#collectiveagency — Public Fediverse posts

As old assumptions loosen, the effects of distance become easier to feel.

Separation doesn’t just isolate us from one another — it often dulls our own sense of presence and agency. What comes next doesn’t start with answers, but with rebuilding the relational ground where capacity can grow again.

Full reflection for this week here: https://emotus.substack.com/p/when-we-stop-pretending-part-i

#WhenWeStopPretending #RelationalInfrastructure #CollectiveAgency #PostCollapsePractice #BenKadel

Once the pace softens, the strain of maintaining old expectations becomes harder to ignore.

This piece frames disillusionment as a threshold — a passage through grief into sobriety — where agency relocates into relationship, regulation,and shared capacity.

The emphasis isn’t on fixing the system, but on standing together on what’s real.

Reflection here: https://emotus.substack.com/p/when-we-stop-pretending-part-i

#WhenWeStopPretending #DisillusionmentAsThreshold #RelationalInfrastructure #CollectiveAgency #PostCollapsePractice

Chasing Returns Leaves a Big Carbon Footprint

This chart is from the World Inequality Report 2026, published this week by the World Inequality Lab.

The authors explain:

Most emission estimates traditionally attribute greenhouse gases to the final consumers of goods and services. This “consumption-based” approach highlights differences in lifestyle and consumption patterns. However, it overlooks another critical dimension of responsibility: capital ownership.

Focusing on ownership highlights investor agency:

While many consumers have limited ability to alter their consumption, due to constrained budgets, a lack of information, or limited access to alternatives, owners of productive assets actively decide how and where resources are invested. They directly benefit from the profits generated by emission-intensive industries. An ownership-based approach, therefore, assigns emissions from production to those who own the corresponding capital stock. 

Under this framework, an individual owning 50% of a company’s equity is attributed 50% of that firm’s emissions, whether directly or via intermediaries such as investment funds….

Accounting for emissions through this ownership lens reveals a high degree of concentration. In France, Germany, and the United States, the carbon footprint of the wealthiest 10% is three to five times higher when private ownership–based emissions are included….

The extreme concentration of private ownership–based emissions stems from both the amount of wealth owned and the investment choices made. Wealthy individuals not only hold larger asset portfolios but also allocate them disproportionately toward high-carbon sectors. 

As shown in Figure 6.3, every $1 million invested in business assets in the United States corresponds to roughly 143 tonnes of carbon emissions, compared with 75 tonnes for equities (Chancel and Rehm (2025a)). Similar patterns emerge in France and Germany.

The global top 10% allocates about half of their wealth to such carbon-intensive holdings, often seeking higher-risk, higher-return investments that coincide with higher emissions. Hsu, Li, and Tsou (2023) find that high-emission companies yield, on average, 4.4 percentage points more in annual excess returns than low-emission peers—an implicit “pollution premium” that further incentivizes carbon-heavy investments. 

From this ownership perspective, the nature of emissions changes across the wealth distribution. For low- and middle-income groups, nearly all emissions are linked to essential consumption — transportation, heating, or electricity. For the top 10%, and especially for the top 1%, emissions from capital ownership dominate, accounting for 75–95% of their total footprint in France, Germany, and the United States. This also means that the wealthiest have a far greater capacity to reduce emissions without compromising their living standards. [emphasis mine]

And, note, this chart is drawn from 2019 data, and does not take into account the investing trends, governance failures, or policy retreats of the last several years.

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#agency #collectiveAgency #ethics #futureHoarding #inequality #investing #ownership #resourceHoarding #responsibility #responsibleInvesting

The late 2020s as the final act of modernity

In The Reflexive Imperative Margaret Archer tells an initially slightly counter-intuitive story about modernity in terms of an accumulating struggle from which ever fewer people are able to insulate themselves. Her arguments rests on an understanding of how social and cultural change was encountered and responded to by differently positioned groups. For some it cast them in a position of protecting what was slipping away. For others it created the challenge of creating something new after change was forced upon them. The different interests of groups, as well as the changing ways in which they interpret those interests, leads increasing numbers to act in pursuit of those (often mutually exclusive interests) with important conequences:

Firstly, that these initial manifestations of competitive contradictions spread to affect all social institutions – in state and civil society alike – where the actions of collective agents were a spur to acquire organisation and to articulate goals on the part of disgruntled primary agents, as I have analysed at length for education. Secondly, that this spelt increasing mobilisation of greater and greater sections of the population, though far from the majority.

Reflexive Imperative Pg 27

In other words the more groups organise themselves in pursuit of their interests, the more imperative it becomes for inactive groups to defend interests that might have until then only been latently recognised. There’s a spiral of mobilisation which happens patchily and unevenly but creates a long-term tendency to ever increasing collective activity. I think we can see the depoliticisation of late stage neoliberalism as a temporary interregnum in which countervailing forces engendered a new radicalisation but that, as Richard Hames puts it:

There was this period we talked about a lot of a very rapid atomisation from the late 60s through to the 90s and early 00s. My sense is that the internet has reversed some of that, people have stitched themselves back together in new kinds of ways. That has happened in a context where there hasn’t been much political organising on the ground, but there has been a lot of political ideas and people have attached themselves to them.

In essence social platforms offered a new infrastructure through which this tendency towards mobilisation could begin a spiral of acceleration. Archer wrote in 2012 that “Those who decline such personal involvement could remain temporarily untouched by these struggles and their associated situational logic of competition … for the time being” (pg 31). The psychic counterpart to this is what Zizek once described as the desire for “floating freely in my undisturbed balance”. It’s a fantasy of being insulated from struggle, being above the fray in an individually sovereign life which will remain undisturbed by social antagonism. That’s exactly what Covid briefly ruptured for everyone, to at least some degree.

It’s what now becomes decreasingly possible for anyone in late 2025 as the far-right rises globally. It makes me suddenly wonder if rather than seeing a social formation beyond modernity, we are instead seeing something more like the final act of the modern story. Which again brings me back to my morbid but necessary preoccupation with the explosion of antagonism which the coming crisis will inevitably bring.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fa0x3c42pXw

#antagonism #archer #capitalism #collectiveAgency #crisis #criticalRealism #economicCrash #modernity #reflexiveImperative

The late 2020s as the final act of modernity

In The Reflexive Imperative Margaret Archer tells an initially slightly counter-intuitive story about modernity in terms of an accumulating struggle from which ever fewer people are able to insulate themselves. Her arguments rests on an understanding of how social and cultural change was encountered and responded to by differently positioned groups. For some it cast them in a position of protecting what was slipping away. For others it created the challenge of creating something new after change was forced upon them. The different interests of groups, as well as the changing ways in which they interpret those interests, leads increasing numbers to act in pursuit of those (often mutually exclusive interests) with important conequences:

Firstly, that these initial manifestations of competitive contradictions spread to affect all social institutions – in state and civil society alike – where the actions of collective agents were a spur to acquire organisation and to articulate goals on the part of disgruntled primary agents, as I have analysed at length for education. Secondly, that this spelt increasing mobilisation of greater and greater sections of the population, though far from the majority.

Reflexive Imperative Pg 27

In other words the more groups organise themselves in pursuit of their interests, the more imperative it becomes for inactive groups to defend interests that might have until then only been latently recognised. There’s a spiral of mobilisation which happens patchily and unevenly but creates a long-term tendency to ever increasing collective activity. I think we can see the depoliticisation of late stage neoliberalism as a temporary interregnum in which countervailing forces engendered a new radicalisation but that, as Richard Hames puts it:

There was this period we talked about a lot of a very rapid atomisation from the late 60s through to the 90s and early 00s. My sense is that the internet has reversed some of that, people have stitched themselves back together in new kinds of ways. That has happened in a context where there hasn’t been much political organising on the ground, but there has been a lot of political ideas and people have attached themselves to them.

In essence social platforms offered a new infrastructure through which this tendency towards mobilisation could begin a spiral of acceleration. Archer wrote in 2012 that “Those who decline such personal involvement could remain temporarily untouched by these struggles and their associated situational logic of competition … for the time being” (pg 31). The psychic counterpart to this is what Zizek once described as the desire for “floating freely in my undisturbed balance”. It’s a fantasy of being insulated from struggle, being above the fray in an individually sovereign life which will remain undisturbed by social antagonism. That’s exactly what Covid briefly ruptured for everyone, to at least some degree.

It’s what now becomes decreasingly possible for anyone in late 2025 as the far-right rises globally. It makes me suddenly wonder if rather than seeing a social formation beyond modernity, we are instead seeing something more like the final act of the modern story. Which again brings me back to my morbid but necessary preoccupation with the explosion of antagonism which the coming crisis will inevitably bring.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fa0x3c42pXw

#antagonism #archer #capitalism #collectiveAgency #crisis #criticalRealism #economicCrash #modernity #reflexiveImperative

The late 2020s as the final act of modernity

In The Reflexive Imperative Margaret Archer tells an initially slightly counter-intuitive story about modernity in terms of an accumulating struggle from which ever fewer people are able to insulate themselves. Her arguments rests on an understanding of how social and cultural change was encountered and responded to by differently positioned groups. For some it cast them in a position of protecting what was slipping away. For others it created the challenge of creating something new after change was forced upon them. The different interests of groups, as well as the changing ways in which they interpret those interests, leads increasing numbers to act in pursuit of those (often mutually exclusive interests) with important conequences:

Firstly, that these initial manifestations of competitive contradictions spread to affect all social institutions – in state and civil society alike – where the actions of collective agents were a spur to acquire organisation and to articulate goals on the part of disgruntled primary agents, as I have analysed at length for education. Secondly, that this spelt increasing mobilisation of greater and greater sections of the population, though far from the majority.

Reflexive Imperative Pg 27

In other words the more groups organise themselves in pursuit of their interests, the more imperative it becomes for inactive groups to defend interests that might have until then only been latently recognised. There’s a spiral of mobilisation which happens patchily and unevenly but creates a long-term tendency to ever increasing collective activity. I think we can see the depoliticisation of late stage neoliberalism as a temporary interregnum in which countervailing forces engendered a new radicalisation but that, as Richard Hames puts it:

There was this period we talked about a lot of a very rapid atomisation from the late 60s through to the 90s and early 00s. My sense is that the internet has reversed some of that, people have stitched themselves back together in new kinds of ways. That has happened in a context where there hasn’t been much political organising on the ground, but there has been a lot of political ideas and people have attached themselves to them.

In essence social platforms offered a new infrastructure through which this tendency towards mobilisation could begin a spiral of acceleration. Archer wrote in 2012 that “Those who decline such personal involvement could remain temporarily untouched by these struggles and their associated situational logic of competition … for the time being” (pg 31). The psychic counterpart to this is what Zizek once described as the desire for “floating freely in my undisturbed balance”. It’s a fantasy of being insulated from struggle, being above the fray in an individually sovereign life which will remain undisturbed by social antagonism. That’s exactly what Covid briefly ruptured for everyone, to at least some degree.

It’s what now becomes decreasingly possible for anyone in late 2025 as the far-right rises globally. It makes me suddenly wonder if rather than seeing a social formation beyond modernity, we are instead seeing something more like the final act of the modern story. Which again brings me back to my morbid but necessary preoccupation with the explosion of antagonism which the coming crisis will inevitably bring.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fa0x3c42pXw

#antagonism #archer #capitalism #collectiveAgency #crisis #criticalRealism #economicCrash #modernity #reflexiveImperative

The late 2020s as the final act of modernity

In The Reflexive Imperative Margaret Archer tells an initially slightly counter-intuitive story about modernity in terms of an accumulating struggle from which ever fewer people are able to insulate themselves. Her arguments rests on an understanding of how social and cultural change was encountered and responded to by differently positioned groups. For some it cast them in a position of protecting what was slipping away. For others it created the challenge of creating something new after change was forced upon them. The different interests of groups, as well as the changing ways in which they interpret those interests, leads increasing numbers to act in pursuit of those (often mutually exclusive interests) with important conequences:

Firstly, that these initial manifestations of competitive contradictions spread to affect all social institutions – in state and civil society alike – where the actions of collective agents were a spur to acquire organisation and to articulate goals on the part of disgruntled primary agents, as I have analysed at length for education. Secondly, that this spelt increasing mobilisation of greater and greater sections of the population, though far from the majority.

Reflexive Imperative Pg 27

In other words the more groups organise themselves in pursuit of their interests, the more imperative it becomes for inactive groups to defend interests that might have until then only been latently recognised. There’s a spiral of mobilisation which happens patchily and unevenly but creates a long-term tendency to ever increasing collective activity. I think we can see the depoliticisation of late stage neoliberalism as a temporary interregnum in which countervailing forces engendered a new radicalisation but that, as Richard Hames puts it:

There was this period we talked about a lot of a very rapid atomisation from the late 60s through to the 90s and early 00s. My sense is that the internet has reversed some of that, people have stitched themselves back together in new kinds of ways. That has happened in a context where there hasn’t been much political organising on the ground, but there has been a lot of political ideas and people have attached themselves to them.

In essence social platforms offered a new infrastructure through which this tendency towards mobilisation could begin a spiral of acceleration. Archer wrote in 2012 that “Those who decline such personal involvement could remain temporarily untouched by these struggles and their associated situational logic of competition … for the time being” (pg 31). The psychic counterpart to this is what Zizek once described as the desire for “floating freely in my undisturbed balance”. It’s a fantasy of being insulated from struggle, being above the fray in an individually sovereign life which will remain undisturbed by social antagonism. That’s exactly what Covid briefly ruptured for everyone, to at least some degree.

It’s what now becomes decreasingly possible for anyone in late 2025 as the far-right rises globally. It makes me suddenly wonder if rather than seeing a social formation beyond modernity, we are instead seeing something more like the final act of the modern story. Which again brings me back to my morbid but necessary preoccupation with the explosion of antagonism which the coming crisis will inevitably bring.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fa0x3c42pXw

#antagonism #archer #capitalism #collectiveAgency #crisis #criticalRealism #economicCrash #modernity #reflexiveImperative

Against Converting QQQ from a Unit Investment Trust to an Open-End Fund

I’ve been receiving mailings (surface mail, emails) about the upcoming vote on Invesco QQQ Trust for a few months now, urging and imploring me to vote Yes on converting the QQQ fund from a Unit Investment Trust or UIT to a so-called Open-End Fund ETF.  So has everyone else invested in the fund.

The Future is Bright with QQQ

Your Vote, Your Growth!

Future Forward, Always

Vote Today to Make an Impact!

They’re flooding the zone with this stuff, and I can’t help but wonder why. 

One flyer, a letter from Invesco CEO Brian Hartigan, promises that the proposed change in classification of the Trust under the Investment Act of 1940 will “modernize” and “optimize” the way the fund operates and “improve the shareholder experience” – whatever that is supposed to mean. When he gets around to spelling things out, Hartigan says that the conversion “will decrease” QQQ’s expense ratio by two points. 

As a part of the modernization of QQQ, and based on information as of the Trust’s most recent fiscal year end, the Trust’s total expense ratio will decrease from a maximum of 20 basis points per year (i.e., 0.20% of QQQ’s average annual net assets) to 18 basis points per year (0.18% of QQQ’s average annual net assets), which represents an estimated cost savings to the Trust and its shareholders of more than $70 million based on QQQ’s assets as of July 1, 2025.  

On the face of it, 70 million dollars sounds like a pretty significant cost savings. Whether the “estimated” savings the reduced ER “represents” will be realized is another and more important question, and it’s one that goes unanswered. This carefully-worked sentence never says explicitly that the lower .18 percent expense ratio will actually save the fund more than $70 million – or, for that matter, that it will save the Trust and its shareholders anything at all. 

However, according to the schedule 14A filed with the SEC, the conversion of the Trust to an open-end fund will “benefit Invesco in the form of revenue and potential profits (neither of which are available to Invesco serving as Sponsor to the Trust with the Trust operating as a UIT).” At present, the Trust only reimburses Invesco for marketing and administrative expenditures; after the conversion, Invesco says,”it is likely” to do “significantly” less in the way of marketing, and the firm “believes” that the lower expense ratio will “offset” or make up for “any potential negative impacts associated with less marketing of the Trust.” These are vague promises. The only thing certain here, it would appear, is that Invesco is going to seek profits. 

The fund’s governance model will change, too. Why, I cannot tell – or, rather, I am unable to tell what specific governance problem or area of governance they might be trying to fix. In any case, if shareholders approve the conversion, the fund’s existing Trustee (BNY) will be replaced with “a slate of individual trustees” – nine people, all of whom seem, on paper at least, well qualified for the position. My problem is not with their resumes. I worry, instead, about the coordination and agency problems that are likely to come with this new management layer and the risks associated with the move from a relatively impersonal Trustee (a bank) to nine persons.

Notably, these nine are not going to take on the custodial and administrative work the bank currently does. Invesco will still have a Trustee handling that work. What are they going to do? They are going to take “discretionary actions,” according to the SEC filing. QQQ will be taken out of the hands of a Trustee with “limited discretion” and subjected to the “informed business judgment” of a Committee of Nine. 

the transition of QQQ’s governance model would nonetheless represent a movement away from a governance model providing limited discretion on the part of an institutional Trustee to a governance model that permits discretionary actions to be taken by the board of trustees in accordance with the terms of the governing instruments and the board of trustee’s informed business judgment.  Such shift [sic] may introduce new governance and oversight risks that are not presently experienced by the Trust and its Shareholders, and could allow the Trust to take actions it is not presently able to do.

So the improved shareholder experience promised by CEO Brian Hartigan sounds like it’s going to be a riskier experience. Who signed up for that? (Not me, and I’ve been holding QQQ since 2002. I’d be much more supportive of measures to mitigate risk.)

Among the actions the Committee of Nine could take after the conversion is to decide that they no longer want to work with BNY, and hand the custodial work the bank is currently doing to another institution. That could be a good thing – maybe there are better Trustees out there – or it could be a situation where the Committee of Nine try to fix what ain’t broke, or put their own self interest above that of shareholders, or demonstrate less than good business judgment. It’s been known to happen.

Then there’s the matter of securities lending. As a UIT, QQQ cannot lend securities; as an open-end fund, it can. Invesco and the Trustee chosen by the Committee of Nine stand to benefit from fees and revenue splits associated with these loans. But as the SEC filing acknowledges, lending securities “entails a risk of loss” to QQQ. Think short-sellers and hedge funds; think defaults and gap risk, too. 

So in light of the misgivings I have about the Committee of Nine and the improved shareholder experience on offer, I vote no, and encourage others to read the SEC filing carefully and consider doing the same.

Update 25 October 2025: Yesterday, Invesco announced that it would adjourn the shareholder meeting and postpone the QQQ vote until 5 December, because they did not have a quorum.

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#collectiveAgency #coordination #corporateGovernance #governance #management #risk #shareholderCommunications #shareholderRights