The privilege of bad writers

Since my review of Sven Beckert’s book on capitalism went live (and, truth be told, a few days before that), I’ve been engaged in a back and forth, sometimes bitchy, sometimes friendly, with various critics—of me, of Beckert, of capitalism, of Marxism, of Dylan Riley, of Robert Brenner. You can find many of these exchanges on my Facebook page. Others have sent me screenshots from Twitter and other social media platforms I’m not on. One of the steady drumbeats in these conversations is privilege. My privilege as a senior scholar with social media followers, Beckert’s privilege as a Harvard professor, Riley’s privilege as a male Marxist, and on and on. But there’s a kind of privilege that never gets mentioned […]