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Mathew Lawrence
@DantonsHead
Founder & Director
@cmmonwealth
/ Planet on Fire out now / Owning the Future w/
@adribuller
out Aug ‘22 versobooks.com/books/3981-own…
common-wealth.co.ukJoined April 2011
3,341 Following
9,488 Followers

Mathew Lawrence’s Tweets

Mathew Lawrence Retweeted
Kai Heron
@KaiHeron
"The campaign to ‘Make Amazon Pay’ must send a powerful message to Jeff Bezos: we are taking back the platform....to do that, we need an ambitious agenda to transform who owns, operates, and governs these platforms."
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Common Wealth
@Cmmonwealth
The Make Amazon Pay movement grows: staff in Coventry are on strike today, the UK's first formal walkout. As corporations make record profits, workers are organising for just pay & conditions. @DantonsHead explored how we can recode the tech giants. progressive.international/wire/2020-12-0
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Mathew Lawrence
@DantonsHead
"A technology dating from 1916..." Shock of the old, updated.
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Alex Callinicos
@alex_callinicos
‘Each round of ammunition might cost €6,000-7,000 … If every tank fired 20 rounds a day, monthly ebit would be around €1mn per vehicle, applying a 25 per cent margin. a battalion of 100 Leopards would produce ebit of €100mn a month for suppliers.’ on.ft.com/3H4Eftw
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Mathew Lawrence
@DantonsHead
"Whoever wants to know what is hidden behind the law will discover, I fear, neither the absolute truth of metaphysics, nor the absolute justice of natural law. He who lifts the veil & does not close his eyes, will only find the hideous face of the Gorgon of power staring at him."
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Robert Peston
@Peston
Official
I've rarely read legislation so lacking in underlying coherence and logic as today's bill from the government that would significantly restrict the right to strike - and I quote - in "health services, fire and rescue services, education services, transport...
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Mathew Lawrence
@DantonsHead
"This integument is burst asunder. The knell of capitalist private property sounds (false alarm). The expropriators are expropriating."
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NEF
@NEF
🚨Over the last decade, the wealth of the richest 10% of households has grown 574 times faster than that of the poorest 10%. The richest few are taking to much and leaving the rest of us struggling to survive. It's time to share the wealth we all create.
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Mathew Lawrence
@DantonsHead
All these things that we've done.
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Common Wealth
@Cmmonwealth
As the year draws to a close, our Top Ten of 2022. Our team continued to grow, with the brilliant duo @sophieflinders (Data Analyst) and Sophie Monk (Design Lead) joining. They combined to shine a light on how Shell are prioritising shareholders over investing in renewables.
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Mathew Lawrence
@DantonsHead
Clearly South Kensington has a thing for measurement and calculation as power and control. A predecessor at the Science Museum next door - Henry Lyons - was in charge of the cadastral survey that reshaped colonial Egypt in 1907 before returning to London as Director.
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The New Statesman Spotlight
@NS_Spotlight
The mathematician and former head of Amazon UK is steeped in a world of algorithmic certainty. Now that he is director of the Natural History Museum in London, the patterns have him worried. newstatesman.com/spotlight/clim
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Mathew Lawrence
@DantonsHead
If ‘mute compulsion’ - abstract and impersonal economic power - is the backdrop for relations of domination and exploitation, a Living Income has transformative potential. Guaranteeing a minimum income level for all erodes the market imperative & is the basis for real freedom.
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Alfie Stirling
@alfie_stirling
The national living income would revolutionise tax and social security in the UK, with biggest gains for low- and middle-income households. The poorest families would see disposable incomes rise by 50% (£500 per month), and 10% (£200 per month) for middle-income families. 15/
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Mathew Lawrence
@DantonsHead
“Marx says that revolutions are the locomotive of world history. But perhaps it is quite otherwise. Perhaps revolutions are an attempt by the passengers on this train to activate the emergency break and reverse privatisation.” Walter Benjamin, looking at state of Britain’s rail.
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Common Wealth
@Cmmonwealth
With a new wave of rail strikes beginning today, we're shining a light on who owns Britain's train operating companies. Privatisation has transformed our railways into engines of extraction for investors and overseas state enterprises. (Chart: spring 2020).
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Mathew Lawrence Retweeted
Common Wealth
@Cmmonwealth
The oil giants are fatally ill-designed to guide a just & rapid energy transition. Common Wealth analysis by
@sanha926
& Joseph Bains found Exxon Mobil spent more than double in 2020 on executive pay than it did on low carbon CapEx in the past year. common-wealth.co.uk/reports/perfor
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Financial Times
@FT
ExxonMobil announces $50bn buyback despite political backlash on.ft.com/3BjMdg8
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Mathew Lawrence Retweeted
Dr Sarah Jilani
@sarahjilani
"Davis was able to frame millions of deaths as avoidable – rather than inevitable – political tragedies. He was able to situate poverty in a relational dynamic to wealth, describing it as a systematic process of impoverishment rather than a state of being"
artreview.com
The Radical Optimism of Mike Davis (1946–2022)
From his landmark study of LA’s ‘carceral urbanism’ to a history of the car bomb, Davis bent orthodoxies in discipline-defining ways
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Mathew Lawrence Retweeted
Common Wealth
@Cmmonwealth
"Every aspect of our energy system is privately owned, in theory is meant to be regulated, but broadly it is adding huge markups & costs at every stage".
@adribuller
spoke to
@Anoosh_C
&
@Aiannucci
for the
@NewStatesman
's Westminster Reimagined podcast.
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The New Statesman
@NewStatesman
"The way that our energy system operates is fundamentally irrational" In a new series of Westminster Reimagined, @Aiannucci and @anoosh_c are joined by @adribuller and @SingleDadSW to discuss inequality. Listen here: pod.fo/e/14c85c
Embedded video
1:55
55.9K views
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Mathew Lawrence Retweeted
Kojo Koram
@KojoKoram
A heartbreaking week at Birkbeck. An institution that has provided life-changing education for working people for 200 years is now being gutted for no reason. Solidarity with all colleagues fighting these cuts.
ucu.org.uk
Birkbeck University threatens to sack 140 staff
UCU slammed plans by Birkbeck, University of London to sack 140 staff this academic year, including up to a quarter of teaching staff, and up to a third of administrative staff.
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Mathew Lawrence
@DantonsHead
Shareholder ‘democracy’ is oligarchy in practice: rule by wealth, not participation. But even if we reduced financial wealth inequality, empowering shareholders fails to address the firm’s key democratic deficit: those directly under its rule - workers - lack governance rights.
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Benjamin Braun
@BJMbraun
In light of Larry Fink claiming to bring shareholder democracy to the UK (via BlackRock's proxy voting devolution trial), here's UK shareholdings across the income distribution: Top 1% have 50%+ of the vote. From our @Cmmonwealth paper, w/ @adribuller. common-wealth.co.uk/reports/under-
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Mathew Lawrence
@DantonsHead
The design of the for-profit corporation stands in fatal tension with the needs and time horizons of the energy transition and climate emergency.
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Common Wealth
@Cmmonwealth
NEW: in Q3, for every $1 BP invest in low-carbon, it is investing $26 in fossil fuels. BP’s Q3 results confirm the company is a ‘cash machine’: 🤑Profits $8.2bn, more than double Q3 2021 💰 Dividends up 10% 📈 Share buybacks $2.5bn
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Mathew Lawrence
@DantonsHead
"returning some of our profits directly to the American people"
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Simon Casey
@sjcasey
“There has been discussion in the US about our industry returning some of our profits directly to the American people. That’s exactly what we’re doing in the form of our quarterly dividend," Exxon's CEO said bloomberg.com/news/articles/
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Mathew Lawrence
@DantonsHead
What might that mean? ✅Common the company to democratise governance & control of surplus ✅ A PAYGO pension system to decouple security in retirement from financial markets ✅ Expand decommodification to shrink market rule ✅Reshape financing of production & reimagine planning
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