As 2011 draws to a close, it is fair to say that this year has been one of the most disastrous for the European Union in its history. The eurozone crisis has spread from the periphery to the core and all political and financial rescue packages were too little, too late. Towards the end of the year [...]
Back to the mid-1990s – UK edition
13/10/2011 by
A while ago I warned about the possibility of Europe repeating the experiences of the mid-1990s: failing to kick-start growth, locking in unemployment at extremely high levels, and in consequence suffering from a series of longer-term problems that are perceived to be ‘structural’, but in fact result from a failure to swiftly and effectively address [...]
Interview – Zygmunt Bauman on the UK Riots
15/08/2011 by
How much of an irony is the fact that the riots concentrated on the looting of consumer goods, given your body of work on postmodernism and consumerism? These riots were, so to speak, an explosion bound sooner or later to happen… Just like a minefield: one knows that some of the explosives will true to their nature [...]
Riots and budgetary austerity
12/08/2011 by
From the liturgy of disturbing reading in the past days, I’ve picked out two pieces — and, no, I don’t include David Cameron’s predictable characterisation of underclass youth as mindless looters while, in the heart of London, super-rich casino bankers and tax dodgers continue to rob us of vastly greater sums. The bad news I’m [...]
The UK Riots and what they mean for British Politics
10/08/2011 by
Jim Callaghan tried to be avuncular and reassuring when he returned from a summit in the West Indies in 1979, as disputes with public-sector trade unions over pay controls defined Britain’s ‘winter of discontent’. But the next day the loose journalistic ethics of the Sun turned this into devastating ‘Crisis? What crisis?’ headlines, at the [...]
Austerity provokes contraction but also reaction
10/08/2011 by
Rather astonishingly recent months saw a debate about whether fiscal contractions could be expansionary. It was fairly soon laid to rest (at least for those who try to base their views on evidence). What wasn’t much discussed was whether austerity measures would lead to rising social tensions, apart from the tiresome babble about whether those [...]
The London Riots – On Consumerism coming Home to Roost: by Zygmunt Bauman
09/08/2011 by
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 [...]
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