A conservatism is spreading that the Tories can’t fathom | John Harris | Comment is free | The Guardian. A month or so ago, when the public’s opposition to any intervention in Syria was revealed, the stock explanation of their views was pretty simple – boiling down to Iraq, the unhinged premiership
Continue readingAuthor: geofftkennedy
Parchment in the Fire: Smith and Hayek on the Labour Market
Over the past few decades, the work of Adam Smith has been enlisted into the neoliberal cause. His casual reference to the ‘invisible hand’ has permeated popular discourse in a way that implies that it is the theoretical cornerstone of his political economy; like a kind of sophisticated doctrine. Indeed,
Continue readingParchment in the Fire: Book to read – From the Great Transformation to the Great Financialization
Reblogged from Real-World Economics Review Blog: from Maria Alejandra Madi and the WEA Pedagogy Blog In her new book, Kari Polanyi Levitt considers the insights of her father Karl Polanyi’s classic The Great Transformation to propose a challenging discussion on the contemporary global financial crisis in the perspective of the financialization
Continue readingParchment in the Fire: Portugal: Local polls to test government austerity policies
Reblogged from Revolting Europe: Portugal is to go to the polls Sunday in what will represent a test for the brutal policies of austerity of the ruling right-wing coalition led by prime minister Passos Coelho. The international media is downplaying the significance of this local poll, which comes two weeks
Continue readingParchment in the Fire: Greece’s democracy in danger, warns Demos, as Greek reservists call for coup | World news | theguardian.com
Athens riot police fire tear gas at an anti-fascist protest calling for action against the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party following a rapper’s murder. Photo: Milos Bicanski/Getty No country has displayed more of a “backslide in democracy” than Greece, the British thinktank Demos has said in a study highlighting the crisis-plagued
Continue readingParchment in the Fire: Merkel’s Victory, Everyone’s Loss: The Burden Of German Mercantilism On Europe
Merkel’s Victory, Everyone’s Loss: The Burden Of German Mercantilism On Europe. John Weeks The electoral victory of Angela Merkel brings bad news to the rest of Europe. Without doubt it means the continuation of the national economic policies that have all the other euro zone countries suffering from recession. While
Continue readingParchment in the Fire: Democratic constitutions a ‘barrier’ to neo-liberal ‘reforms’
Check out @EurozoneCrisis’s Tweet: https://twitter.com/EurozoneCrisis/status/383338023402090496 Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Austerity, Democracy, Eurozone Crisis, neoliberalism
Continue readingParchment in the Fire: What now for the German SPD?
Check out @SocialEurope’s Tweet: https://twitter.com/SocialEurope/status/383374841187139584 Filed under: Uncategorized
Continue readingParchment in the Fire: Parchment in the Fire 2013-09-26 10:34:17
Reblogged from Pluto Press – Independent Progressive Publishing: Jack Rasmus, author of Obama’s Economy: Recovery for the Few, has published a new article entitled From ‘Taper Tantrum’ & ‘Token Taper’ to ‘Taper Tomorrow’: Fed Policy in Crisis. In his article, Rasmus explains the potential crisis facing the Federal Reserve: This past week
Continue readingParchment in the Fire: "Golden Dawn’s rise signals breakdown of the Greek state’s authority." – Richard Seymour
Reblogged from Pluto Press – Independent Progressive Publishing: Richard Seymour, author of the upcoming Against Austerity (Pluto, 2014), has written an article for the Guardian about the emergence of the far right in Greece. For more on Greek austerity and politics, check out Crucible of Resistance: Greece, the Eurozone & the World Economic Crisis
Continue readingParchment in the Fire: Why have the Irish not revolted?
Reblogged from Sráid Marx: The defeat of the opposition to the property tax and the ability of the Government to impose a second Croke Park austerity deal might lead many to conclude that resistance to austerity has been defeated. Even before this many have commented that while Greece has witnessed
Continue readingParchment in the Fire: Is game theory nothing but a fable?
Reblogged from Real-World Economics Review Blog: from Lars Syll One of the world’s most renowned game theorists – Ariel Rubinstein – gives his — affirmative — answer in this interview (emphasis added): What are the applications of game theory for real life? That’s a central question: Is game theory useful in a concrete sense
Continue readingParchment in the Fire: Theorizing Social Democracy
I’ve started reading The Theory of Social Democracy, by Thomas Meyer. The book was initially published in German in 2005 and was published in English in 2007, just before the financial meltdown and the onset of the Eurozone crisis. Meyer is professor of political science at Dortmund as well as
Continue readingParchment in the Fire: German capitalism – a success story?
Reblogged from Michael Roberts Blog: The German election has produced a victory for right-wing German Chancellor Mrs Angela Merkel, the best result for her party since 1990. However, the existing coalition of Merkel’s Christian Democrat Union (CDU), the Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU) and the small Free Democrats (FDP) cannot
Continue readingParchment in the Fire: The Norwegian National Election: Europe’s Most Leftist Government Defeated by Right-Wing Coalition | The Bullet No. 883
The Norwegian National Election: Europe’s Most Leftist Government Defeated by Right-Wing Coalition | The Bullet No. 883. The red-green coalition government in Norway, whose political platform when it took power in 2005 was called the most progressive in Europe, experienced a bitter defeat in the country’s parliamentary election on 9
Continue readingParchment in the Fire: An Adjunct Tragedy | The Nation
An Adjunct Tragedy | The Nation. The proletarianization of higher education, according to the associate general counsel of the United Steel Workers Union, has now claimed a life. In a moving op-ed published in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Daniel Kovalik, wrote this week of Margaret Mary Vojtko, a French teacher at
Continue readingParchment in the Fire: On Panitch & Gindin and American decline
Reblogged from LBO News from Doug Henwood: These are comments I delivered at a panel on The Making of Global Capitalism, by Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin, at the Rethinking Marxism conference, held at the University of Massachusetts–Amherst, on September 20, 2013. I interviewed them about the book here. I want to start
Continue readingParchment in the Fire: Wrestling with Democracy
Wrestling with Democracy is an ambitious, historical examination of the changes in voting systems across a large number of Western liberal democracies over the course of the twentieth century that argues that ‘most major voting system reforms in the twentieth-century west have been intimately linked to larger social struggles over
Continue readingParchment in the Fire: The reason for the depth and duration of the downturn is far too simple for most economists to understand
Reblogged from Real-World Economics Review Blog: from Dean Baker Many economists and business writers view the duration and severity of the downturn as being a mystery. They argue that it has something to do with the financial crisis, although the exact nature of the relationship is often not quite clear,
Continue readingParchment in the Fire: New Political Challenge to Austerity Parties Formed
Reblogged from The Working Class Heroes: The Anti Austerity Alliance will challenge the austerity parties, Labour, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, in next year’s local elections. After a meeting of activists from the Campaign Against the Property Tax and Austerity, in the Gresham on Saturday, the Anti Austerity Alliance was
Continue reading