By Gordon G. Chang · Monday, June 6, 2022 “The Russian invasion of Ukraine has put an end to the globalization we have experienced over the last three decades,” wrote Larry Fink in his March 24 letter to BlackRock shareholders. “We had already seen connectivity between nations, companies, and even people strained by two years of the pandemic.”
Fink, who oversees $10 trillion of wealth as the world’s largest asset manager, is right to be concerned that an era has ended. “Globalization—as promoted by the United States over the past 70 years—has led to the greatest reduction in poverty and the biggest decline in interstate conflict in human history,” writes Matthew Rooney of the George W. Bush Institute.
So will the world, in Fink’s new era, be less prosperous and peaceful? Many think high levels of trade—in other words, continued interdependence—will save the day, yet this view is debatable. “Does trade increase or decrease the likelihood of conflict?” Samuel Huntington, the late Harvard political scientist, asked in The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, his landmark 1996 book. “The assumption that it reduces the probability of war between nations is, at a minimum, not proven, and much evidence exists to the contrary.”
Huntington, building on the work of others, pointed out that it is expectation that drives events. “Economic interdependence fosters peace,” he wrote, “only ‘when states expect that high trade levels will continue into the foreseeable future.'”
So what is happening in the post-invasion period? The World Trade Organization in April predicted that merchandise trade would grow 3.0% this year—down from a previous forecast of 4.7%—but admitted growth could be as low as 0.5%.
Last year’s trade volume—the WTO put total merchandise trade at a staggering $22.4 trillion after growth of 9.8%—set a record, but that figure could decline this year. Last year’s volume was the result of a sugar high, boosted by one-time government stimulus measures. Resulting commodity price increases further inflated trade statistics. The factors driving trade in 2021, the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development correctly stated in February, will “abate.”
Projections of increasing trade depend on forecasts of continuing prosperity. There is concern, however, that a downturn is coming and it will be especially severe. “You’d better brace yourself,” Jamie Dimon, the influential CEO of JPMorgan Chase, told a financial conference in New York in early June. He said everyone should expect not “storm clouds”—his previous prediction—but a “hurricane,” which could be “a minor one or Superstorm Sandy.”
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By Telos Press · Monday, May 23, 2022 In today’s episode of the Telos Press Podcast, David Pan talks with Martin Tomszak about his article “‘With Desire I Have Desired’: Enjoying the Face of the Other as Political Theology: John Caputo and Dorothy Day Situating Hospitality as Divine Encounter,” from Telos 198 (Spring 2022). An excerpt of the article appears here. In their conversation they discuss the basic tenets of the theology of divine weakness, as developed by John Caputo; how this theology arises out of Caputo’s reading of Derrida and his rereading of scripture, specially Luke’s description of the life of Jesus of Nazareth; how Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker movement translated this theology of divine weakness into practice; how this theology relates to the writings and praxis of Peter Maurin; and how Day and Maurin understood the idea of state sovereignty and why they were opposed to state-sponsored forms of welfare. If your university has an online subscription to Telos, you can read the full article at the Telos Online website. For non-subscribers, learn how your university can begin a subscription to Telos at our library recommendation page. Print copies of Telos 198 are available for purchase in our online store.
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By Telos Press · Friday, May 13, 2022 On the latest episode of the Outsider Theory podcast, host Geoff Shullenberger talks with Jacob Siegel, senior writer at Tablet and co-host of Manifesto! A Podcast, about the rightward trajectory of certain insights of Frankfurt School–derived critical theory, especially in light of the history of the Telos and its founder and editor, Paul Piccone. The discussion also turns to Piccone’s friend Paul Gottfried, the continued relevance of Herbert Marcuse’s “Repressive Tolerance,” the Thiel-affiliated New Right’s cultivation of a counter-elite, the recent Vanity Fair profile of the Thielverse, and more. Listen to the podcast here. For a limited time, save 20% on individual subscriptions to Telos and on Telos Press books by using the coupon code OUTSIDER20 in our online store.
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By Telos Press · Thursday, May 12, 2022 Writing at the National Interest, Alex Hu reports on the recent 2022 Telos Conference, entitled “Civilizational States and Liberal Empire—Bound to Collide?” An excerpt from the article:
 How do obscure ideas from the ivory tower enter the halls of power? In 2019, London School of Economics professor Christopher Coker published a book on “civilizational states,” describing a new ideological threat to the world order emerging from Russia and China. Three years later, on April 1-3, 2022, four policy advisors to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke at a conference in New York City on the theme of “Civilizational States and Liberal Empire—Bound to Collide?”
Convened by Telos, a quarterly journal—oddly enough—for “critical theory of the contemporary,” the conference attracted a crowd of around thirty academics and intellectual oddballs. Not much consensus was reached. The Pompeo officials themselves disagreed. But their very participation at the event confirms that Coker’s ideas have caught on in a big way.
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By Telos Press · Tuesday, May 3, 2022 In his new book, The Travails of Trumpification, a series of critical essays written over the course of Donald J. Trump's presidency, Timothy W. Luke explores how the recent twists and turns in the civic life of the United States have precipitated a dangerous transformation of American political culture. Tim recently talked with Mark S. Weiner about the book and the current precarious state of U.S. politics.
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By Telos Press · Monday, April 25, 2022 The Telos Student Seminars provide a forum for students around the world to engage with critical theory by discussing a common set of paired texts from Telos—one current essay and one pertinent essay from our archives. In our second cycle of seminars, we are discussing Huimin Jin’s “Cultural Self-Confidence and Constellated Community: An Extended Discussion of Some Speeches by Xi Jinping” (Telos 195, Summer 2021) and an excerpt from Cornelius Castoriadis’s “The Crisis of Western Societies” (Telos 53, Fall 1982). The following reports are from the Telos Student Seminars groups in Budapest, Hungary, and Nanjing, China. For more details about the Telos Student Seminars, including summaries of the two essays under discussion, click here.
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