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How Things Work

hamiltonnolan.com

Labor, politics, and power. Click to read How Things Work, by Hamilton Nolan, a Substack publication with tens of thousands of subscribers.

Society / politics / economy

’23’24’25’26
Posts
354 from 30 Mar 2023 to 29 Oct 2026
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weekly (95 in the last year)
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personal blog
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2026 82

  1. Thinking Clearly About January 6
  2. Risk Factors
  3. Insurance Is the Big Problem Hiding the Bigger Problem
  4. I’m Sick of the Left’s Purity Tests
  5. We Infiltrated a Police Union Convention in Las Vegas
  6. The War Against Accumulated Capital
  7. Friends Don’t Let Friends Join the Military
  8. The Free and Unfree Press
  9. Private Schools Are Bad for Society
  10. I Want You To Tell Me What “Socialism” Means
  11. Unionize AI
  12. You Have to Call Bigots What They Are
  13. Capital Is Organizing the World to Its Advantage and Everything Else Is a Sideshow
  14. Angie Nixon Wants to Expand the Court, End the Filibuster, and Put ICE in Jail
  15. You Can Ignore the Bad Pundits
  16. Never Apologize For Being a Class Traitor
  17. Yes Obviously the Senate Should Be Abolished
  18. Labor, Creators, and What's Next: Speaking With Katie Gatti Tassin and rayne fisher-quann
  19. Corporate Power Approaches Escape Velocity
  20. Oliver Larkin Wants to End the "Reflexive Moderation" of Florida Democrats
  21. Paying for News Is Cheaper Than Not Having It
  22. Against Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
  23. AOC Must Run For President
  24. Enshittification Relies on Broken Economic Math
  25. "I Don’t Know How You Can Look at Minneapolis and Say They Are Better for Choosing Reform Over Revolution"
  26. What Polls Do and Don't Tell You
  27. Union Density Is the Cause of and Solution to Our Problems
  28. Don't Take Advice From Your Enemies
  29. We Already Have Everything We Need to Regulate AI
  30. You Can't Solve Half a Problem
  31. Bad Fascist Party
  32. Embrace Left Wing Machine Politics
  33. Minneapolis Is The Way
  34. Brutal Oppression and Beautiful Humanity Exist In Every Grocery Store
  35. An AI-Funded Sovereign Wealth Fund Is Dangerous
  36. Less Than $20 an Hour, After 23 Years on the Job
  37. They Want to Get Rid of Your Property Taxes Because They Think You Are Morons
  38. If You Take the Weasel Job Then You Must Be the Weasel
  39. Pie Town Is Calling You
  40. State Power Versus Capital Power
  41. On the LIRR Picket Line
  42. Who Is "Out of Touch?"
  43. Everybody Scream for War
  44. The Tricky Path to a Left Wing Candidate in 2028
  45. Vibe to Heal America
  46. Claire Valdez Wants to Bring the Labor Movement Into Congress
  47. Three Years of How Things Work
  48. Notes on Access Journalism
  49. Grievance Poisoning in the First Degree
  50. In California, It's Either Tax the Billionaires or Face a Health Care "Catastrophe"
  51. Two Visions
  52. How To Put Money Directly Into Union Power
  53. Unions, or David Duke?
  54. Go Ahead and Use AI. It Will Only Help Me Dominate You.
  55. Christian Nationalism Is Thriving, and "We Should Be Concerned"
  56. You Work For the Bad Boss You Have, Not the Good Boss You Wish You Had
  57. The Consequences of Bad Labor Law
  58. Suicidal Bootlicking as a Method of Governance
  59. An Existential Threat to Organized Labor's Ability to Help People
  60. Julie Su's Plans for Economic Justice
  61. Patrons of Journalism
  62. The Real Litmus Test for Democratic Presidential Candidates
  63. Capitalists Implicitly Expect Us to Save Them From Themselves
  64. The Country That Starts the War Is Wrong
  65. Shoddy People
  66. They Haven't Even Started Spending Yet
  67. Labor Movement, Attack!
  68. Minimum Standards for Taking AI Seriously
  69. Remove Your Ring Camera With a Claw Hammer
  70. Waiting For Judgment in Springfield, Ohio
  71. Can Fascists Still Be Shamed?
  72. The Press Is the Government's Enemy and That Is Good
  73. The Staircase of Oppression
  74. Intolerable Things
  75. Hate Has to Scatter When Minneapolis Arises
  76. Cold City, Hot Heart
  77. "What Is Going to Happen?"
  78. Kamala Harris May Have Made Mistakes
  79. Prisoners of Fortune
  80. The Consequences of Rejecting "Defund the Police"
  81. The Public Good, Not Patriotism
  82. We Are the Bad Guys

2025 97

  1. The God of Solidarity
  2. The Year in How Things Work
  3. Abominations of Capital
  4. If He Builds It, Tear It Down
  5. New Orleans Is Watching You
  6. Culture Wars Are For Cowards
  7. How to Win Red States With a Labor Party
  8. America Is Becoming Dallas
  9. America Is Becoming Dallas
  10. The DSA Candidate Who Won Down South
  11. Stocks Aren't Salvation
  12. Do What You Believe In
  13. A Brief Biannual Update on the Publication You Are Reading
  14. Local Paper Opines on Mayor's Race
  15. Eugene Debs and All Of Us
  16. ICE vs. NYC
  17. The Time That Martin Luther King, Jr. Was Almost Assassinated in St. Augustine, Florida
  18. Shift Change at the Wheel Reinvention Factory
  19. Fragility Is Getting Scary
  20. Thinking of AI as a Social Problem
  21. Brad Lander Wants New York City to Resist
  22. Leave the Military Now
  23. We Are All Domestic Terrorists Now
  24. Anti-Religious Politics
  25. Getting Yelled at By Dumbasses
  26. Where Does News Come From?
  27. New York Socialist City
  28. All the Things That You Need a Billion Dollars to Buy Are Bad
  29. Symbolic Battlefields
  30. Thinking Ahead to the Full Military Takeover of Cities
  31. More DEI! Louder!
  32. Three Crises of Labor
  33. How Pretexts Work
  34. Scams And Bribery Are Becoming the Foundation of Our Economy
  35. Fragile Movements Crumble
  36. Negotiating With Terrorists, Unsuccessfully
  37. Cheap Tricks for Hard Problems
  38. Is Kissing Trump's Ass, Real Nice and Slow How He Likes It, a Good Strategy?
  39. First, Kill The News
  40. Financing Our Own Destruction
  41. When Do You Need to Quit Your Job?
  42. This Land Is Not Your Land
  43. Visionaries Without Vision
  44. Welcome to the Age of Disappearance
  45. Cross the Courts Off the List
  46. Up With Zohran
  47. Nations Are People
  48. The Subway Is Not Scary
  49. Building the American Brownshirts
  50. You're a Bunch of Cowards!
  51. What Is Centrism?
  52. Private Equity Vampires Suck
  53. Technology Does Not Solve Political Problems
  54. Infinite Contempt For Working People Is Not an Acceptable Default Position
  55. Free Advice For Rich Idiots Who Have Some Bright Ideas About Media Ventures
  56. Strongman Economics Are Piss
  57. What to Get in the Next Uprising
  58. It's Interesting How the Past Can Make You Think About the Present
  59. You Are Not Religious
  60. The Failure of Warren Buffett
  61. Talking Our Way Forward
  62. Ideas That Cannot Be Spoken
  63. Two Years of How Things Work
  64. What It's Like Being a Nurse in New Orleans
  65. Corporate Lawlessness Comes Next
  66. The Patriotism Trap
  67. Not Just Unions; Strike-Ready Unions.
  68. An International Minimum Wage
  69. Leave the Military
  70. Divergence From the Interests of Capital
  71. They Are Going to Take Everything If We Don't Stop Them
  72. There's No Justice Without Power
  73. The Underlying Problem
  74. Ride or Die, Cowboy
  75. Seeing Things For What They Are
  76. The More You Have, the Less You Fight
  77. Strike, or Else
  78. A Television Show Called The USA
  79. Worker-to-Worker Organizing Can Save the Labor Movement
  80. Three Methods of Control
  81. Tesla Is More Vulnerable Than You Think
  82. Gangster Party
  83. Checking in on the Party of the Working Class
  84. They Are a Minority
  85. Stephanie Kelton on the Disastrous Republican Economic Agenda
  86. Revolution Town
  87. It's Grim at the Department of Labor
  88. The Business Community Is Extraordinarily Stupid
  89. Dark Times Are Coming
  90. Confirmed: Unions Squandered the Biden Years
  91. On Having a Maximum Wealth
  92. The Land of Greater Fools
  93. Looting Season in America
  94. Uninsurable Futures
  95. Lifeboat Capitalism
  96. It's Not Looking Great
  97. From Walmart to Amazon to Walmart

2024 103

  1. Stand For Something
  2. How Things Worked in 2024
  3. An Interview With a Boxer Who Is Paying the Price
  4. You Can't Rebrand a Class War
  5. Tenant Unions Are Coming. Landlords Aren't Ready.
  6. How a Strongman Gets Stronger
  7. Privatized America
  8. Democracy and Power
  9. Enough Wealth to Warp the Universe
  10. Lean Into the Punch
  11. More Housing In Your Neighborhood Is a Progressive Value
  12. Things You Can Lie About
  13. So What Does That Mean in Practice?
  14. To Unfuck Politics, Create More Union Members
  15. After Election Day
  16. Is This Thing Working?
  17. "We Have a Mayor Who Is Willing to Cozy Up to a Fascist"
  18. The Bullshit Machine Is Running Out of Gas
  19. Your Opinions Can Be Bad But You Still Have to Tell the Truth
  20. Demonize the Rich
  21. Why Republicans Love to Offer You Tax Cuts
  22. Correct and Incorrect Conclusions About Democrats and Unions
  23. What It Means to Be "A Tad Radical"
  24. Your Scary 2024 Election Risk Recap
  25. The Sordid History of Organized Labor's Foreign Policy Sins
  26. Run a Left Wing Democratic Primary Candidate in 2028. No Matter What.
  27. Your Money Is On the Table
  28. Bad Climate Socialism
  29. The Employer-Based Social Safety Is a Disaster. We Can End It.
  30. Political Realignment, the Honest Way
  31. The Machinists Union President Talks Boeing Strike and the Presidential Election
  32. How to Think About Politics Without Wanting to Kill Yourself
  33. Listen: Republicans Do Not Want Unions to Exist
  34. Why Would Dick Cheney Endorse Kamala Harris?
  35. Cars Have Fucked Up This Country Bad
  36. Ten Times This
  37. Confiscate Their Money
  38. Companies Stronger Than Governments
  39. Two Thoughts From the DNC
  40. Public Ownership of Public Goods
  41. Speaking Plainly About Who Is Robbing You
  42. Meanwhile, in Gaza
  43. Do We Need a Labor Party?
  44. Remaking the Coalition
  45. What Progressive Foundations Should Be Funding
  46. This Publication's Path To Sustainability
  47. Crypto, As a Political Characteristic
  48. Unions and Antitrust Are Peanut Butter and Jelly
  49. How the "Working Class Republican" Scam Works
  50. The Honesty Thing
  51. You Patsy
  52. Jack Posobiec's Speech About "Un-Humans" at the National Conservatism Conference
  53. A Transcript of Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts' Speech About Our "Second American Revolution"
  54. The Hole at the Heart of the Democratic Party
  55. The End of Liberal Institutionalism
  56. Dictatorship Of The Old
  57. We Have a Distribution Problem
  58. How Unite Here Plans to Double Organizing Spending and Save Democracy
  59. A Note on Civil Disobedience
  60. The Hammer, Not the Handshake
  61. Nationalism Is Poison
  62. Housing Is The Economy
  63. Everyone Into The Grinder
  64. Behold The Terrors of the Texas Republican Platform
  65. The Left Is Not Joe Biden's Problem. Joe Biden Is.
  66. Selling Your House For Firewood
  67. What Will You Do If the Election Is Stolen?
  68. An Interview With Sara Nelson About "One Member, One Vote"
  69. It Is Simple For Companies to Treat Employees Ethically. And Yet.
  70. The Five Mostly Disastrous Paths Through Our National Insurance Crisis
  71. Adult Babies
  72. Rules and Their Limits
  73. One Year of Independence
  74. College Is an Education in Bullshit
  75. Real Talk About a 2028 General Strike
  76. Killing the Middlemen in the Rideshare Industry
  77. Trampoline Unionism
  78. The Distance Between You and the Revolution
  79. Columnists and Their Lives of Quiet Desperation
  80. What Will Replace Advertising Revenue?
  81. Let's Talk About the $20 an Hour Fast Food Minimum Wage
  82. "What Can I Do to Help the Labor Movement?"
  83. Hearts and Minds at Gunpoint
  84. Anti-Immigration Democrats Fuck Off
  85. Sometimes You Either Strike or Accept Death
  86. An Interview With a Journalist Who Has Been on Strike For More Than 500 Days
  87. Unionize College Sports And Watch the World Bow Down
  88. Ray Jasper, Ten Years Later
  89. What You Need to Know About the Legal Quest to Destroy America's Labor Protections
  90. Stupid Power
  91. Radical Capital
  92. It's Book Time
  93. The Real Immigration Problem Is Capital, Not Labor
  94. Public Funding of Journalism Is the Only Way
  95. Getting Comfortable With Illegal Strikes
  96. How to Absolve America of Everything
  97. You Are Invited to My Book Tour
  98. We Are Failing
  99. The Insurance Apocalypse Conversation America Won't Have
  100. Every Pay Bump Is an Admission of Guilt
  101. Well We Still Haven't Done Anything About the Electoral College
  102. Talking With Tom Scocca About Journalism and Mortality
  103. Unions, Politics, War, and Leverage

2023 72

  1. Effective Altruism Is Not Bad Compared to the Other Kind of Altruism
  2. How Things Worked in 2023
  3. Quit Your Evil Job
  4. The Rashida Tlaib For President Scenario
  5. To Whom Go The Spoils?
  6. Don't Make Your Voters Step Over Dead Bodies
  7. Wage-Setting Algorithms Are an Abomination
  8. Ambition, Yall
  9. The Sin Eraser
  10. Shawn Fain Talks About Class War, Biden, and How to Eat an Elephant
  11. The Agony of Union Democracy
  12. We Don't Work For You If We Don't Work For You
  13. The New Leaders of the Left
  14. We Are All Potentially Dead Journalists
  15. It Would Be a Shame If You Sacrificed All This Good Domestic Policy In Order to Kill a Bunch of Kids
  16. Thinking Bigger About What Should Be Ours
  17. Six Months on Substack
  18. The Point of Politics Is to Stop This
  19. Keep On Looking for Those "Corporate Values," I'm Sure They'll Turn Up One Day
  20. Labor Against War
  21. Young Morality and Old Morality
  22. Retire the Word "Terrorism"
  23. Anyone Who Tells You to Choose Between Jobs and the Environment Is a Scumbag
  24. The One Media Conspiracy Theory That's True
  25. The Life and Death Stakes of Labor Power
  26. What Is and Is Not Important in Politics
  27. Capitalism's Washing Machine
  28. Whose Fault Is It?
  29. The Cost of Strikes
  30. What Republicans Plan to Do to Labor If They Win
  31. Nihilistic Poll Brained Celebration of Nothingness
  32. Talk Louder About Defunding the Police
  33. Housing Is a Labor Issue
  34. Life as Grist For the AI Mill
  35. The Cannibal South
  36. People Don't Know Anything About the Government
  37. Who Is Your Enemy, My Brother?
  38. Do It, Fuckers!
  39. The Heat Death of the American Frontier
  40. My Book
  41. Taste the Appeasement. Mmm, Bitter.
  42. Every Third Party Scenario Is Good For Democrats
  43. Everything We're Doing Is Not Enough
  44. We're All Mice Trying to Chew Through a Trillion Dollar Tree
  45. Fascist Economics Don't Work
  46. Having Power vs Spreading Power
  47. Class War USA
  48. Against Testosterone Poisoned Society
  49. We've Given Religion Too Much Respect
  50. A Public Hospital Nurse Explains Our Miserable Health Care System
  51. Corporations Do Not Have Any Rights That We Don't Give Them
  52. Executive Pay Is the Skeleton Key
  53. On the Moral Responsibilities of Political Spouses
  54. How to Be a Good Citizen During a Housing Crisis
  55. IT'S GOING TO HAPPEN AGAIN
  56. The Utopian Future Scenario of Media
  57. These Vampires Can Have Everything Except Our Love
  58. Insurance Politics at the End of the World
  59. Obama, You Bum, You Are the Past and Unions Are the Future
  60. Talking to Homeless People in New Orleans
  61. The Witchcraft Party
  62. No Captives
  63. Automate the CEOs
  64. Incuriosity, Inc.
  65. Two Hundred Thousand Teamsters Who Didn't Exist
  66. You Have to Grind This Motherfucker Down
  67. AI, Unions, and the Vast Abyss
  68. The Consolation
  69. The Coral Reef of Humanity Encircling the Rapacious Pirate Vessels of Commerce
  70. The Real 'Third Way' Is the Labor Movement
  71. Arts and Crafts
  72. Coming soon