory meets political reality. illwill.com/forbidden-de...
illwill.com
The Forbidden Deleuze: For Palestine, Against Genocide • Ill Will
For Pasquale Liguori, Deleuze's pro-Palestinian writings offer a paradigm for political individuation.
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Tim Christiaens @timchristiaens.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Showcasing the ridiculousness of the academic grant hustle 👇 everyone is losing and yet you have to compete or … you still lose.
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Tim Christiaens @timchristiaens.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
The kids are alright
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Tim Christiaens @timchristiaens.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
As the greatest metaphysician of all time, Douglas Adams, wrote:
There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.

There is another theory which states that this has already happened
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Tim Christiaens @timchristiaens.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
I guess we will be waiting a long time for the hand dryer in the men’s toilets at the Crown and Treaty pub, Uxbridge, to be moved to a more sensible position. @countbinface.bsky.social
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Sander Verhaegh @sanderverhaegh.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
In the 1930s, a group of European philosophers fled fascism and reshaped American philosophy. Why did logical positivism have such an impact on US thought? And why did it play a central role in the culture wars of the 1950s and 1960s? Released today! Logical Positivism: An American History (1/3)
Cover of Logical Positivism: An American History
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Tim Christiaens @timchristiaens.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Having fun writing a little piece on progressive politics and black metal. Also quite amusing to have my only citations to song lyrics from Witch Club Satan, Zeal and Ardor, Mgla, Mayhem, etc.
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Nate Holdren @nhold.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
I wrote a review of Lorenzo Feltrin's very good book. I'd appreciate if you'd read the review and I hope it makes you want to read the book. prometheus-mag.com/2026/09/17/a...
prometheus-mag.com
A Review of "Workers and the World" - Prometheus Magazine
Nate Holdren reviews Lorenzo Feltrin's "Workers and the World: Fighting Ecological Crisis from Within", praising it for countering climate despair.
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Tim Christiaens @timchristiaens.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
E.M. Forster’s Passage to India is an incredible delight to read. The descriptions of nature sublime, character interactions subtle yet incisive, the style impeccable.
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Tim Christiaens @timchristiaens.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Great interview with @eugeniaunivie.bsky.social on the dangers of AI and why we should nonetheless take the stories about AI apocalypse with a grain of salt. www.derstandard.at/story/300000...
derstandard.at
KI-Experten: "Hinter der Vermenschlichung von KI steckt wahnsinnig viel Ideologie"
Der Journalist Christo Buschek und die Philosophin Eugenia Stamboliev warnen davor, KI zu vermenschlichen – und vor den Risiken, wenn der Prozess der Wahrheitsfindung automatisiert wird
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Council Estate Media @councilestatemedia.uk · 17/09/2026
It’s not enough to say you stand in solidarity with Macklemore. It’s not even enough to drop out of a tour in support of him and Gaza. You have to call out the Zionist control of our institutions, otherwise this problem just isn’t going away. www.councilestatemedia.uk/p/why-do-we-...
councilestatemedia.uk
Why do we let Zionists decide what we can and can’t say?
It’s been a problem for the longest time.
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Tim Christiaens @timchristiaens.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
My paper on agonistic workplace democracy has recently received a home in the latest issue of Review of Social Economy. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
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Tim Christiaens @timchristiaens.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Wrote a chapter on machinic vision and labour in a new book edited by, among others, @routhier.bsky.social . It was fun writing about digital surveillance, online job hunting, invisibilized digital labour, etc. The book looks amazing and it’s all open access! direct.mit.edu/books/oa-edi...
direct.mit.edu
The Aesthetics of Machine Vision: Critical Terms and Ideas
An interdisciplinary glossary on machine vision and aesthetics within the humanities and beyond.The Aesthetics of Machine Vision brings together scholars,
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Willy De Backer BE @art4theark.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Must-read for @etui.bsky.social? @andrewwatteu.bsky.social @ppochet.bsky.social
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Tim Christiaens @timchristiaens.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
My paper on agonistic workplace democracy has recently received a home in the latest issue of Review of Social Economy. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
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Reposted by Tim Christiaens
Asheesh Kapur Siddique @asheeshks.org · 15/09/2026
Colleges could subsidize books for students rather than paying for premium versions of ChatGPT
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Tim Christiaens @timchristiaens.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
E.M. Forster’s Passage to India is an incredible delight to read. The descriptions of nature sublime, character interactions subtle yet incisive, the style impeccable.
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Tim Christiaens @timchristiaens.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Wrote a chapter on machinic vision and labour in a new book edited by, among others, @routhier.bsky.social . It was fun writing about digital surveillance, online job hunting, invisibilized digital labour, etc. The book looks amazing and it’s all open access! direct.mit.edu/books/oa-edi...
direct.mit.edu
The Aesthetics of Machine Vision: Critical Terms and Ideas
An interdisciplinary glossary on machine vision and aesthetics within the humanities and beyond.The Aesthetics of Machine Vision brings together scholars,
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Tim Christiaens @timchristiaens.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
This really is a great review of Anton Jäger’s Hyperpolitics book and one of the best defenses of liberal democracy I recently read. Would be of interest to @mattpolprof.bsky.social .
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Liberal Currents @liberalcurrents.com · 11/09/2026
"Essentially, he argues it’s not fascism unless it comes from the Bavarian region of Germany in the 1920s, otherwise it’s simply sparkling Bonapartism. This is one of several tediously pedantic observations Jäger makes stemming from a doctrinaire Marxism that checkmates him out of his own argument."
liberalcurrents.com
The End of History and the Final Girl
Anton Jäger’s "Hyperpolitics" is, at its best, late marginalia for "The End of History and the Last Man." At its worst, Jäger, like Fukuyama, is a prisoner of his political pieties.
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Tim Christiaens @timchristiaens.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
My review of Lorenzo Feltrin’s Workers and the World just appeared in @theoryculturesociety.org . If you ever wanted to know how to update Hardt and Negri’s Empire for the age of economic polycrisis and counterrevolutionary stagnation, Feltrin’s book is a good start.
theoryculturesociety.org
Review: Lorenzo Feltrin, ‘Workers and the World: Fighting Ecological Crisis from Within’ — Theory, Culture & Society | Global Public Life
Reviewed by Tim Christiaens
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Tim Christiaens @timchristiaens.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
My review of Lorenzo Feltrin’s Workers and the World just appeared in @theoryculturesociety.org . If you ever wanted to know how to update Hardt and Negri’s Empire for the age of economic polycrisis and counterrevolutionary stagnation, Feltrin’s book is a good start.
theoryculturesociety.org
Review: Lorenzo Feltrin, ‘Workers and the World: Fighting Ecological Crisis from Within’ — Theory, Culture & Society | Global Public Life
Reviewed by Tim Christiaens
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Éditions La Découverte @edladecouverte.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
4 septembre 1926 : Naissance d’Ivan Illitch, penseur critique de la société industrielle, enseignant nomade, théologien iconoclaste. Une nouvelle édition de notre Repères à l'occasion du centième anniversaire de sa naissance !
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