In this article we critically consider the widely held conception that the public intellectual is in decline. We present a more sanguine fate of this figure, arguing that today we observe a flourishing of intellectuals. One such figure is the academic intellectual who has often been looked at with suspicion as a technical specialist. This conception suggests that university intellectuals are diluted versions of the historical conception of the 'true' public intellectual -that is, an 'independent spirit' that fearlessly challenges unjust power. In this article, we contest this view, arguing that this historical conception, idealised as it may be, nevertheless can inform scholastic activities. By resituating the public intellectual as a kind of temperament rather than a title, we examine its pressing -but at the same time uneasy -relevance to contemporary academic life. Counterposing this with contemporary instrumental conceptions of research impact, we suggest that where possible the intellectual academic should aspire to go beyond academic institutional norms and requirements. Hence, the academic public intellectual refers to a temperament, which is in but not of the academic profession.

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In this article I develop a reflexive conception of ideology that can be applied to the study of organizations. By drawing out and making explicit the researcher's role in naming a social phenomenon as ideological, I argue that a more consistent, reflexive and critically attuned notion of the ideological can be developed. The neglect of the position of the researcher in critical conceptions of ideology stems largely from a problematic division in existing approaches between the researcher, as objective expert, and researched. As an alternative, I build on the idea of research reflexivity in organization studies to develop a notion of ideology in which the partial position of the researcher is rendered explicit. To illustrate this conception of naming the ideological, I characterize the norms and practices of Job Centres as reflecting an ideology of capitalist welfare regulation. The article presents a fresh way of conceptualizing ideology as a reflexive analytical concept which can fruitfully be brought to bear on different aspects of organizations.

Since its creation in 2009 the electronic currency Bitcoin has generated volumes of online debate in the business press. While there have been plenty of economic arguments situating it as a financial bubble about to collapse including from Nobel Prize winning economists; its price value has proven to be more durable than many have predicted. To explain this durability, Karpik's conception of market singularities is used to understand the Bitcoin phenomenon by outlining the beliefs that maintain Bitcoin's status as a volatile financial asset. Market singularities are markets for particular kinds of goods and services that are of uncertain and incommensurable value. Singularities markets have communities of followers and a distinctive belief system that ascribes value to a particular product, service, or asset. Developing Karpik's conception, the paper explores the libertarian political belief system that surrounds Bitcoin's status as a financial asset. I also outline some political tensions within the electronic currency community concerning governance and centralization.

Postcapitalist commons are a growing area of interest in the efforts to generate alternatives to capitalism in the present. Commons are understood as self‐organised collectives based around shared resources; yet postcapitalist commons have an additional element, in operating within while projecting an “after” capitalism. This can give rise to tensions since commons striving for postcapitalism also require a certain amount of capital to survive and function within capitalism. FairCoop is a radical postcapitalist commons that adopted the cryptocurrency FairCoin in 2014. FairCoop, through FairCoin, was able to generate some trans‐local connections through its use of peer2peer technologies and was thus able to scale‐up. Its design, however, was ultimately unsustainable due to insufficiently clear boundaries from capital. After highlighting the lack of commons boundaries around FairCoop, we identify some additional commons‐capital boundary design principles which could contribute to the sustainability of future postcapitalist commons experiments that are seeking to scale.