“What’s on the earth is in the stars; and what’s in the stars is on the earth”: Lakota Relationships with the Stars and American Relationships with the Apocalypse

How is colonialism connected to American relationships with extraterrestrial beings? This commentary analyzes contemporary and founding US mythologies as constant, calculated attempts for settlers to obtain indigeneity in this land stemming from a fear of the “unknown.” From Columbus’s arrival to the Boston Tea Party, from alien and UFO fervor to paranormal experiences, spiritualism, New Age, and American Wicca, American mythology endlessly recreates conspiracy theories to justify its insatiable desire for resource extraction. I examine the US American mythology of extraterrestrials from two directions: the Oglala Lakota perspective of spirits born through a constellation of stars, and the “American” perspective of extraterrestrials born out of settler futurities. Manifest Destiny goes so far as to take ownership over time and reconfigure it into a linear, one-way street that is a progression towards apocalypse. For American Indians and other peoples targeted by the United States government, conspiracy theories prove true. Those who are targeted, Native and otherwise, understand as the violence of American mythology pours across the continent—abduction and assimilation, or death. How can Indigenous nonhuman ontologies orient settler ethics for the future?

Foreign Trade in World History

Trade policy has long been contentious and stirred strong emotions. In the US, the most famous early controversy was the Boston Tea Party, in which the Americans objected to the tax (tariff) imposed by the British on imports of tea. The slogan for the...

The Brexitologic of Competitiveness

Adam Smith finalised his magnum opus An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations between 1773 (Boston Tea Party) and 1776 (Declaration of Independence), and in its final paragraph Britain should “endeavour to accommodate her future views and designs to the real mediocrity of her circumstances”. The Wealth of Nations was “aimed to influence British MPs [Members of Parliament] to support a peaceful resolution to the American colonies’ War of Independence”, A. Smith “urged legislators to awaken from the “golden dream” of empire and avoid “a long, expensive and ruinous war”“, and “rejection of the protectionist Corn Laws in favour of opening up to the world economy marked the start of an era of globalization which contributed to Britain’s prosperity”, as Yueh (2019, p. 16f) puts it. Over the years, industrialization brought about by the Industrial Revolution has been challenged by deindustrialization, globalization by deglobalization. So with the “Brexit issue” at stake, what has been the “Brexitologic of Competitiveness”? In an earlier relevant series of analyses published by Čiderová et al. between 2012-2014 our focus was on the Global Competitiveness Index (alias the GCI by the World Economic Forum) in a spectrum of territorial and temporal perspectives related to the European Union. Now, in this follow-up comparative study zooming out to globalization and zooming in to competitiveness, our focus is streamlined to the “openended Brexit issue” on the background of updates of the GCI (alias GCI 4.0) and the KOF Globalisation Index (the latter by ETH Zürich).

Nation

This chapter establishes how opposition to quartering troops in houses and cities encouraged the American colonists to envision an independent nation. The possibility of war with Spain in 1770-71 led the colonists to raise provincial armies and militias, while muting opposition to the Quartering Act. The Boston Tea Party resulted in the Coercive (Intolerable) Acts and occupation of Boston which encouraged colonial cooperation and led to the demise of the Quartering Act. When American soldiers exchanged fire with British regulars at the Battles of Lexington and Concord, quartering policies were inverted as the British army began to supply civilians in Boston. However, Canada, Florida, and the islands did not raise their own armies, but remained loyal to Great Britain as the Americans declared independence.

Boycotting and Buycotting in Consumer Cultures

This chapter presents a historical overview of political consumerism in the United States and Canada, highlighting how societal and cultural shifts have influenced participation over time. The chapter begins by discussing the debatable origins of political consumerism in the Boston Tea Party to present-day examples, including fair trade and ecoconsumption. Throughout the chapter, there is an emphasis on the heterogeneity of political consumers, with particular attention to how marginalized groups, particularly women and African Americans, have used political consumerism to bring about social change. The chapter also argues that producer-consumer solidarity campaigns, including the antisweatshop movement and the Coalition of Immokalee Workers’ Campaign for Fair Food, are preferable to consumer-led campaigns. Finally, this chapter concludes with methodological considerations for studying political consumerism in North America and suggestions for future research.

Terminating the Ties of Empire

This chapter discusses a series of armed rebellions involving the Paxton Boys in Pennsylvania, the Regulators in North and South Carolina, and rent strikers in New York that foreshadowed the War for Independence. It also discusses a series of cases and controversies occurring between 1766 and 1776, a period of truce, in which lawyers, often representing the economic interests of their clients, made constitutional arguments in support of established localist and common law practices. The chapter ends with an analysis of legal breakdowns in the imperial system occurring between the time of the Boston Tea Party and the Declaration of Independence.

Protest Politics in the Marketplace

This book is the first to analyze the democratic effects of consumer activism, defined as boycotting, socially responsible investing, social media campaigns, and direct consumer actions. America has had a long and unique history of consumer activism, starting with the Boston Tea Party. Since the founding, activism in the marketplace has been used as a political tool for those who are politically disenfranchised, including the colonists who lacked formal representation in the British parliament, women before suffrage rights, and Black Americans during Jim Crow. More recently, consumer activism has become a countervailing force against overbearing corporate power in politics. This book blends democratic theory with data, historical analysis, and an examination of consumer campaigns for civil rights, environmental conservation, animal rights, gender justice, LGBT rights, and conservative causes. Consumer activism is a democratizing force that improves political participation, self-governance, government accountability, and corporate political accountability.