debating progressive politics in Europe and beyond
In the wake of the pan-European search for a new social democratic vision, the discussion about social democratic basic values and their meaning for today’s politics has taken centre stage again. What are social democratic basic values and have social democratic parties betrayed them in government? Or, even worse, have they been lost altogether? If [...]
To say the obvious: we’re now in the fourth year of a truly nightmarish economic crisis. I like to think that I was more prepared than most for the possibility that such a thing might happen; developments in Asia in the late 1990s badly shook my faith in the widely accepted proposition that events like [...]
A widely held belief in political circles of the left is that a country, like Spain, cannot follow expansionist policies on its own. It is said over and over again that unless the entire EU or, at least, the Eurozone expands, one country cannot do it alone. This was indeed the position of the Zapatero [...]
The Euro crisis may soon be over. This is what German Finance Minister Schäuble thinks and his view is finding an echo among a growing community in the financial markets. But is it true? For Chancellor Merkel and her followers, we are experiencing a debt crisis caused by irresponsible fiscal policies. Their remedy is therefore [...]
‘9/11’ is a term known across the world. The notion of the ‘war on terror’ reached across continents. ‘Sub-prime markets’ was a concept of the few before it became widely understood as a trigger of the global financial crisis. Weather patterns in southern Africa used to be understood as an act of God; they are [...]
These are not hunger or bread riots. These are riots of defective and disqualified consumers. Revolutions are not staple products of social inequality; but minefields are. Minefields are areas filled with randomly scattered explosives: one can be pretty sure that some of them, some time, will explode – but one can’t say with any degree [...]
Just a few years ago, a powerful ideology – the belief in free and unfettered markets – brought the world to the brink of ruin. Even in its hey-day, from the early 1980’s until 2007, American-style deregulated capitalism brought greater material well-being only to the very richest in the richest country of the world. Indeed, [...]
The latest twist in the eternal debate over equality is the position currently adopted by neo-liberal politicians and expressed particularly clearly by the British Labour Party’s former prime minister, Tony Blair. In a rich society, it is argued, the great majority (say the top 80-85% of the income and wealth distribution) is materially so well [...]
Humanity spends over 500 billion euros on medicines each year, some 1¼ percent of world income. Is this money well spent? Data for answering this question are sparse. While new medicines must pass through elaborate clinical trials before they are allowed on the market, there is very little systematic study of their subsequent use and [...]
SocialEurope Journal: SEJ Article: A Breakthrough Opportunity for Global Health http://t.co/VYXi6Wag SocialEurope Journal: SEJ Article: When Neo-Liberals drop their Mask http://t.co/saAJbUZH SocialEurope Journal: SEJ Article: At least nine EU countries in recession: stimulus urgently needed http://t.co/oNN0v98l SocialEurope Journal: SEJ Article: European Monetary Union: Doomed to fail or just another Stepping Stone? http://t.co/pMuqDvkA SocialEurope Journal: SEJ Article: Creating Jobs in recession-hit Communities in Europe: Why Microcredit will not help http://t.co/zJb4XxJl SocialEurope Journal: SEJ Article: German State Elections send Merkel an Economic Message http://t.co/yVG4Xr5n SocialEurope Journal: SEJ Article: Two dangerous Myths about a 'Grexit' http://t.co/vOhdnVIp SocialEurope Journal: SEJ Article: Finding a Way out of the Crisis – Growth and Employment in Europe http://t.co/Q8JhRRSg 
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