The European Union’s power sector is a good example of what market fundamentalism has done to electricity networks the world over. With the end of cheap natural gas, retail consumers and businesses are paying the price for their governments’ embrace of a shoddy theory. ATHENS – The blades of the wind turbines on the mountain […]
The blame game over surging prices is on. Was it too much central-bank money being pumped out for too long that caused inflation to take off? Was it China, where most physical production had moved before the pandemic locked down the country and disrupted global supply chains? Was it Russia, whose invasion of Ukraine took […]
In 1943, progressives had a moral duty to dismiss calls for a negotiated settlement with Hitler. Cutting a deal with the Nazis to end the carnage would have been unforgivable. Civilized people had only one option: to keep fighting until Allied troops stood over Hitler’s Berlin bunker. Today, by contrast, it would be a grave […]
Capital is everywhere, yet capitalism is on the wane. In an era when the owners of a new form of “command capital” have gained exorbitant power over everyone else, including traditional capitalists, this is no contradiction. ATHENS – Once upon a time, capital goods were just the manufactured means of production. Robinson Crusoe’s salvaged fishing […]
At a time when Russian bombs are destroying Ukrainian cities, there is good reason to focus on the oligarchs supporting the Kremlin. But do American multi-billionaires and Saudi princes enjoy less political clout, stash less money abroad, and use their influence any better? ATHENS – No sooner had Roman Abramovich, newly targeted by the United […]
This January marked the 20th anniversary of euro notes and coins circulating. In an op-ed published by Project Syndicate I argue that the euro was an unmitigated failure even by the criteria of its architects. This is an updated analysis of a keynote I delivered a few years ago at the Oxford Union – see […]
Learning to appreciate that control is an illusion is hard, especially when we are prepared to sacrifice almost everything, to pay any price, to control others. But if we are to stop others—Mark Zuckerberg, for example—from controlling us, it is a lesson we must learn. Once upon a time, in the ancient kingdom of Lydia, a […]
Both supporters and critics of US President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion stimulus plan assume that there is a dollar amount that is just right. In fact, no such figure exists: every possible stimulus size is simultaneously too little and too big. ATHENS – US President Joe Biden, facing the great challenge of stimulating his country’s […]
Οι αντίπαλοι του Ντόναλντ Τραμπ τον αποκαλούν ψεύτη. Το πρόβλημα όμως είναι ότι ο Τραμπ είναι κάτι πολύ χειρότερο από ψεύτης. Ο Νίξον έλεγε ψέματα για να θάψει αλήθειες, το ίδιο κι ο Κλίντον και πολλοί άλλοι. Όχι, το πρόβλημα με τον Τραμπ είναι ότι μέσα σ’ ένα χείμαρρο ψεύδους που έβγαινε από το στόμα του που […]
“Digital Future of Development Dialogue,” a UN event, above, was held in September 2019. The UN is pushing to widen traditional pools of funding through digital channels to lift the faltering Sustainable Development Goals, especially in the Covid-19 era. But risks to such an approach abound. ©SUMAYA AGHA/UNDP
