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William Westgard-Cruice

@williamwc.bsky.social
141 followers 177 following 120 posts

Political and economic geographer • energy, labour, and the critique of political economy • Researcher at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) www.williamwestgardcruice.com

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Reposted by William Westgard-Cruice
Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels @kmfe.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
The materialist conception of history starts from the proposition that the production of the means to support human life and, next to production, the exchange of things produced, is the basis of all social structure; that in every society that has appeared in history, the manner in which wealth is
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William Westgard-Cruice @williamwc.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
My recent paper in the Annals of the AAG is now in print! It explains why workers in the offshore wind industry in Germany have been striking, why some unions in the USA have been competing with one another, and what these struggles tell us about the class politics of the "energy transition".
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Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels @kmfe.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
It is precisely the alteration of nature by men, not solely nature as such, which is the most essential and immediate basis of human thought.
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alexismoraitis.bsky.social @alexismoraitis.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
An article I really enjoyed writing is now out with Capital&Class
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Brett Christophers @brettchristophers.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
Penguin has a page up for my new book, coming Feb 2027, HOUSE SOCIETY The epigraph is from Kenneth T. Jackson's famous "Crabgrass Frontier": "... no society can be fully understood apart from the residences of its members" The book is an exploration and affirmation of that thesis!
penguin.co.uk
House Society
The world is in the midst of a deep and worsening housing crisis. It has caused rents to soar in Britain, millions to protest in Spain, and a government to collapse in Sweden. Under a global ideology ...
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Colin Lorne @colinlorne.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
OpenSpace Research Centre: Doreen Massey Annual Event 2026 // Thursday 3rd September 6pm onwards Public exhibition & roundtable discussion (with Dave Featherstone) RGS/IBG fringe event Metroland Studios Kilburn, London, NW6 6PS Food & drink provided This event is free & open to everyone
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Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels @kmfe.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
A philosopher produces ideas, a poet poems, a clergyman sermons, a professor compendia and so on. A criminal produces crimes. If we take a closer look at the connection between this latter branch of production and society as a whole, we shall rid ourselves of many prejudices. The criminal produces
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William Westgard-Cruice @williamwc.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
"Is there anything redeemable about 1776? ... yes ... the plebeian rebels of 1776 also planted the seeds for the modern US proletariat, the first social layer in the millennial-old history of class society that not only has an interest in its eradication but also has the actual capacity to do so."
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TUED (Trade Unions for Energy Democracy) @tuedglobal.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
📺TUED Global Forum: How Mexico’s Energy Transition Could Re-Shape Global Climate Policy Join us for a discussion on Mexico’s energy transition. 🔊Languages: English & Español 🗓️Tue June 30, 2026 🕖8:00am Mexico time // 10am NYC ⏳RSVP: tinyurl.com/TUED-Jun30
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William Westgard-Cruice @williamwc.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
Excellent article from Alejandro Fitzsimons and Guido Starosta on industrial restructuring, the rate of profit, and the dynamics of value transfer in automotive global value chains 🔥🔥🔥 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
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Philipp Köncke @philippkoencke.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
Ersetzt die Geoökonomie den Neoliberalismus? Meine Antwort: Nein. Mein neuer Artikel in @prokla.bsky.social zeigt am USA-China-Konflikt, warum Geoökonomie als Anpassung neoliberaler Globalisierung und Staatlichkeit an die verschärfte Weltmarktkonkurrenz zu verstehen ist. doi.org/10.32387/pro...
prokla.de
Geoökonomie als Ende des Neoliberalismus? Zur Rekonfiguration von Staat und Globalisierung im USA-China-Konflikt | PROKLA. Zeitschrift für kritische Sozialwissenschaft
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William Westgard-Cruice @williamwc.bsky.social · 04/06/2026
Tragic news of the death of Argentinian scholar Juan Iñigo Carrera, one of the world's most brilliant critics of political economy. JIC taught 'Capital' to generations of students, using Marx to help us understand the historicity of scientific knowledge and the necessity of our own action.
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Endnotes @endnotesjournal.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
Mapping the Margins of Capitalism by Daniel Colligan a review of Sven Beckert, Capitalism: A Global History (Penguin, 2025) endnotes.org.uk/palabre/mapp...
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William Westgard-Cruice @williamwc.bsky.social · 18/05/2026
DiaMatGPT
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Jamie Merchant @jamiemerchant.bsky.social · 11/05/2026
on historical method from Simon Clarke aka the goat
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Working Class History @workingclasshistory.com · 27/04/2026
#OtD 27 Apr 1998 a general strike in the private sector broke out in Denmark, involving a fifth of the country's workforce. Lasting for 10 days, union leaders panicked and agreed a compromise. This is a history of the dispute: stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9879...
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Historical Materialism Journal @histmat.bsky.social · 24/04/2026
Now online: 'Theory Betrayed: An Essay on Gabriel Rockhill’s Who Paid the Pipers of Western Marxism? (Part Two)' by Doug Greene and Harrison Fluss.
historicalmaterialism.org
Theory Betrayed: An Essay on Gabriel Rockhill’s Who Paid the Pipers of Western Marxism? (Part Two) - Historical Materialism
If we wish to thoroughly criticise Rockhill’s approach, we must confront the historical legacy of Stalinism. Throughout Rockhill’s work, there is an uncritical adulation of “AES”, past and present ali...
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William Westgard-Cruice @williamwc.bsky.social · 21/04/2026
Good rebuttal of Rockhill’s conspiratorial reading of the Frankfurt School. What's missing is a discussion of Monthly Review’s longstanding disdain for the western working class and elite admiration for the political leadership of socialist states. Same old line, much less rigour — sad decline.
jacobin.com
No, Western Marxism Wasn’t a CIA Plot
Gabriel Rockhill’s polemic against Western Marxism seeks to condemn a set of postwar left-wing intellectuals such as Herbert Marcuse. Heavy on innuendo but light on evidence, the result is more like a...
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William Westgard-Cruice @williamwc.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
How can Marx help us understand growing "skills shortages" in the renewable energy industry? What role do class struggle and class collaboration play in the temporary resolution of this barrier to accumulation?

 Check out my new article in the Annals of the American Association of Geographers:
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William Westgard-Cruice @williamwc.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
How can Marx help us understand growing "skills shortages" in the renewable energy industry? What role do class struggle and class collaboration play in the temporary resolution of this barrier to accumulation?

 Check out my new article in the Annals of the American Association of Geographers:
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Verso Books @versobooks.bsky.social · 30/03/2026
Now available for preorder - Unpaid by Matthew Cole "A searing and revelatory unmasking of the despicable reality of modern capitalism. Few books are able to make complex ideas so accessible – yet this is one of them." - @owenjones.bsky.social
versobooks.com
Unpaid
Unpaid upends conventional wisdom about how we value work, exposing wage theft as one of capitalism’s enduring open secrets. From unpaid overtime and under-the-table jobs to algorithmic exploitation, ...
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William Westgard-Cruice @williamwc.bsky.social · 30/03/2026
Vestas fires 440 workers at its offshore wind nacelle factory near Odense, Denmark. Amidst the catastrophe of war in West Asia, with disastrous consequences for the working class in Europe and the rest of the world, the demand for offshore wind turbines on the continent still isn't high enough.
tv2fyn.dk
Vestas vil fyre 440 medarbejdere på Fyn
Vindmølleproducenten Vestas forventer at måtte nedlægge omkring 440 stillinger på Lindø.Det oplyser Vestas til MarketWire.Fyringer sker på grund af en større justering, skriver mediet, og vil primært ...
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Matt Thompson @mattthompson.bsky.social · 24/03/2026
New article out: What's the point of conjunctural analysis? doi.org/10.1177/2754...
doi.org
What's the point of conjunctural analysis? - Matthew Thompson, 2026
With conjunctural approaches to urban research fast proliferating, along with the compounding crises they seek to study, now's the time to ask: what's...
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Cominsitu @cominsitu.bsky.social · 11/03/2026
read Marx
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William Westgard-Cruice @williamwc.bsky.social · 19/02/2026
"Twenty-first-century tech elites may not even know of the old technocracy movement, but have revived many of its ideas. Gone are the pomp and spectacle of rallies, however, since popular persuasion is no longer needed."
brooklynrail.org
Technocracy 2.0 | The Brooklyn Rail
As Alex Karp, the CEO of Palantir, says outright, the only lasting future for the United States is the merging of tech and the state. He cites the Manhattan Project as a precedent: a model that is now...
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William Westgard-Cruice @williamwc.bsky.social · 11/02/2026
For those interested in value theory and the critique of political ecology: This new article by André Novas Otero shows how rent can only be understood in terms of its double basis (natural difference and class power), and how this double basis helps explain the persistence of uneven development.
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William Westgard-Cruice @williamwc.bsky.social · 11/02/2026
“Much ecological politics focuses on a kind of localism – localizing food systems, reuniting communities with ecologies – but clearly that is not what is required. The crisis is global and requires a restructuring of production at the planetary scale, at the level of the species."
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William Westgard-Cruice @williamwc.bsky.social · 05/02/2026
On the decline of process knowledge and its significance: "The point is not to romanticize traditional working-class occupations. But in the frenzy of digitalization, both right and left have forgotten that software presupposes hardware ... modern human life presupposes building and manufacturing."
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TUED (Trade Unions for Energy Democracy) @tuedglobal.bsky.social · 04/02/2026
Tunisian Unions Reveal the Real Cost of Private Solar Energy in Tunisia - and Why Public Solar is a Better Option New research paper shows public solar would be far less expensive than the current approach, which privileges IPPs at excessive costs to the Tunisian people tinyurl.com/TUED-B169
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William Westgard-Cruice @williamwc.bsky.social · 02/02/2026
"For us, flourishing is inseparable from the transformation of the technical and social means by which we reproduce our lives." "Hegel helps us see that work like Saito’s is premised on a false dichotomy—the choice is not between growth and degrowth but capital growth and rational growth."
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Jonas Algers @jonasalgers.bsky.social · 31/01/2026
Samtidigt som USA blir allt mer auktoritärt blir vi mer beroende av deras energi. Ja Sveriges _elsystem_ är fossilfritt - men inte industrin och transporterna. I 2024 lade Sverige ✨205 miljarder kronor✨ på att importera fossil energi. Kunde lagts på annat
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William Westgard-Cruice @williamwc.bsky.social · 22/01/2026
"In 2009, the proposition that Reza Pahlavi might constitute a political alternative to the Islamic Republic would have been widely dismissed... This shift tells us less about the intrinsic strength of monarchism than about the erosion of alternative pathways for political transformation..."
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William Westgard-Cruice @williamwc.bsky.social · 20/01/2026
As the imperialist confrontation between the US and the EU intensifies, the next major advance in Chinese capitalism is quietly underway. More powerful wind turbines mean less reliance on foreign fuel imports and a growing Chinese edge over Europe in the export of wind power technology.
offshorewind.biz
'World's First' 20 MW Wind Turbine Installed Offshore
A 20 MW wind turbine was installed in the waters off southern Fujian, China, on 13 January as part of a research project. This is the first time a wind turbine with this output was installed at sea, b...
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William Westgard-Cruice @williamwc.bsky.social · 19/01/2026
Matt Huber against the dour, anti-political degrowthism of the contemporary Left "...if we struggle, and wrestle control of production away from the depredations of capital, there is nothing we can’t do. An energy transition is not only possible; it’s only the beginning of what we can accomplish."
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William Westgard-Cruice @williamwc.bsky.social · 15/01/2026
"The transformation of America in the past 30 years into an 'hour glass' society, leaving only yuppies and the homeless in cities like Manhattan and devastating the life conditions of the urban working class and marginal Bohemia, is a major factor in the decline of reading." - Loren Goldner, in 1995
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Budget Motel Abyss @budgetmotelabyss.bsky.social · 06/01/2026
Preliminary proofs are in......
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Jack Copley @jackcopley.bsky.social · 09/01/2026
I've been rereading this excellent piece today - it sheds light on so many of the vital debates within Marxist and heterodox political economy in recent years. I really recommend checking it out.
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Johan Alfonsson @alfonsson.bsky.social · 08/12/2025
New paper out! We explore how the Swedish wage-setting model (the Industrial Agreement) manages to hold wage increases together across occupations. Using large labour-market groups, we show that occupational hierarchy plays an increasing role in shaping who benefits most from wage growth.
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William Westgard-Cruice @williamwc.bsky.social · 07/12/2025
Strong arguments here. The real problem is we don't live in a society in which we genuinely plan power production decades in advance. If we did, both nuclear and renewables would be built faster and cheaper as we wouldn't face the same grid constraints and economies of scale would be much greater.
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Jonas Algers @jonasalgers.bsky.social · 04/12/2025
Sammen med @williamwc.bsky.social har jeg skrevet nogle ord om hvorfor kløften mellem venstrefløjen og arbejderklassen har åbnet for højrefløjen at gå frem i energipolitikken www.information.dk/debat/2025/1...
information.dk
Kløften mellem venstrefløjen og arbejderklassen gør modstanden mod grøn energi til en vindersag
Modstanden fra den populistiske højrefløj fokuserer på vindmølle- og solcelleparker som visuelle forstyrrelser. Men frustrationerne, folk oplever med den vedvarende energisektor, går langt dybere
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William Westgard-Cruice @williamwc.bsky.social · 04/12/2025
In recent Danish municipal elections, the far-right made big gains by mobilizing voters against renewable energy. Jonas and I argue that this was a winning strategy because the left has mostly ignored problems in the industry like social dumping and mass layoffs. Sadly relevant far beyond Denmark.
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William Westgard-Cruice @williamwc.bsky.social · 04/12/2025
Massefyringer i vindenergisektoren og social dumping i solindustrien er begge problemer, som venstrefløjen i stor udstrækning har ignoreret. Som følge heraf ser mange i landdistrikterne grøn energi som et symbol på forringelsen af hårdt tilkæmpede arbejdsforhold. Hvordan reagerer venstrefløjen nu?
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William Westgard-Cruice @williamwc.bsky.social · 04/12/2025
Sammen med @jonasalgers.bsky.social har jeg skrevet en artikel om, hvordan venstrefløjens svage forbindelse til arbejderklassen bidrager til højredrejningen i debatten om vedvarende energi. For at ændre debattens præmisser må venstrefløjen styres mindre af miljø-NGO’er og mere af arbejderklassen.
information.dk
Kløften mellem venstrefløjen og arbejderklassen gør modstanden mod grøn energi til en vindersag
Modstanden fra den populistiske højrefløj fokuserer på vindmølle- og solcelleparker som visuelle forstyrrelser. Men frustrationerne, folk oplever med den vedvarende energisektor, går langt dybere
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William Westgard-Cruice @williamwc.bsky.social · 03/12/2025
Can't wait to read this
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Ståle Holgersen @holgersen.bsky.social · 25/11/2025
Is construction best left to the capitalist market? No. Let's learn from history and build new non-profit construction companies! 💥 new paper with Maria Wallstam in @housingjournal.bsky.social 💥
tandfonline.com
Building beyond profit: the history and potential future of non-profit construction companies
When housing construction slows down due to diminished profit margins while the actual need for housing increases, people might raise the question: is residential construction best left to the capi...
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William Westgard-Cruice @williamwc.bsky.social · 25/11/2025
Ørsted carries out layoffs of nearly 200 employees in Denmark a few weeks after announcing a massive global firing round. A clear consequence of betting big on an unstable US market instead of focusing on building offshore wind in Scandinavian waters, where it's very much needed.
sn.dk
Ørsted har fyret næsten 200 medarbejdere i Danmark
Den danske energiudvikler Ørsted har afskediget 191 danske medarbejdere som led i en større fyringsrunde.
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William Westgard-Cruice @williamwc.bsky.social · 24/11/2025
A lot of writing on renewable energy depicts the industry as "laborless," suggesting that workers in the industry aren't really central to the politics of the "energy transition." My new article in @societyandspace.bsky.social shows how mistaken this view is. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
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Matt Huber @matthuber.bsky.social · 19/11/2025
🚨NEWS: I recorded my lectures on Volume 1 in 2023. Imo, I think they're pretty good! (And different from Harvey, etc). It was my 5th time teaching the book, and I think I finally "got" a lot of stuff. So I put them all on Youtube as a playlist: www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOFe...
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Greig Charnock @greigc.bsky.social · 19/11/2025
Out today! www.routledge.com/The-Politics...
routledge.com
The Politics of Late Urban Entrepreneurialism: The Innovation District
The Politics of Late Urban Entrepreneurialism provides a critical examination of how innovation district transformation in Barcelona has led to periodic crisis and an overproduction of commercial real...
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William Westgard-Cruice @williamwc.bsky.social · 13/11/2025
Radikale politikere i Information: “Blackstone har gjort en positiv forskel i lejernes liv … trukket huslejerne nedad.” Begrundelsen? Et studie fra USA, der kun sammenligner kapitalfonde med en hypotetisk situation med flere småudlejere, ikke med det reelle alternativ: flere almene boliger.
information.dk
København har brug for en venstrefløj, der vil åbne byen – ikke regulere den ihjel
Skyd ikke skylden på Blackstone. Hvis København skal være et socialt springbræt og ikke et reservat for dem, der allerede er indenfor, må vi tænke nyt om boligmarkedet og slippe reguleringsrefleksen
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