A lecture organised by University of Tübingen economics students, delivered on Monday 3rd February 2020 on the theme From an Economics-without-Capitalism to Markets-without-Capitalism.
To my European Friends: I just wanted to tell you that, although my country has made the insane, childish and probably suicidal decision to leave Europe, I remain proud to be a European, and proud of the great social experiment that the EU represents. In my mind, I’m still in Europe, and that is where I will stay. For England it’s all over now, and the next generations will judge the results.
By leaving us, you are making us sadder, poorer and more prone to the errors that made so many of you vote for Brexit. The only solace I take from your departure is the thought that Brexit will convince you that a European Union should be invented even if it did not exist. And that it will convince us, on the Continent, to democratise properly the one we have so as to serve our people’s needs and, yes, to lure you back as well.
Anti-capitalists had a miserable year. But so did capitalism.
While the defeat of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party in the UK this month threatened the radical left’s momentum, particularly in the US, where the presidential primaries loom, capitalism found itself under fire from some unexpected quarters.
Is capitalism past its due date? Can we even imagine a world without it? On 14th November 2019 Martin Wolf and Yanis Varoufakis debated the question ‘Should liberal capitalism be saved?’. Hosted on November 14, 2019 by the Financial Times to celebrate the Wincott Foundation’s 50th Anniversary, this special live event took the place of the usual annual Harold Wincott Memorial Lecture.
Every year for nearly 70 years, the Guardian has collected the best of its journalism into a book – the BEDSIDE GUARDIAN. This year, Bedside Guardian 2019 is edited by Aditya Chakrabortty with Paul Johnson, deputy editor, alongside Jonathan Freedland, Zoe Williams Emma Graham-Harrison. The editors were kind enough to ask me to write the Foreword.
There is a fork in the road. A mighty choice is coming. We can have a plan. An imperfect plan maybe. But one for the planet, not the corporations. For the many, not the few. A plan for the ‘we’, not the ‘I’.
On the next phase of Europe’s transnational progressive movement
PRAGUE ADDRESS, 22nd
November 2019
We come from all over Europe. From across borders, party lines and with different views of the good society. We are united by these differences. Europe will be democratised. Or it will disintegrate. This is not a scare tactic. It is a fact! The EU’s disintegration is happening. New divisions, new walls, are springing up. Along borders. Inside our societies. In people’s minds.
Everything’s on the UP with the Tories the gap between the richies and the poories the porky pies and fabricated storiesYes – everything’s on the up with the Tories
Everything’s up the creek with the Blue Boys
They’re selling off the NHS to cowboys
They’re cutting back on nurses (but investing it in hearses) the nitwits and the we-don’t-have-a-clue boys
Everything’s on the UP with the Tories
With unemployed across all categories Johnson, Gove, Patel – it’s a government from Hell!And a few more years of Brexit purgatory
What are we to make of a political class that proclaims its ethical commitments but that cannot bring itself to endorse the only concrete actions that would honour them?
