Building Big Things

Our first print issue is out now. Subscribe today for digital access and new issues, or order a print copy of the back issue.

This inaugural print issue of Damage is about building big things. Our belief is that a Left that does not imagine and aim at building big things—structures, infrastructure, organizations, capacities—is not just a misguided one but also a pernicious one. Historically the Left has promised “more” and “better,” but today, whether out of an awareness of worsening climate change or the intransigence of our current political structures, many have retreated from grand designs and settled on managing expectations or worse. A Left that limits itself to the local, takes the coordinates of the present service economy as a given, or calls for a “degrowth” that’s easily mistaken for deeper deindustrialization is not just a politically impotent Left; it’s also a deeply annoying one, and a subcultural phenomenon that is an active impediment to mass politics.

It’s time to dream big again.

Here’s what’s in our first issue...

Plus:

• Kay Rippelmeyer-Tippy on the Civilian Conservation Corps
• Ted Boettner and Megan Milliken Biven on the Abandoned Well Administration
• Fred Stafford and Matt Huber on Big Public Power, then and now
• Taylor Hines on Harold L. Ickes, director of the Public Works Administration
• Yakov Feygin on microeconomics for effective public investment
• George Hoare on the past and future of the NHS
• Chris Crawford on the WPA and Dealey Plaza
• Christian Parenti on “The Big Green Buy”