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… read about the idea of money expiring.

Silvio Gesell was a German entrepreneur and self-taught economist (as well as a vegetarian) who, over 100 years ago, wanted [[link removed]] to make money that “decays over time.” In The Natural Economic Order, published in 1915, Gesell argued, “Only money that goes out of date like a newspaper, rots like potatoes, rusts like iron, evaporates like ether is capable of standing the test as an instrument for the exchange of potatoes, newspapers, iron and ether.”

Gesell came to believe that our economy rewards giving as little as possible and getting as much for it as possible in return. But this was hurting us, and not just materially. “The exploitation of our neighbor’s need, mutual plundering conducted with all the wiles of salesmanship, is the foundation of our economic life.” Gesell believed that money needed to be made “worse as a commodity if we wish to make it better as a medium of exchange.” He came up with a system that is basically the opposite of ours today: in his scenario, money held over time should decrease, not increase, in value. Many dismissed him as a heretic, but not all: John Maynard Keynes believed the future would “learn more from the spirit of Gesell than from that of Marx.”

Kissinger’s Angola

After the passing of Henry Kissinger, the former secretary of state who died last week at the age of 100, many cited his record in Vietnam and Cambodia. There was good reason for this: Kissinger helped direct a bombing campaign that killed scores of civilians in those countries. But as Piero Gleijeses reminds readers, Kissinger also left a legacy [[link removed]] in Angola via involvement in its civil war in 1975.

Senior US officials at the time advised against a covert operation against the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), as they believed MPLA victory in Angola would not threaten the United States. Kissinger, however, thought otherwise.

Gleijeses makes the case that this had little to do with Angola and much to do with Vietnam, writing, “In April of that year, the South Vietnamese regime had collapsed. For Kissinger this debacle was both a national and personal humiliation. It undermined his standing at home and it made the US look weak abroad. A display of resolve in Angola would exorcize the ghost of Vietnam, and the installation of a client regime in Luanda would provide a cheap boost to American prestige and to his own reputation.” Ultimately, this display was both unsuccessful and self-defeating, as it brought Cuban troops to Angola, where they stayed until 1991.

FORWARD TO A FRIEND [[link removed]] Be a good sport

African sports are getting [[link removed]] more attention than ever — and that attention has brought with it commercial partnerships.

“Sport’s capacity for communication across spatial boundaries through networked media means populations globally are never far from being able to access such events; it is an omnipresent phenomenon underpinned by a web of different stakeholders linked by commercial transactions,” write Jörg Wiegratz and J. Simon Rofe. “These transactions take place in a wider context, in which the characteristics of home society and culture can be evident as athletes [[link removed]], coaches, teams, or clubs engage [[link removed]] with and support local communities through [[link removed]] foundations [[link removed]], state agencies, or development organizations.”

But none of this can be divorced from the reality that sports are also never far from capitalism both foreign and domestic. And that there is attention means we should also watch the downsides of these developments, the authors argue. “We should not only explore the politics and political economy of growth (and wealth creation and appropriation) in sports, but also the significant setbacks, crises, and decline in the sector.”

FORWARD TO A FRIEND [[link removed]] DEEP DIVE At the end of all the bombing

“Can coercive airpower quell a rebellion?” So opens a new working paper [[link removed]] by Regine Schwab, Werner Krause, and Samer Massoud on the bombing of hospitals in civil wars — considering, in particular, the case of Syria.

Why Syria? “Since the conflict’s outbreak in 2011, the Syrian war has exhibited a systematic pattern of targeting, denying, and weaponizing healthcare. Syria is thus a critically important case to study this phenomenon.” The authors also make the case that Syria adds nuance to the debate around the effects of civilian harm in counterinsurgency, as the other cases where such data is available are Iraq and Afghanistan.

The authors distinguish between attacks on civilians (the focus of much of the related pre-existing literature) and attacks on civilian infrastructure, such as hospitals. An attack on a hospital is not, they argue, the same thing as an attack on a civilian — but it is “a widely visible form and powerful signal of civilian victimization.” The authors — who concluded that there is credible evidence that pro-government forces’ targeting of medical facilities “was intentional and deliberate” — looked particularly at counterinsurgent bombings and subsequent violent acts, and found that, far from decreasing violence, targeting hospitals actually increases insurgent violence. (The authors make this conclusion quantitatively but supplement it with qualitative research: namely, interviews that suggested “hospital bombings induce rebels to resist more fiercely through two mechanisms: intrinsic motivations and civilian pressure.”)

The authors also believe that, though they looked specifically at medical infrastructure, these findings could very well hold for other kinds of civilian infrastructure, like water facilities and schools.

One possible avenue for future research is why, exactly, governments continue to rely on coercive airpower when the effectiveness of such strategies is “disputed” (to say nothing of what morality and international law have to say about, for example, the bombing of a hospital). The authors suggest that one reason is that it is cheap in comparison to a sustained ground offensive, and that “as long as insurgent responses do not directly threaten incumbents, they may thus be willing to pay the price of a tit-for-tat cycle of violence.” So, too, do the authors concede that “it remains a crucial task for future studies to disentangle the complex, long-term relationship between targeting civilian infrastructure and subsequent violence dynamics.” For now, though, they have found that “rather than contributing to incumbent victory or a negotiated settlement, the targeting of medical facilities in northwestern Syria has fueled insurgents’ resistance and thus makes ending the conflict less likely.” Peace has yet to emerge from the rubble of a bombed out hospital.

The mass killing of civilians gets attention in the political arena and from the media, the authors write. But targeting civilian infrastructure also has long-term consequences. Those repercussions are often overlooked, but they can be “severe” and linger long after we’ve stopped considering them — if we ever did in the first place.

FORWARD TO A FRIEND [[link removed]] RECEIPTS

Daniel Ofman looked [[link removed]] at the Ukrainian counteroffensive, which was launched more than six months ago. The counteroffensive was intended to recapture territory but found that goal “thwarted” by Russian forces. Others have noted, however, that Ukraine has made other gains, arguing that Russia’s military power has deteriorated more quickly since the counteroffensive began. That not all is well for Russia’s military is not, however, necessarily good news for Ukraine, the future of which, Ofman argued, still depends on sustained European and American aid and interest — and support, Ofman said, has “wavered recently” in the US and some parts of Europe.

Shirin Jaafari wrote [[link removed]] that Jordanians are boycotting American companies viewed as pro-Israel. A red label warns customers that the products are boycotted, and concludes, “your choice.” Jaafari explained that though the boycott movement is not new, it has gained renewed interest given Israel’s current war in Gaza, ongoing since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7. As Jaafari put it, “Many in Jordan and in other Arab countries say that Israel’s war on Gaza would not be possible without the backing of the US and some European countries, where many of these big corporations are based.” The boycott’s impact on Jordan’s economy is mixed: some worry about job losses, while others note that local businesses are seeing a bump.

Khamsone Sirimanivong, with the assistance of Pajouablai Monica Lee, considered [[link removed]] Henry Kissinger’s legacy in Southeast Asia. “Laos was my ancestors’ home before we fled to America. The home where my family led a quiet and sustainable life, farming crops, raising cattle and weaving textiles, where children roamed and played carefree before bombs were littered everywhere,” wrote Sirimanivong, who also warns that today’s leaders are all too comfortable making the same mistakes that Kissinger did, pointing in particular to US support for cluster munitions. It is one thing to condemn Kissinger; it is another to work not to be like him.

FORWARD TO A FRIEND [[link removed]] WELL-PLAYED

Why was there no 007 [[link removed]] in ‘07?

Oh, rats [[link removed]]!

The devil went down to Wittenberg [[link removed]].

The gift that keeps on [[link removed]] giving.

Nobody is doing it like them [[link removed]].

Spend your money elsewhere [[link removed]].

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Critical State is written by Emily Tamkin (welcome, Emily!) with Inkstick Media.

The World is a weekday public radio show and podcast on global issues, news and insights from PRX and GBH.

With an online magazine and podcast featuring a diversity of expert voices, Inkstick Media is “foreign policy for the rest of us.”

Critical State is made possible in part by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

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