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A keynote summing up my view that, since 2009, the world has wasted enormous resources in a bid to re-float finance and at the expense of our capacity to look after each other, and the planet, at a time humanity is facing existential threats – from climate catastrophe to war and toxic politics. My discussants […]

From denial, to grudging acceptance, to substantial intervention, to debacle: that was the European Union’s trajectory once the storm that nearly consumed Wall Street in 2008 had crossed the Atlantic, starting the euro crisis. Twelve years later, the EU’s reaction to Covid-19’s arrival is following an ominously comparable trajectory. Eurosceptics take aim at the EU’s […]

While the catastrophic pandemic is pushing hundreds of millions into economic destitution, our world is being subjected to an escalating climate emergency and a New Cold War between the West and China, not to mention ominous tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean, the Caucasus, Libya etc. In the midst of all this instability, is Global Stability […]

What a year 2020 turned out to be? Besides the catastrophic pandemic that pushed hundreds of millions into economic destitution, 2020 featured the escalation of the climate emergency, the spectre of a New Cold War between the West and China, not to mention ominous tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean. So, while internationally coordinated political action […]

Why did I write ANOTHER NOW? As a critic of capitalism, I have long been painfully aware that critics of capitalism have no real answer to the hard question: “If you don’t like capitalism mate, what’s the alternative?” So, I decided it was time to take on two hard but pressing tasks: First, to describe […]

Our era will be remembered for the triumphant march of authoritarianism in whose wake the vast majority of humanity have experienced unnecessary hardship and the planet’s ecosystem has suffered avoidable climate destruction. For a brief period – a period the British historian Eric Hobsbawm described as “the short 20th century”  – establishment forces  were united in dealing with challenges […]

When Margaret Thatcher coined “Tina” – her 1980s dictum that “There is no alternative” – I was incensed because, deep down, I felt she had a point: the left had neither a credible nor a desirable alternative to capitalism.

Two days ago, something extraordinary happened. Something that has never happened before in the history of capitalism. In Britain, the news came out that the economy had suffered its greatest slump ever – more than 22% down during the first 7 months of 2020. Remarkably, on the same day, the London Stock Exchange, the FTSE100 index, rose by more than 2%. On the same day, during a time America has ground to a halt and is beginning to look like not just as an economy in deep trouble but also, ominously, as a failed state, Wall Street’s SP500 index hit an all-time record.

During the early years of the eurozone crisis, I remember gauging its depths by the rapidly diminishing half-life of the celebrations that followed every European Union summit. Premature proclamations that the crisis was over inspired hope, which caused the money markets to rebound. But then, at some point, gloom would unfailingly return. As the years of austerity for the many and socialism for the few ground on, that point arrived sooner after each EU summit.