Though the US Federal Reserve’s first interest-rate hike of 2023 is smaller than those that preceded it, policymakers have signaled that more increases are on the way, despite slowing price growth. But there is good reason to doubt the utility – and fear the consequences – of continued rate hikes, on both sides of the Atlantic.
NEW YORK – When graffiti appeared last spring on a wall near Tunisia’s interior ministry reading “Thank you, Facebook,” it was not just praise for a social-media company that had facilitated the country’s uprising. It was also a celebration of the sense of shared experience that defined the Tunisian revolution – and the many other historic protests and revolutions that erupted in 2011.
As we discovered collecting essays for our new book From Cairo to Wall Street: Voices from the Global Spring, one of the defining characteristics of the new age of protest is the dovetailing of the desire and the ability to connect – across neighborhoods, cities, countries, and even continents. In every contributor’s country, a new awareness of shared destinies and of a global community permeated protest movements. Social-media technology was one tool that advanced it; but so was a reconceptualization of the meaning of public space, and the view that a plurality of ideas is superior to dogma – that the act of collaboration is as important as the outcome.
So these were not just political revolutions. They were also revolutions of ideas – the globalization of protest as a strategy.
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