debating progressive politics in Europe and beyond
Throughout the twentieth century the Conservative party dominated British politics as an integrated party of the right. Yet since late 1992, the Tories have increasingly struggled to attract the support of a third of voters at elections or in opinion polls. Patrick Dunleavy argues that because of the divisiveness of Thatcherism, the right wing electorate in Britain [...]
The Falklands War – 30 Years later Thirty years ago, on 2 April 1982, Argentinian troops invaded the Falklands/Malvinas. Within days, a British task force set sail for the South Atlantic. What resulted was ostensibly a military defeat for Argentina, but in reality a political defeat for Britain. Had General Galtieri not invaded in 1982 [...]
This is the second generation of people who can’t imagine change except in their own lives, who have no sense of social collective public goods or services, who are just isolated individuals desperately striving to better themselves above everybody else.” [Tony Judt, quoted in Ed Pilkington, ‘A bunch of dead muscles, thinking’ The Guardian, 9 [...]
Meryl Streep’s eery reincarnation of Margaret Thatcher in “The Iron Lady” brings to mind Thatcher’s most famous quip, “there is no such thing as ‘society.’” None of the dwindling herd of Republican candidates has quoted her yet but they might as well considering their unremitting bashing of everything public. What defines a society is a [...]
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 [...]
Social democrats: Do they know where they are aiming? Do they have a notion of ‘good society’ worth fighting for? I doubt it. I believe they don’t. Not in the part of the world we inhabit, at any rate. Former Chancellor Schroeder is on record squinting at both Tony Blair’s and Gordon Brown’s estates and [...]
I am glad and honoured to talk today about the Left in Europe, and what is left of it. I would like to thank the French Socialist party in London, the Fabian Society and the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung for organizing this event. Before answering questions you may have about the current French political landscape, I would like [...]
Implicit in almost every discussion on public expenditure and revenue, and most virulently on the debate over deficit reduction, is the fallacy of public affordability. This fallacy is manifested, for example, in the argument in the United Kingdom that if university education is available to a large portion of the population, the public sector cannot [...]
Every generation has its measure of outcasts. There are people in each generation assigned to the outcast status because a “generation change” must mean some significant change in life conditions and life demands likely to force realities to depart from expectations implanted by the conditions-quo-ante. These changes devalue the skills they trained and promoted, and [...]
Like it or not: we live in capitalism. While Europe is tripping from crisis to crisis, even the most simple-minded can understand that this means capital markets are in charge. The equilibrium in the markets for goods and services depends on decisions made by investors who seek to maximize their financial returns under the constraint [...]
The Modern Gulf States, such as Dubai, are ’Thatcher Paradise’. In Dubai ‘there is no such thing as society’. Dubai, instead, is one of the real-existing authoritarian market societies of today, according to Syed Ali in his Dubai. Gilded Cage (Yale University Press, 2010). Dubai’s limitless consumers culture attracts people from all over the world. [...]
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