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Conceptual Model of State Collapse
Summary A minimalist conceptual model of the state is presented in which the fundamental basis of state existence and continuity is the flux of produced resources between producers and the needed state apparatus, while contending with powerful domestic non-state actors and foreign challenges. External conditions that reduce per capita production threaten state continuity, and the […]
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Spring Traditions and Celebrations: The Past, The Present and the Future of Farming

The Fight Between Carnival and Lent (1559) by Pieter Bruegel the Elder Introduction Eleanor Parker writes in her book, Winters in the World, that “in Anglo-Saxon poetry winter is often imagined as a season when the earth and human beings are imprisoned, kept captive by the ‘fetters of the frost’. Naturally enough, then, spring is […]
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Global Capitalism: Anti-Democratic Politics and Existential Crisis
Though it is not often examined in these terms, the popular disaffection of Americans with government in general and the rise of anti-democratic politics around the world are seemingly predictable reactions to the contemporary global crises in the international capitalist economy. Persistent poverty, pandemics, military conflict, economic displacement, climate catastrophes, migration, widespread corruption and social […]