Mike Watson is a media and art theorist and educator, born in the United Kingdom and based in Finland. His latest book is Hungry Ghosts in the Machine: Digital Capitalism and the Search for Self.
Finnish authorities have instructed Google to stop work on two data centers after the firm flouted environmental rules. Ahead of the country’s election, the Left is calling for a wider plan to ensure AI doesn’t cause further devastation.
Minja Koskela is leader of Finland’s Left Alliance. She spoke to Jacobin about how the right-wing-populist Finns Party is using its place in government to attack labor and public services, and how her party is resisting austerian dogmas.
The online right loves to say the Left can’t meme. Alma Tuuva — a meme account admin recently elected in Finland — talked to Jacobin about why the libertarian right is so influential on social media and how she’s getting her anti-capitalist message across.
Last Sunday’s local and regional elections in Finland saw a big defeat for the hard-right Finns Party. Its leader called the gains for left-wing parties a “red wave” — but it’s less clear that this will halt the government’s austerity agenda.
In a land of 5.5 million people, Finnish-language culture is vulnerable to the overwhelming dominance of English. The right-wing government’s plans to slash arts spending risk further stifling Finland’s distinct culture.
The Frankfurt School, a group of theorists who grappled with the defeat of Europe's revolutionary left, are often misunderstood. Critics charge them with obscurantism and elitism. They argued that, on the contrary, it was capitalism that obfuscated reality.
For journalist Matt Taibbi, Herbert Marcuse is a pseudo-intellectual at fault for much of what ails the contemporary left. But the real Marcuse was a serious thinker who remained committed to socialism and working-class struggle. In our moment of political defeat, his works like One-Dimensional Man are well worth revisiting.
Successive UK governments have been slashing arts funding for decades. Labour is promising to reinvest.