Build Back Never

It’s not what you spend, it’s how you use it.

A man works at a large electric phosphate smelting furnace in the Muscle Shoals chemical plant in Alabama, 1942. The TVA did more than electrify homes in the rural South: it allowed new industries to flourish — including the production of rich phosphate fertilizers. (Getty Images)

For a month or so after Joe Biden’s inauguration, there was an air of optimism in the press. Somehow, his presidency promised both a return to normalcy and a shattering of the neoliberal consensus. We were told that the White House would address the economic crisis in a radical new way: it would pump the […]

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