Hi, everyone: I am an Temple of Sociology over at substack. Please subscribe! Thank you.| orgtheory.net
Starting on January 1, 20201, Katherine Chen and I will be at “Markets, Power, & Culture.” This post is a good bye and thank you. I want to say “thank you” to Brayden King and Teppo Felin, who started this blog in 2006. Back then, I was an anxious junior professor and desperately in need […]| orgtheory.net
The consensus against school openings is starting to crack. First, Biden’s selection for Secretary of Education, Miguel Cardona, is openly for restarting school. From a report by the Las Vegas Review Journal: Mr. Cardona has expressed support for opening classrooms to ensure that students who can least afford it don’t fall further behind thanks to […]| orgtheory.net
Want to connect with other researchers studying transformative organizations? Consider submitting to a new sub-track “Emergent Organizations: Creating More Participatory, Inclusive, and Caring Civil Societies and Social Economies” at Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (SASE)! Due to the pandemic, the 2021 conference will be virtual, spanning July 2-5, 2021. Joyce Rothschild, Victor Tan Chen, […]| orgtheory.net
In early December, I had a very engaging discussion with Seth Stodder, who served as Undersecretary of Obama’s Department of Homeland Security, and currently works as an attorney and professor of law. The debate was about open borders and it was host by the Pacific Council on International Policy at the University of Southern California. […]| orgtheory.net
Global Epidemics, a public health website operated by Brown University’s School of Public Health, has an article that makes the sensible case that we can definitely have schools be open during the COVID epidemic as long as we follow some very reasonable health measures. This is a reversal of their prior position: We recommended that […]| orgtheory.net
The Jill Biden doctorate controversy is one the lamest public events in a long time, rivalling the tan suit debacle, the “binders full of women” blow up and the endless mockery of presidents who play golf. And for the record, I definitely side with Jill Biden’s defenders. A doctorate simply means scholar or teacher, a […]| orgtheory.net
Simply spectacular. An all star roster of leading sociologists providing commentary and analysis of the social impact of the epidemic. Free for 30 days – download it now. Don’t miss it. ++++++50+ chapters of grad skool advice goodness: Grad Skool Rulz ($4.44 – cheap!!!!)Intro to sociology for just $1 per chapter – INSANE BARGAIN!!!!!A theory book you […]| orgtheory.net
It’s a real pleasure to be discussing this book. Casey Oberlin, as she prefers, is a proud graduate of IU’s sociology program and the author of this really unique study of the creationist movement. The scholarly background is this: religion scholars have long studied creationism as a form of Biblical literalism that split from mainline […]| orgtheory.net
++++++50+ chapters of grad skool advice goodness: Grad Skool Rulz ($4.44 – cheap!!!!)Intro to sociology for just $1 per chapter – INSANE BARGAIN!!!!!A theory book you can understand!!! Theory for the Working Sociologist (discount code: ROJAS – 30% off!!)The rise of Black Studies: From Black Power to Black Studies Did Obama tank the antiwar movement? Party in the StreetRead Contexts Magazine– It’s Awesome!!!!| orgtheory.net
A couple of years ago, I wrote a post called “post-racist, not racial.” This post made people incredibly angry. Most of the anger was misguided because people simply didn’t read the post. For example, many people thought I said that race had ended or that there was no more racism. This is actually what I […]| orgtheory.net
One of my pandemic policy positions is that it’s probably ok for schools and colleges to open. The reasoning is fairly straightforward: young people are at low risk for harm a COVID infection, losing out on school can have serious long term consequences, sustained closures of schools can financially wreck them, outbreaks are rarely connected […]| orgtheory.net
This year, like the past several years, I have the honor of serving as a mentor to tenure-track CUNY faculty in the CUNY Faculty Fellowship Publication Program (FFPP). The FFPP is a writing and professional development program that helps tenure-track faculty at CUNY two-year and four-year colleges navigate the ins-and-outs of publishing and tenure at […]| orgtheory.net
++++++50+ chapters of grad skool advice goodness: Grad Skool Rulz ($4.44 – cheap!!!!)Intro to sociology for just $1 per chapter – INSANE BARGAIN!!!!!A theory book you can understand!!! Theory for the Working Sociologist (discount code: ROJAS – 30% off!!)The rise of Black Studies: From Black Power to Black Studies Did Obama tank the antiwar movement? Party in the StreetRead Contexts Magazine– It’s Awesome!!!!| orgtheory.net
At 5pm PST/ 8 pm EST, I will be arguing in favor with open borders at the Pacific Council on International Policy, at the University of Southern California. The critic will be Seth Stoddard, law professor and Obama administration homeland security deputy secretary. It is an online conference and it is FREE. Registration is here. […]| orgtheory.net
If you listen to recent Econ Talk episodes, you will notice that the host, economist Russ Roberts, will express dismay at some standard tools of economic modelling. Specifically, he really finds it troubling that a lot of economic analysis models behavior using expected utility – you assign a number to an outcome, guess at the […]| orgtheory.net
The philosopher Laurie Paul has a book called “Transformative Experiences.” It grapples with a very important philosophical problem: there are experiences that transform who you are and it is difficult to reconcile the person before and after the experience. For example, before you have children, you vow that children are too annoying. After you have […]| orgtheory.net
Much has been discussed in the media about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic; for example, to compensate for the absence of coordinated support, working mothers are carrying more caregiving responsibilities. However, the full range of externalities resulting from governmental and organizational decisions (or in the case of some governments, “non”-decisions which are decisions in […]| orgtheory.net
The Open Borders Conference will be this Saturday, Nov 21, 2020 – all day!! We will have panels in the Western Europe, New York and Los Angeles time zones. We will have four key note addresses and more panels. Our key note speakers will be Samah Sisay (see above), Harsha Walia, Helena Maleno, and Shikha […]| orgtheory.net
Brief note: the book and art auction is now open. We will take bids up until 9pm. Go to this link: https://www.instagram.com/openbordersconference/ Each book or artwork gets its own blog post and drop bids in the comments. We will also livestream via instagram from 8pm to 9pm. So go to the instagram and click on […]| orgtheory.net
The Open Borders Conference is having a fundraiser. From now until Thursday at 9pm, we will be auctioning books via the Open Borders Instagram page. Here’s how it works: For the next few days, we will post pictures of the books on the Open Borders Instagram page. Until 9PM on Thursday, you can bid on […]| orgtheory.net
The election of Donald Trump was the first time I had ever felt threatened by the outcome of an election. The US definitely has problems, but, sorry, Mitt Romney and John McCain were not scions of a new White supremacy as many might like to say. But Trump was the first candidate of a mainstream […]| orgtheory.net
Around 10pm on Tuesday night, a number of friends on Facebook noted that if Biden were to win Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin and Nebraska’s 2nd district, he’d reach 270 electoral votes. Since then, I stopped thinking about who would win and more about take home points. First, the national polls did as good as usual. In […]| orgtheory.net
Billionaire Wilderness: The Ultra-Wealthy and The Remaking of the American West is a book by Justin Farrell that uses ethnography to explore how super, duper, like incredinly wealthy, people think about the environment. Farrell hung out in Wymoing in an enclave of people who have made, or inherited, vast fortunes and he gets to understand […]| orgtheory.net
As of this morning, Real Clear Politics has the four way race going for Biden at around 52%, Trump 45% and the Libertarians (Jorgenson) and Greens (Hawkins) at about a combined 2.5%. I am not going to spend time forecasting elections results because the popular vote is clearly going to Biden. Nate Silver’s posits a […]| orgtheory.net
Old style network television was based on the following economic model. Make a bunch of stand alone episodes and advertisers pay for it. If you get lucky, you get to syndicate the show and future advertisers can pay for it again. The aesthetic trick is to make sure that each episode is relatively self-contained so […]| orgtheory.net
A few days ago, commenters on the blog argued that I was fighting a strawman by suggesting we move from strict measures to a laxer “protect the elderly” position. Lockdowns in response to COVID simply weren’t happening and my argument was entirely off base. Here, I’ll briefly review some evidence on COVID mitigation measures. My […]| orgtheory.net
Update: The book auction will be moved to November 12. I am fund raising for open borders 2020 – a global online conference for people interested in maker a freer and better world. The easiest way to help is simply to buy a ticket. $15 – for a gathering of some amazing people. Click here. […]| orgtheory.net
On November 21, 2020, we’re having the 3rd Open Borders conference. It’s open to all people – Left or Right, Black and White, and more! And we have three amazing keynote speakers: European immigration activist Helena Maleno, star journalist Shikha Dalmia and Vancouver civil rights defender Harsha Walia. It’s online so you can participate from […]| orgtheory.net
The main empirical claim of the More Tweets, More Votes paper is that in the 2010 and 2012 Congressional elections, candidates who got more tweets relative to their competitor got more votes relative to the competitor. For a long time, I thought that Trump was an exception to the rule. He always gets attention, no […]| orgtheory.net
On this blog, we’ve had a debate over my opinions on COVID policy. To summarize, here is my view: Most of the damage from COVID is disproportionately shouldered by the elderly. Harm from COVID is relatively rare among non-elderly adults and young people. It is possible to reduce transmission to elderly people with relatively simple […]| orgtheory.net
++++++50+ chapters of grad skool advice goodness: Grad Skool Rulz ($4.44 – cheap!!!!)Intro to sociology for just $1 per chapter – INSANE BARGAIN!!!!!A theory book you can understand!!! Theory for the Working Sociologist (discount code: ROJAS – 30% off!!)The rise of Black Studies: From Black Power to Black Studies Did Obama tank the antiwar movement? Party in the StreetRead Contexts Magazine– It’s Awesome!!!!| orgtheory.net
A while back, I did a podcast with Kyle Green about Theory for the Working Sociologist. He’ll release it later this semester but I wanted to report on an exchange we had. He asked me about the movement among scholars to revive earlier figures like DuBois. Cooper and others. I said a few things. First, […]| orgtheory.net
One of the biggest lessons I got from hearing Shikha Dalmia speak at the 2018 Open Borders conference was that migration restriction violates the rights of people in the host nation. Want to hire Juan from Mexico City? You can’t. Want Juan to be a guest in your home? You can’t. Basically, the restriction of […]| orgtheory.net
This is a post whose content I have been meditating on, for a long time, since I last wrote about my concerns about responses to SARS-CoV-2 in March. For years, I’ve taught about the classic prisoner’s dilemma in the context of Nobel Prize winner Elinor Ostrom’s Governing the Commons book. Ostrom’s book draws on collectives […]| orgtheory.net
++++++50+ chapters of grad skool advice goodness: Grad Skool Rulz ($4.44 – cheap!!!!)Intro to sociology for just $1 per chapter – INSANE BARGAIN!!!!!A theory book you can understand!!! Theory for the Working Sociologist (discount code: ROJAS – 30% off!!)The rise of Black Studies: From Black Power to Black Studies Did Obama tank the antiwar movement? Party in the StreetRead Contexts Magazine– It’s Awesome!!!!| orgtheory.net
Sometime this Fall, Amy Coney Barrett will likely become a Supreme Court Justice. A lot of people are shedding tears over Mitch McConnell’s rush to get Barett on the court. Well, if you believe what politicians tell you about election year court appointment norms, I have a bridge I’d like to sell you. Instead, I […]| orgtheory.net
My COVID policy: protect the elderly, release the young. The basis for this recommendation is simple: young people are at very low risk for mortality from COVID. However, a common refrain is “won’t kids catch COVID and take it home.” Well, we now have some evidence that can provide insight. In Science Magazine, Snape and […]| orgtheory.net
As loyal readers know, my position on COVID policy is simple: protect the elderly, release the young. Why? COVID is very low risk for young people, but extremely damaging for people who are older. This position is very much an “open” position. Here, I’ll discuss some recent evolutions in this argument. First, Linkdn’s new website […]| orgtheory.net
Hello everyone! The Summer 2020 issue of Contexts Magazine is here and it is A+++. This special issue deals with indigenous identities. The special issue editors are Angela A. Gonzalez and Nicholas…| orgtheory.net
(the following is a guest post from Professor Juan Pablo Pardo-Guerra) Following the breaking news of her election as President of the American Sociological Association, Mary Romero’s personal stat…| orgtheory.net
