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A Profitless World
As the LA fires were slowly contained by the heroic effort of firefighters, many of whom were incarcerated, as mutual aid groups handed out masks, and as people worked to help one another in the middle of devastation, landlords and insurance companies were taking a different approach. Landlords began to price gouge, raising the rents on thousands of properties in violation of the law and of all conception of morality. At the same time, insurance companies are reportedly pondering “whether they need to raise premiums in California even beyond the sharp rate increases of the past several years” according to The Guardian.
Home insurance rates have jumped in areas being hit by climate catastrophes. Areas at risk of fire, at risk of sudden flooding, or vulnerable to sea levels rising are seeing insurers either hike rates dramatically, or pull back altogether. In Florida, as many as 1 in 5 homeowners are now going without home insurance, according to More Perfect Union. That’s in part because of the cost, but also due largely to the fact that many residents can’t find a company to give them coverage. California is increasingly seeing a similar problem, with insurers scrapping thousands of policies even before these wildfires.
**The simple truth is that we can’t insure our way out of the climate crisis, the housing crisis, or our fundamentally flawed health care system. ** We can’t set the world on fire, then expect a for-profit insurance system to take care of the damage. It’s a solution that’s unequipped for the magnitude and severity of the problem. California does have a state-run insurance plan, but as Hamilton Nolan writes, “The scenario of a state-run insurance plan going broke due to a big disaster has now come true. California’s state-run insurer, the FAIR Plan, reportedly had less than $3 billion in combined cash and reinsurance on hand, yet is going to be on the hook for billions of dollars more in claims from these fires.” That $3 billion can only possibly cover a tiny fraction of the billions in damages wrought by the fires devastating LA. Business Insider reports that the total damages could rise as high as $250 billion.
It’s hard to understand that number. The entire GDP of Peru is $267 billion. That was the whole country’s economy over the course of 2024. The damages from the LA fires over ten days or so could nearly reach that number. We have reached an inflection point where it is glaring, undeniably obvious that the cost of continuing to ignore climate change is far greater than the cost of addressing it. So why is the ruling class still so intent on ignoring the clear and present danger of this crisis?
Because properly dealing with the climate crisis means placing the collective above the corporations, people above profits, and our long-term future over the next earnings report. It requires shifting society so that a few greedy people no longer set the agenda, and the public can democratically set the agenda and shape the world. Right now a handful of billionaires and their corporations have a wildly disproportionate impact on our lives, on all of society. They set the agenda and uphold a system not built to serve us. Industries are only meant to serve the few, at the expense of the many and at the expense of the planet.
We know how the for-profit health care industry kills. We know how those companies make billions by denying people care, and how people die as a result. It’s time to draw out this same logic and take a close look at the for-profit home insurance industry. These corporations are now also seeing that they can make billions denying coverage, and how doing their jobs and providing coverage will cost more and more in a warming world. So they’re opting not to do their job, and it’s time for us to fully reckon with that fact. As Upton Sinclair said, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” And it is difficult or impossible to get industries to change when their existence depends on the status quo.
But normalcy is fading, for all of us. The world, the climate, our entire reality is changing without our consent. A few massive corporations, and the larger capitalist system they operate in, are warming our planet and causing a crisis against our will. We know that we urgently need a sustainable world. We know that means less consumption, less fossil fuels, and less focus on profit. But there is no path to that new reality without going through the corporations and the models that deliberately prevent our process and deliberately perpetuate the climate crisis.
When it comes to insurance it’s an entire system, an entire way of doing business that stands in our way. Capitalism makes housing a commodity and says that the corporations responsible for protecting our homes should only do so if they’re making a profit. But the reality is that housing is a human right, a need, and that we collectively have a responsibility to put roofs over our neighbors’ heads. That is what society ought to be, the embodiment of our responsibility to one another, the living out of collective commitments and care. Instead, right now, we see homelessness hit record highs as landlords make billions, and even try to profit off the wildfires themselves.
The rapacious nature of capitalist greed simply isn’t compatible with a sustainable future. We need to build a world that lasts, while billionaires want a world that falls apart, allowing them to profit off rebuilding it.
And when the destruction isn’t profitable, capitalists will deliberately abandon everyone else. We need a different logic, a different set of rules and responsibilities governing our world. We need to be guided by solidarity, care, and the push for liberation instead of profit margins and earnings reports. Our health, our homes, our future can’t be entrusted to people and systems guided by greed – we can’t afford it when the world is going up in flames.
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{
"article":
{
"title" : "A Profitless World",
"author" : "J.P. Hill",
"category" : "essays",
"url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/a-profitless-world",
"date" : "2025-01-23 17:01:00 -0500",
"img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/2025_1_23_EIP_ProfitLess_World_Banner_EIP.png",
"excerpt" : "As the LA fires were slowly contained by the heroic effort of firefighters, many of whom were incarcerated, as mutual aid groups handed out masks, and as people worked to help one another in the middle of devastation, landlords and insurance companies were taking a different approach. Landlords began to price gouge, raising the rents on thousands of properties in violation of the law and of all conception of morality. At the same time, insurance companies are reportedly pondering “whether they need to raise premiums in California even beyond the sharp rate increases of the past several years” according to The Guardian.",
"content" : "As the LA fires were slowly contained by the heroic effort of firefighters, many of whom were incarcerated, as mutual aid groups handed out masks, and as people worked to help one another in the middle of devastation, landlords and insurance companies were taking a different approach. Landlords began to price gouge, raising the rents on thousands of properties in violation of the law and of all conception of morality. At the same time, insurance companies are reportedly pondering “whether they need to raise premiums in California even beyond the sharp rate increases of the past several years” according to The Guardian.Home insurance rates have jumped in areas being hit by climate catastrophes. Areas at risk of fire, at risk of sudden flooding, or vulnerable to sea levels rising are seeing insurers either hike rates dramatically, or pull back altogether. In Florida, as many as 1 in 5 homeowners are now going without home insurance, according to More Perfect Union. That’s in part because of the cost, but also due largely to the fact that many residents can’t find a company to give them coverage. California is increasingly seeing a similar problem, with insurers scrapping thousands of policies even before these wildfires.**The simple truth is that we can’t insure our way out of the climate crisis, the housing crisis, or our fundamentally flawed health care system. ** We can’t set the world on fire, then expect a for-profit insurance system to take care of the damage. It’s a solution that’s unequipped for the magnitude and severity of the problem. California does have a state-run insurance plan, but as Hamilton Nolan writes, “The scenario of a state-run insurance plan going broke due to a big disaster has now come true. California’s state-run insurer, the FAIR Plan, reportedly had less than $3 billion in combined cash and reinsurance on hand, yet is going to be on the hook for billions of dollars more in claims from these fires.” That $3 billion can only possibly cover a tiny fraction of the billions in damages wrought by the fires devastating LA. Business Insider reports that the total damages could rise as high as $250 billion.It’s hard to understand that number. The entire GDP of Peru is $267 billion. That was the whole country’s economy over the course of 2024. The damages from the LA fires over ten days or so could nearly reach that number. We have reached an inflection point where it is glaring, undeniably obvious that the cost of continuing to ignore climate change is far greater than the cost of addressing it. So why is the ruling class still so intent on ignoring the clear and present danger of this crisis?Because properly dealing with the climate crisis means placing the collective above the corporations, people above profits, and our long-term future over the next earnings report. It requires shifting society so that a few greedy people no longer set the agenda, and the public can democratically set the agenda and shape the world. Right now a handful of billionaires and their corporations have a wildly disproportionate impact on our lives, on all of society. They set the agenda and uphold a system not built to serve us. Industries are only meant to serve the few, at the expense of the many and at the expense of the planet.We know how the for-profit health care industry kills. We know how those companies make billions by denying people care, and how people die as a result. It’s time to draw out this same logic and take a close look at the for-profit home insurance industry. These corporations are now also seeing that they can make billions denying coverage, and how doing their jobs and providing coverage will cost more and more in a warming world. So they’re opting not to do their job, and it’s time for us to fully reckon with that fact. As Upton Sinclair said, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” And it is difficult or impossible to get industries to change when their existence depends on the status quo.But normalcy is fading, for all of us. The world, the climate, our entire reality is changing without our consent. A few massive corporations, and the larger capitalist system they operate in, are warming our planet and causing a crisis against our will. We know that we urgently need a sustainable world. We know that means less consumption, less fossil fuels, and less focus on profit. But there is no path to that new reality without going through the corporations and the models that deliberately prevent our process and deliberately perpetuate the climate crisis.When it comes to insurance it’s an entire system, an entire way of doing business that stands in our way. Capitalism makes housing a commodity and says that the corporations responsible for protecting our homes should only do so if they’re making a profit. But the reality is that housing is a human right, a need, and that we collectively have a responsibility to put roofs over our neighbors’ heads. That is what society ought to be, the embodiment of our responsibility to one another, the living out of collective commitments and care. Instead, right now, we see homelessness hit record highs as landlords make billions, and even try to profit off the wildfires themselves.The rapacious nature of capitalist greed simply isn’t compatible with a sustainable future. We need to build a world that lasts, while billionaires want a world that falls apart, allowing them to profit off rebuilding it.And when the destruction isn’t profitable, capitalists will deliberately abandon everyone else. We need a different logic, a different set of rules and responsibilities governing our world. We need to be guided by solidarity, care, and the push for liberation instead of profit margins and earnings reports. Our health, our homes, our future can’t be entrusted to people and systems guided by greed – we can’t afford it when the world is going up in flames."
}
,
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{
"title" : "Black Liberation Views on Palestine",
"author" : "EIP Editors",
"category" : "essays",
"url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/black-liberation-on-palestine",
"date" : "2025-10-17 09:01:00 -0400",
"img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/mandela-keffiyeh.jpg",
"excerpt" : "",
"content" : "In understanding global politics, it is important to look at Black liberation struggles as one important source of moral perspective. So, when looking at Palestine, we look to Black leaders to see how they perceived the Palestinian struggle in relation to theirs, from the 1960’s to today.Why must we understand where the injustice lies? Because, as Desmond Tutu famously said, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”{% for person in site.data.quotes-black-liberation-palestine %}{{ person.name }}{% for quote in person.quotes %}“{{ quote.text }}”{% if quote.source %}— {{ quote.source }}{% endif %}{% endfor %}{% endfor %}"
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,
{
"title" : "First Anniversary Celebration of EIP",
"author" : "EIP Editors",
"category" : "events",
"url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/1st-anniversary-of-eip",
"date" : "2025-10-14 18:01:00 -0400",
"img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/WSA_EIP_Launch_Cover.jpg",
"excerpt" : "Celebrating One Year of Independent Publishing",
"content" : "Celebrating One Year of Independent PublishingJoin Everything is Political on November 21st for the launch of our End-of-Year Special Edition Magazine.This members-only evening will feature a benefit dinner, cocktails, and live performances in celebration of a year of independent media, critical voices, and collective resistance.The EventNovember 21, 2025, 7-11pmLower Manhattan, New YorkLaunching our End-of-Year Special Edition MagazineSpecial appearances and performancesFood & Drink includedTickets are extremely limited, reserve yours now!Become an annual print member: get x back issues of EIP, receive the End-of-Year Special Edition Magazine, and come to the Anniversary Celebration.$470Already a member? Sign in to get your special offer. Buy Ticket $150 Just $50 ! and get the End-of-Year Special Edition Magazine Buy ticket $150 and get the End-of-Year Special Edition Magazine "
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,
{
"title" : "Miu Miu Transforms the Apron From Trad Wife to Boss Lady: The sexiest thing in Paris was a work garment",
"author" : "Khaoula Ghanem",
"category" : "",
"url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/miu-miu-transforms-the-apron-from-trad-wife-to-boss-lady",
"date" : "2025-10-14 13:05:00 -0400",
"img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/Cover_EIP_MiuMiu_Apron.jpg",
"excerpt" : "Miuccia Prada has a habit of taking the least “fashion” thing in the room and making it the argument. For Spring 2026 at Miu Miu, the argument is the apron; staged not as a coy retro flourish but as a total system. The show’s mise-en-scène read like a canteen or factory floor with melamine-like tables, rationalist severity, a whiff of cleaning fluid. In other words, a runway designed to force a conversation about labor before any sparkle could distract us.",
"content" : "Miuccia Prada has a habit of taking the least “fashion” thing in the room and making it the argument. For Spring 2026 at Miu Miu, the argument is the apron; staged not as a coy retro flourish but as a total system. The show’s mise-en-scène read like a canteen or factory floor with melamine-like tables, rationalist severity, a whiff of cleaning fluid. In other words, a runway designed to force a conversation about labor before any sparkle could distract us.From the opening look—German actress Sandra Hüller in a utilitarian deep-blue apron layered over a barn jacket and neat blue shirting—the thesis was loud: the “cover” becomes the thing itself. As silhouettes marched on, aprons multiplied and mutated—industrial drill cotton with front pockets, raw canvas, taffeta and cloqué silk, lace-edged versions that flirted with lingerie, even black leather and crystal-studded incarnations that reframed function as ornament. What the apron traditionally shields (clothes, bodies, “the good dress”) was inverted; the protection became the prized surface. Prada herself spelled it out: “The apron is my favorite piece of clothing… it symbolizes women, from factories through to serving to the home.”Miu Miu Spring 2026 Ready-to-Wear. SuppliedThis inversion matters historically. The apron’s earliest fashion-adjacent life was industrial. It served as a barrier against grease, heat, stain. It was a token of paid and unpaid care. Miu Miu tapped that lineage directly (canvas, work belts, D-ring hardware), then sliced it against domestic codes (florals, ruffles, crochet), and finally pushed into nightlife with bejeweled and leather bibs. The garment’s migration across materials made its social migrations visible. It is a kitchen apron, yes, but also one for labs, hospitals, and factories; the set and styling insisted on that plurality.What makes the apron such a loaded emblem is not just what it covers, but what it reveals about who has always been working. Before industrialization formalized labor into factory shifts and wages, women were already performing invisible labour, the kind that doesn’t exist on payrolls but sits at the foundation of every functioning society. They were cooking, cleaning, raising children, nursing the ill. These tasks were foundational to every economy and yet absent from every ledger. Even when women entered the industrial workforce, from textile plants to wartime assembly lines, their domestic responsibilities did not disappear, they doubled. In that context, the apron here is a quiet manifesto for the strength that goes unrecorded, unthanked, and yet keeps civilization running.The algorithmic rise of the “tradwife,” the influencer economy that packages domesticity as soft power, is the contemporary cultural shadow here. Miu Miu’s apron refuses that rehearsal. In fact, it’s intentionally awkward—oversized, undone, worn over bikinis or with sturdy shoes—so the viewer can’t flatten it into Pinterest-ready nostalgia. Critics noted the collection as a reclamation, a rebuttal to the flattening forces of the feed: the apron as a uniform for endurance rather than submission. The show notes framed it simply as “a consideration of the work of women,” a reminder that the invisible economies of effort—paid, unpaid, emotional—still structure daily life.If that sounds unusually explicit for a luxury runway, consider the designer. Prada trained as a mime at Milan’s Piccolo Teatro, earned a PhD in political science, joined the Italian Communist Party, and was active in the women’s rights movement in 1970s Milan. Those facts are not trivia; they are the grammar of her clothes. Decades of “ugly chic” were, essentially, a slow campaign against easy consumption and default beauty. In 2026, the apron becomes the newest dialect. An emblem drawn from leftist feminist history, recoded into a product that still has to sell. That tension—belief versus business—is the Miuccia paradox, and it’s precisely why these aprons read as statements, not trends.The runway narrative traced a journey from function to fetish. Early looks were squarely utilitarian—thick cottons, pocketed bibs—before migrating toward fragility and sparkle. Lace aprons laid transparently over swimmers; crystal-studded aprons slipped across cocktail territory; leather apron-dresses stiffened posture into armor. The sequencing proposed the same silhouette can encode labor, intimacy, and spectacle depending on fabrication. If most brands smuggle “workwear” in as set dressing, Miu Miu forced it onto the body as the central garment and an unmissable reminder that the feminine is often asked to be both shield and display at once.It’s instructive to read this collection against the house’s last mega-viral object: the micro-mini of Spring 2022, a pleated, raw-hem wafer that colonized timelines and magazine covers. That skirt’s thesis was exposure—hip bones and hemlines as post-lockdown spectacle, Y2K nostalgia framed as liberation-lite. The apron, ironically, covers. Where the micro-mini trafficked in the optics of freedom (and the speed of virality), the apron asks about the conditions that make freedom possible: who launders, who cooks, who cares? To move from “look at me” to “who is working here?” is a pivot from optics to ethics, without abandoning desire. (The aprons are, after all, deeply covetable.) In a platform economy that still rewards the shortest hemline with the biggest click-through, this is a sophisticated counter-program.Yet the designer is not romanticizing toil. There’s wit in the ruffles and perversity in the crystals; neither negate labor, they metabolize it. The most striking image is the apron treated as couture-adjacent. Traditionally, an apron protects the precious thing beneath; here, the apron is the precious thing. You could call that hypocrisy—luxurizing the uniform of workers. Or, strategy, insisting that the symbols of care and effort deserve visibility and investment.Of course, none of this exists in a vacuum. The “tradwife” script thrives because it is aesthetically legible and commercially scalable. It packages gender ideology as moodboard. Miu Miu counters with garments whose legibility flickers. The collection’s best looks ask viewers to reconcile tenderness with toughness, convenience with care, which is exactly the mental choreography demanded of women in every context from office to home to online.If you wanted a season-defining “It” item, you’ll still find it. The apron is poised to proliferate across fast-fashion and luxury alike. But the deeper success is structural: Miu Miu re-centered labor as an aesthetic category. That’s rarer than a viral skirt. It’s a reminder that clothes don’t merely decorate life, they describe and negotiate it. In making the apron the subject rather than the prop, Prada turned a garment of service into a platform for agency. It’s precisely the kind of cultural recursion you’d expect from a designer shaped by feminist politics, who never stopped treating fashion as an instrument of thought as much as style.The last image to hold onto is deceptively simple: a woman in an apron, neither fetishized nor infantilized, striding, hands free. Not a costume for nostalgia, not a meme for the feed, but a working uniform reframed, respected, and suddenly, undeniably beautiful. That is Miu Miu’s provocation for Spring 2026: the work behind the work, made visible at last."
}
]
}