KPFA - Against the Grain

For many decades, the idea has held sway that we humans should leave consequential decisions to a higher power: computers. And that assumption has become more deeply entrenched, the more powerful computers have become. How did our world come to be seen as an imaginary casino, with every decision to be stripped down to costs and benefits, risks and rewards? Computer scientist Benjamin Recht traces the development of mathematical optimization, game theory, statistical testing, and machine learning — the basis of AI — to understand how medicine, the economy, and governance have been outsourced to computing, concentrating enormous power in the hands of the few. Benjamin Recht, The Irrational Decision: How We Gave Computers the Power to Choose for Us Princeton University Press, 2026 Benjamin Recht’s Blog Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash The post Deferring to Computers appeared first on KPFA.

The rise and fall of unemployment, our dependence on the market for our livelihoods — such things are taken as a given. But economist Clara Mattei suggests we need to recognize them as being fundamentally political phenomena, not the product of natural laws outside of our control. She argues that a reconsideration of our capitalist economy is long overdue. Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism: An Intervention Simon & Schuster, 2026 Forum for Real Economic Emancipation Photo by Julio Lopez on Unsplash The post Rethinking Capitalism appeared first on KPFA.

The Texas Republican Party has evolved from a corporate libertarian institution to one in which free market capitalism and evangelical Christianity are united in authoritarianism. Political scientist Clyde Barrow warns that Texan Christofascism serves as the rightwing blueprint for the rest of the United States in the coming years. Gregory Albo and Stephen Maher, eds. Socialist Register 2026: Late-Stage Capitalism? Accumulation in the Ruins Monthly Review Press, 2025 Photo by Pete Alexopoulos on Unsplash The post Texas: Vanguard of the Far Right appeared first on KPFA.