Talk:Matt Bruenig

Elizabeth Bruenig
Nothing about his wifey Elizabeth? e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aD7ife7l8E 2001:8003:6A23:2C00:346F:69B:436:AF55 (talk) 01:56, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

I created this article and would like to create one on Elizabeth Bruenig as well. Do you think she qualifies under notability guidelines? Mbroderick271 (talk) 21:54, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Autism categorization
While I applaud those subjects who are self-identified autists, WP doesn't provide for categorizing them in the few categories provided currently.

So, unless and until a more knowledgeable editor finds a way to categorize self-identified autists, it should be left to the narrative and not categorized. I have deleted the categorization, but really appreciate the self-identification being left where it is.174.23.138.83 (talk) 14:07, 3 December 2018 (UTC)


 * "Self-identified". The podcast used as the source details that he was explicitly diagnosed in adulthood. PrairieBasedEditor (talk) 00:04, 30 December 2018 (UTC)


 * At the time, I didn't have the time to listen through more than a hour of discussion searching for proof(s). Now that I have listened to the whole podcast, I have cited the relevant time marker in the discussion to prove the described determination. Thank you for bringing this to my attention a second time. I am glad to know that the subject is now categorized appropriately.174.23.203.99 (talk) 15:54, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

"Harrassment" Charge Not Found in Sources
None of the sources cited regarding his "history of online harassment" actually claim he has a history of harassment. The Demos press releases merely claims that he has been "at the center of controversies surrounding online harassment of people with whom he disagrees." This means he has been a part of discussions regarding harassment, not that he has a persistent history of harassment himself. Obviously that press release claims that he acted improperly, but it's actually Wikipedia that makes a much stronger claim. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:240:8100:D301:3C7A:3CF8:7208:D367 (talk) 02:29, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

Matt Bruenig is not Catholic
As discussed on The Bruenigs podcast, around minute 28:30.

''"So there are a lot of people, folks, listeners who know that I'm Catholic and don't like that and they presume Matt to be Catholic. He's not." - Elizabeth Bruenig''

PrairieBasedEditor (talk) 23:16, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

Intellectual influences
I'm not quite sure how to integrate this into the article without restructuring it a bit, but I think it'd be worthwhile noting that one of the major influences when it comes to his particular conception of market socialism is Rudolf Hilferding, particularly his work Finance Capital. He lays this out starting at 17:05 in the podcast episode "The World According to Matt", if someone would like to work this in at some point. I think it's worth noting, because Hilferding is a fairly obscure thinker at this point, and Matt Bruenig is probably his highest profile proponent. Cucumbersonfire (talk) 03:00, 24 October 2019 (UTC)


 * Makes sense to me. It'd help contextualize Matt's thought and highlight an otherwise-obscure theorist for an unfamiliar audience. It might be easier to integrate it by throwing in another major influence or two—Hilferding is a key influence but surely like, Rawls too, right? No doubt there are others, but Rawls comes to mind for some reason. Given the article's current size, a sentence-long paragraph like "Bruenig's intellectual influences include..." would probably suffice for now (and can always be expanded later). —BLZ · talk 08:02, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

"A public feud"
Is there any RS that supports this weasel wording?

Demos reprimanded Bruenig for Twitter-calling Tanden "geriatric" and a "scumbag" and for accusing her of supporting a welfare "reform" that was passed while she was in law school. They later fired him after (to quote Demos) "evidence of a pattern of behavior that is far out of line with our code of conduct. After multiple conversations, Matt Bruenig and Demos have agreed to disagree on the value of the attack mode on Twitter. We part ways on the effectiveness of these kinds of personalized, online fights and so we are parting ways as colleagues today."

Matt Yglesis in Vox summarizes this by saying Demos "fired Matt Bruenig from a part-time job blogging on their website over his refusal to apologize for a couple of mean tweets he'd directed at Neera Tanden."

Kevin Drum in Mother Jones quotes Greenwald and others claiming that Demos fired Bruenig to suck up to Tanden. Drum's own verdict is "The whole thing is a damn shame. I hope Bruenig lands on his feet somewhere, but I’ll bet that any future employer will ask for pretty much the same promise about tone and harassment that Demos did."

The issue that led to Bruenig's firing was not any "public feud" (and no RS says it was.) The issue was his employer's code of conduct. That section needs re-wording. HouseOfChange (talk) 21:50, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

Market socialist versus social democrat
It is not very informative to state (as Bruenig does not afaik) that he is a "market socialist" replacing the previous also WP:SYNTH claim that he is a "democratic socialist." In 2017, Bruenig wrote, "Socialism is the idea that capital (the means of production) should be owned collectively. There are divergent ideas about how to achieve this in reality. One approach is to have the government hold it collectively in social wealth funds. This is (more or less) the socialism of Yanis Varoufakis, Rudolf Meidner, and John E. Roemer. It is also my brand of socialism, at least for the time." I think it is more informative to point our readers to what Bruenig said than to summarize it with vague economic jargon. HouseOfChange (talk) 21:49, 28 April 2020 (UTC)