5 W Main: Visions of Inequality. For most of the Cold War, economists—not just in the West but in the Soviet Bloc, too—spent little time researching income inequality. The Nobel laureate Paul Samuelson’s influential textbook Economics spans some 900 plus pages, but it dedicates only two pages to the subject. Another Nobel laureate, Robert Lucas, formerly the president of the American Economic Association, said that “of the tendencies that are harmful to sound economics, … the most poisonous, is to focus on questions of distribution.” And it wasn’t until the 1990s that the Journal of Economic Literature, the foremost classification system of economic papers and books, introduced a code for economic inequality.

But in recent years, as Branko Milanovic writes in Visions of Inequality: From the French Revolution to the End of the Cold War, inequality studies have “exploded.” Perhaps most famously, the 2014 English translation of Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century probably sold more copies in its first year than any other economics book ever. And it’s not just the study of income inequality that’s gained traction; the politics of it has gained traction also. Inequality has become the watchword of left-populist movements, like Jeremy Corbyn’s in the United Kingdom or Bernie Sanders’s in the United States. Why? This week, in the member’s dispatch, we take a look—at the question and Milanovic’s ambitious crack at answering it.

—Gustav Jönsson

111MHz: ‘Millions Are Lost (Are We All in This Together?).’ Half of the great early 2000s British duo Johnny Boy, Lolly Hayes, released a new tune for tough times mid last year. It’s smart, charming, and unmistakably Lolly Hayes.

—Brendan Hasenstab

Set adrift. The first move was economic: On February 13, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order to prepare for reciprocal tariffs in April on countries that put import duties on American products. Speaking afterward, Trump singled out European Union trade practices as “brutal”; the order designates the value-added tax, a staple across the European Continent, as a trade barrier for reciprocal measures. Brussels issued a statement that it would respond “firmly and immediately” if the U.S. goes through with the tariffs—but so far has otherwise done nothing.

Then came the challenges to European, especially Ukrainian, security: The U.S. and Russia arranged talks with one another in Saudi Arabia last week, excluding Ukraine and Europe, while European leaders met separately in Paris—where they ignored the tariffs and struggled to align their positions on Ukraine’s future security arrangements.

Why can’t Europe get its act together? In this week’s member’s dispatch, we return to our conversation with Matthias Matthijs about the simultaneous, epochal problems the Continent is facing—and why its political systems are struggling to produce the kind of strong government necessary for the moment.

—Michael Bluhm

From the weekly Signal member’s despatch.

‘Una Cumbia en Kinshasa.’ From the new album Mapambazuko, this is a collaboration between the Peruvian musician Alejandra Cárdenas—aka Ale Hop—and the Congolese guitarist Titi Bakorta. Yes, it’s in the style of Peruvian cumbia music, but with Congolese flavored soukous guitar dappled over the top. Both of them play fierce guitars, so it’s a fun blend of up-tempo kinds of party music, resulting in a harmonious, fresh sound.

—Brendan Hasenstab

‘Ô Signe des Temps (Iueke Dub Remix).’ In 1986, the Québécois artist Bernardino Femminielli put together a cover of Prince’s then-current “Sign of the Times.” Contemporary culture being what it is, 1986 isn’t the past in any strict sense—people now listen to old and new music, almost without discretion—and three years ago, the French electronic producer Iueke put together a dub remix, and it’s a Francophone brainwave par excellence.

—Brendan Hasenstab

111 MHz: ‘When We Swam Together.’ The Lebanese composer and producer Fadi Tabbal is back with I Recognize You From My Sketches, an ambient wash of sound that is an ode to community, and a “breakup album between who we want to be and who we turned out to be,” an idea you can feel in this warm memory.

—Brendan Hasenstab

Coming soon. Next Friday, The Signal will debut the member’s despatch, a weekly digest on current affairs. The despatch is a digital magazine for those who want to keep up with what’s happening in the world—but also need their time cared for … and to feel confident that wherever they spend it reading anything, the material will matter, stick with them, and be a joy to take in and think about.

It’s an idea we’ve been cultivating for some time: not just a supplement to our regular features and notes, but a hub for them and everything we do—which now includes in-depth news briefings, key-debate roundups, books coverage, letters, and new-music curation from around the world.

Expect the member’s despatch to evolve, week over week. But fundamentally, expect it always to be worth your while—as reliable as it will be surprising; a resource that helps you free yourself from the incessant hype and noise of addiction-based media; and a companion that helps you stay centered, develop resiliency, and think effectively for yourself.

If the name sounds at all idiosyncratic, it takes inspiration from the traditional red “despatch boxes” sent to ministers and monarchs in the United Kingdom and elsewhere in the Commonwealth to securely transport important, sometimes secret, correspondence and documents.

We’re delighted to be able to send it to you—as we will be to hear from you.

Until then,

—John Jamesen Gould

Members play a vital role in supporting The Signal’s independent current affairs coverage. Beyond the new member’s despatch and our free, twice-weekly newsletters, membership affords you access to an expanding array of exclusive benefits, including:

• Full access to every new article we publish
• Unlimited access to our archive—featuring hundreds of extraordinary contributors
• Exclusive member content and early access to new products, including upcoming print publications
• Savings of more than $20 with annual membership

‘Even the Horizon Knows Its Bounds.’ The Australian artist and curator Lawrence English may be best known for running the Room40 label for ambient and experimental music, but he also composes. Here, a taste of his latest album, featuring collaborators from an array of genres—including Jim O'Rourke, Claire Rousay, and The Necks' Chris Abrahams. Meditative, yet warm and sincere.

—Brendan Hasenstab

Whoever controls Damascus. They’d cooperated for years in the Syrian civil war against the now-fallen dictator, Bashar al-Assad—but only met for the first time on February 4: Ahmed al-Sharaa, the country’s interim leader, and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the president of Turkey.

Since the meeting, Sharaa has said he wants to pursue a deep strategic relationship with Turkey. Which makes sense: Turkey had long provided weapons and money to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the rebel group Sharaa led in the civil war. Sharaa and Erdoğan also share a similar ideology of political Islam, a broad ideology on which the principles of the Muslim faith provide the foundations for a country’s secular laws. And for Turkey, having Syria as close Arab ally in a critical location in the Middle East would be invaluable.

It’s an alliance that could reshape the region.

The complication is, since Sharaa and HTS toppled Assad in mid-January, almost every other powerful actor in the region has developed its own strategic designs for Syria. And the country will need massive investment to rebuild after more than a decade of civil war, sitting as it does on only modest reserves of oil and natural gas.

Last week, the emir of Qatar visited Syria last week to meet with Sharaa. And a day before his meeting with Erdoğan, Sharaa flew to Saudi Arabia to meet with its crown prince and de facto ruler, Mohammad bin Salman. Qatar and Saudi have far more capabilities to pay for Syria’s reconstruction, whereas Turkey’s economy has been struggling for years.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia and Erdoğan have long been deeply divided over political Islam: The Saudi royal family profess devotion to Islam but see their hereditary authority as separate, and they’ve always viewed Islamist parties as threats to their regime and other Gulf monarchies.

So who has the upper hand here?

Shortly after the fall of Assad, Vali Nasr looked at the dramatic recent changes in and around Syria. Nasr says Assad’s ouster caused the overnight transformation of the political landscape in the Middle East. For one, it means an acute loss of power and standing for Iran—as Assad was a key ally in the so-called Axis of Resistance Iran formed to counter what it casts as the regional dominance of the U.S. and Israel. But it also means new opportunities for the other leading regional rivals: Turkey, the Gulf states—Qatar, Saudi, and the United Arab Emirates—and Israel.

Still, Nasr says, there’s a bigger question in the background. The longstanding, shifting rivalries among the players in this immediate power struggle will continue to influence the Middle East. But the region’s deeper challenges don’t come from these players directly; they come from the region’s broken states—including Syria itself, but also Lebanon, Yemen, and Iraq—and from the chronically volatile situation in Israel-Palestine. The ways those challenges play out, Nasr says, will determine what happens in Syria more than anything Sharaa works out in the near term with Erdoğan or any of his rivals.

—Michael Bluhm