The Revolt was precipitated by the government’s heavy-handed attempts to increase taxes and cut public services, in order to repay the debt which had been incurred by the speculative losses of the bankers, who continued to pay themselves massive bonuses. The government actions affected some of the poor more than others and the wealthy, [...]

So far as the recent American elections were concerned, Tomasky may have been right that the free market shareholder primacy ideology was the only big coherent picture then on offer; more socially oriented policies lacked coherence. But the next big theme is in sight and may well shift free market shareholder primacy, with its [...]

The Economist, an increasingly dogmatic apologist for the free market ideology, invited for its current issue, six academic economists to identify how they thought the financial crisis had changed the subject of economics. The answer is not a lot. So far as methods of teaching and research are concerned, nothing has changed, or is likely [...]

The Hayek / Mises argument that any small step to the left leads inevitably to full on totalitarian socialism, might have had something going for it when the world was beset by Hitler, Stalin, and the fascist governments of Spain, Portugal and Southern America. And later, when national-socialism and fascism had become history, but communism [...]

The problem with economics is that it sometimes gives the impression of being practically useful. As an academic subject its great virtue is in training the mind, a component of what Newman referred to as a liberal education, in the same way as latin used to be. For some time the mind training role of [...]