American Seances

Adam Smith would likely view Trump’s tariff strategy as a revival of mercantilist thinking: protectionist, politically driven, and ultimately harmful to consumers and long-term growth. He would argue that tariffs privilege narrow producer interests, raise prices, invite retaliation, and undermine the predictable rules that allow markets and international commerce to flourish.At the same time, Smith might accept narrowly defined national-security exceptions and would urge measured, evidence-based responses to dislocation—favoring structural reforms, transition assistance, and openness to trade rather than broad, punitive tariffs.

This episode imagines how the architects of England's 17th‑century Navigation Acts—Cromwellian and Restoration officials and theorists like Thomas Moon—would interpret Donald Trump’s 21st‑century tariff policies.They would recognize the mercantilist instincts in Trump’s rhetoric—trade as power, suspicion of deficits, and protection of national interest—but note crucial differences: the Navigation Acts were systemic, enforced by naval power, and built around a bullion economy and long horizons, whereas modern tariffs are targeted, reactive, and operate within globalized supply chains and fiat finance.Ultimately, the episode argues these historical theorists would admire the intent but see Trump’s approach as “mercantilism without empire”—the right impulse lacking the institutional machinery and long‑term strategy that once made such policies transformative.

On What Would Karl Marx Do? we imagine historical thinkers weighing in on today’s politics — this episode examines the Affordable Care Act through the eyes of Edmund Burke. It asks whether expanding access to health care is a noble civic duty or an overconfident attempt to remake society by administrative fiat.Burke’s response, explored here, praises the impulse to relieve suffering but warns that sweeping, centralized reforms can erode institutions, civic virtues, and local responsibility. The episode traces his concerns about mandates, bureaucracy, constitutional limits, and the long-term moral effects of state-managed compassion.

This episode imagines Hegel reacting to the Russia‑Ukraine war by reading it as a historical struggle over freedom and recognition: Ukraine’s national self‑consciousness asserting sovereignty, and Russia clinging to an older, non‑constitutional form of power.Hegel would see the West’s response as rooted in shared constitutional principles but urge prudence against both complacency and overreach, noting that wars accelerate historical change yet unleash unpredictable forces.Overall, the conflict is presented as a painful but decisive moment in the unfolding of freedom and political subjectivity.

Imagine Montesquieu transported to the present to watch the Russia-Ukraine war: he would see a clash between a fear-driven despotism and a people defending liberty by choice, not coercion.The episode explores how different political spirits shape behavior in war, the role of civic virtue exemplified by Ukrainian resistance, and the dangers republics face when fear and unity erode democratic checks.Montesquieu’s advice is a call for proportion and institutional restraint: support to defend freedom, but always balanced by moderation to prevent democracies from becoming what they oppose.

This episode applies Niccolò Machiavelli’s lessons on power, virtu, and fortuna to the Russia–Ukraine war, arguing he would view it as a familiar struggle between survival, overreach, and political image-making.It contrasts Putin’s miscalculations with Zelensky’s skillful use of appearance, courage, and narrative, and offers concise Machiavellian advice for Ukraine, Russia, the United States, and Europe about strategy, alliances, and the dangers of moral self-deception.

Imagining Thucydides returned to analyze the Russia–Ukraine war, this episode reads the conflict through the lens of fear, honor, and power. It traces how psychological motives drive states, from Russia's insecurity and Ukraine's resolve to America's strategic dilemmas.The discussion highlights recurring patterns: moral rhetoric masking self-interest, alliances that entangle rather than protect, and the danger of hubris that leads great powers into costly overreach.Ultimately the episode argues for realist caution — supporting deterrence and diplomacy without seeking to remake world order — and warns that ancient instincts still shape modern catastrophe.

Seen through Marx’s lens, SNAP isn’t just welfare—it's a structural bandage that keeps millions of low-wage workers alive so the capitalist machine can keep extracting profit. The program feeds about 42 million Americans, many employed in sectors that pay subsistence wages, effectively acting as an indirect wage subsidy funded by taxpayers.Marx would argue SNAP alleviates suffering but leaves the cause—systemic wage suppression—untouched. Political rhetoric and work requirements shift blame to individuals and coerce labor while protecting profits, making the program a necessary but partial and politically contested fix.

Imagining Karl Marx in 21st-century America, this episode argues that record stock market highs reveal capitalism's drift into "fictitious capital"—wealth detached from real labor, driven by speculation, algorithms, and state support.It examines how market gains concentrate wealth, mask stagnant wages and housing crises, bind workers to the fortunes of capital through retirement schemes, and serve as a warning of deeper systemic contradictions and a looming crisis.

This episode reads Jeff Bezos and Amazon through Karl Marx's theories, arguing that Bezos exemplifies capitalism's dynamics rather than individual genius.It explores alienation in warehouses, commodity fetishism that turns collective labor into a lone visionary, monopoly and accumulation, the role of surveillance and algorithmic control, and spacefaring ambitions as capitalist expansion.Ultimately, the episode suggests Marx would see Bezos as the inevitable, concentrated expression of capitalism’s power, contradictions, and growing fragility.