Markets, Inequalities and Economists
Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. J.M.Keynes, 1936 What kind of scociety is troubled by the existence of inequalities, would want to address the heavy burden that inequalities place on so many people throughout the world? I want […]
Netanyahu, Mitsotakis, Palestine
Netanyahu, Mitsotakis, Palestine [1] Does who makes a moral statement matter? There is a line of thought that suggests that the validity of any statement should be kept separate from the speaker or writer of that statement – the statement is either true or false, it matters little who is supporting it. Notice that this […]
How to spot a leftist ready to abandon ship.
As you grow more mature, in other words older, you know of a significant number of people who were once on the Left who have undergone a long, and sometimes not so long, journey to the extreme centre. As a new generation of activists, trade unionists and leftists are coming on the scene, I though […]
A world without a hegemon and without hegemony
In a recent review of Christopher Clark’s work on the origins of WWI (The Sleepwalkers), Perry Anderson addresses the issue of historical necessity versus the freedom of existential contingency[i]. He points out that that Clark’s approach concentrates on the issue of how the war began, and in this endeavour the historian has provided an excellent […]
What is the centre-left?
As Trump ridicules European leaders again and again, as there is no force willing to stop the genocide in Gaza, as it is clear that we will not reach the climate targets set and confirmed endlessly by world leaders, as economic stagnation and the push for rearmament negate any suggestion that economic and social inequalities […]
Why Do So Few People Participate in the Gains from Growth?
V. Kouforizou, M. Koumerta, E. Tsakalotos, C. Tsitsikas The annual UBS report on global wealth [1] was recently published, and the numbers are truly shocking. 48.1% of the world’s wealth is in the hands of just 1.6% of the global population, while the poorest 41% have just 0.6% of the world’s wealth [2]. It […]
Misunderstanding hegemony: the strange bewilderment of Martin Wolf and Paul Krugman
A review of The Wolf-Krugman Exchange: how the old economic order fell out of favour | FT podcasts, June-July 2025. For the purposes of this review, I am assuming that there is still a political elite that is somewhere between uncomfortable with and positively hostile to Trump and the rise of right-wing populism, and […]
2015 and all that
“What is history?, our answer, consciously or unconsciously, reflects our own position in time, and forms part of our answer to the broader question, what view we take of the society in which we live.” —E.H. Carr Are there turning point in history? Probably not in history itself, but surely there is something in […]
Some strategic questions for social democracy
Social Democracy, like the wider Left is, to put it no stronger, not doing very well. The government of Scholz led to a right-wing government and the rise of the AfD, Trump succeeded Biden, while after one year, Starmer’s government is struggling and is lagging in the polls, not below the Conservatives but Farage’s Reform […]
Tariffs: then and now
As part of my entry examinations for university, I remember writing an essay on the controversy within the Conservative Party over tariffs in the early part of the twentieth century. This was towards the end of the first great wave of liberal capitalist globalisation. By then Britain was facing severe challenges to its seemingly impregnable […]