Jamie Merchant, author of Endgame: Economic Nationalism and Global Decline, wants you to stop thinking like a policymaker! He joins the pod to talk about a new essay he has in The Brooklyn Rail about the decline and decay of the "progressive managerial state." Van and Jamie also discuss their shared critique of the book Trade Wars Are Class Wars, the contradiction of Trump's tariffs, their mixed evaluation of Adam Tooze, why international relations as a discipline appears to be in terminal decline, the ideological conflicts within MAGA and what it has to do with a crisis of capital accumulation, and why the various competing sections of capitalism find themselves at war with one another. If you want to make sense of our current historical conjuncture, you can't afford to miss this episode. 

Jamie Merchant, "The Suicide State": https://brooklynrail.org/2025/09/field-notes/the-suicide-state/

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