“Under capitalism, being unemployed is a hardship. Yet the experience of unemployment in countries with generous welfare states is radically different from what Americans are used to.” Read an excerpt of Down and Out in Utopia in @jacobinmagazin.bsky.social: bit.ly/4iWcS9p @kellymckowen.bsky.social

Very pleased to be back in @jacobinmag.bsky.social with an excerpt from my new book, Down and Out in Utopia. My thanks to them and @uoftpress.bsky.social for making this happen!

Jacobin@jacobinmag.bsky.social · last mo.

For Norwegians who lose their jobs, a comprehensive welfare system makes the experience of unemployment materially and morally very different from what unemployed workers in the United States undergo.

@kellymckowen.bsky.social ial examines Norway’s social investment as a normative order through ethnographic study of job-seeker courses, showing how they shape moral education around individual responsibility and a 'natural' job market within social democracy. doi.org/10.1177/0001...

Scandinavia's (largely) publicly-funded film industry has gifted the world with some of the 21st century's best movies and actors. Moreover, it makes directing, acting, and screenwriting thinkable as careers for ordinary people. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/02/t...

The Scandinavian Actors Quietly Redefining Cinema

nytimes.com

🚨📃👀In "Making up the market: Job-seeker courses and the ordinary ethics of social investment in Norway" @kellymckowen.bsky.social proposes to view social investment as animated by claims about the relationship between human capital, economic growth and welfare journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...

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