Base and Superstructure

Alienation, autonomy, and ideology

Month: January 2026

An image of a coin that says George Orwell at the bottom and Big Brother is Watching You in the center.

Orwell on the Left

January 26, 2026 / / 0 Comments

I’ve hit a flurry of interest in George Orwell in the last 6 months. My partner and I read a book of essays on Orwell by Rebecca Solnit – Orwell’s Roses – and then we watched a film on him at a local film festival.

In that spirit, I bought a book of short Orwell essays. In those essays, his criticisms of the left – written in the early 1940s, during World War II! – sparked my interest. I found the criticisms still relevant today, but relevant to a different group.

Let’s take a moment to look into this.

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A photo of Donald Trump shaking hands with a line of U.S. military members. A security guard in sunglasses stands in the background.

Trump’s (Lack of) Deportation Strategy

January 12, 2026 / / 0 Comments

Journalist Oliver Eagleton begins a recent article in Jacobin by warning us against “sanewashing” Donald Trump. The idea? We shouldn’t attribute any deeper strategy or long-term plan to Trump, because that’s not how he thinks. Rather, short-term gain and perceived self-interest drive him.

Naturally, Eagleton goes on to disregard this warning. We wouldn’t have it any other way.

I’ll say a brief word here about the web Eagleton thinks the Trumpists are spinning.

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The cover of the book Marx's Ethical Vision by Vanessa Christina Wills.

Marx’s Ethical Vision

January 5, 2026 / / 0 Comments

Many authors to try explain Marx to puzzled readers. Vanessa Christina Wills’s Marx’s Ethical Vision is one of the best books on the topic.

Wills takes a cluster of ideas – the ethical content of Marx’s philosophy – and draws out these themes over the course of his career. Other Marx books I highly recommend – such as David’s Harvey’s commentaries on Capital – tend to focus on a deep reading of a specific text.

I think Wills’s project is more difficult to pull off. But she does it remarkably well.

Let’s take a look at Marx’s Ethical Vision.

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