This article appeared in a special, June 2020 edition of the Real-World Economics Review that majored on The Inequality Crisis. Today as the world endures the crisis of a global pandemic, “an old order is ending in convulsions”. So writes Rebecca Spang, historian of the French revolution in The Atlantic (Spang, 2020). In the 1790s,
Inequality and Morbid Symptoms of a Financialised System Read More »
As published on Progressive International on Monday, 11 May, 2020 She said, “My name’s Flo, and you’re on the right track But look here, daddy, I wear furs on my back So if you want to have fun in this man’s land Let Lincoln and Jackson start shaking hands I reached in my pocket, and
This note was published by Spain’s El Pais on 4 May, 2020 Central banks have adopted extraordinary, historically unprecedented measures to prevent this pandemic collapsing the globalised financial system. Trillions of dollars, euros and yen have been created ‘out of thin air’. As a result there is a fear of inflation – the erosion of
This essay appeared in The Correspondent on 17th April, 2020. The health of our domestic economies and the planet is tied to market forces that are largely invisible and little understood. As Covid-19 shakes the foundations of the world economy, rather than hope to restore it, let’s work to replace it. I was born and
“The economic mechanism of Europe is jammed.” – J M Keynes [1] The Dutch finance minister Wopka Hoekstra is somewhat brazen. Like his German counterpart, he caused consternation across the Union by rejecting a ‘Coronabond’ – a scheme for raising finance for EU countries tackling the coronavirus crisis; a scheme that would have lowered the
We are living through terrifying times. The greatest threat to humanity stems not just from a virulent superbug, but as scary – the response to it. In Britain, as in the US, policy action is dictated by an ultra-nationalist government, which while pretending to “take back control” remains committed to a free-for-all for the owners
Capital subordinated to the interests of labour (society) Read More »
13th March, 2020 Dear Mr. Bailey, Your predecessor in a speech in 2019 outlined the deficiencies of the International Monetary and Financial System (IMFS). The IMFS was cobbled together after the collapse of Bretton Woods and the 1971 Nixon Shock, and is governed effectively by Wall St. and the City of London – ‘citizens of
My letter to the Governor of the Bank of England on his appointment. Read More »
My review of Karl Polanyi’s The Great Transformation appeared in Nature magazine on 13 December, 2019. From the introduction to the editor’s choice of seven books: “From planetary change to geopolitical recalibrations, 2019 has been convulsive. The year saw millions worldwide protesting against governmental inaction on the cascading crises in the global environment. Anxiety over
The market for dystopia – my choice of a book for our time. Read More »
The following hastily written piece appeared in Left Foot Forward on 25th September, 2019. The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics will be 50 years old next month. One thing unites all its winners, bar one: they have all been male. This is not just an affront to equality. In overlooking brilliant female economists, the Swedish
How the sexist ‘Nobel Prize’ in economics has warped the world Read More »
This article is a slightly edited excerpt form Ann Pettifor’s forthcoming book ‘The Case for the Green New Deal‘ (Verso, 2019). We have been warned by climate scientists that to avoid the most dangerous impacts of climate breakdown and global heating, then humanity collectively has (starting from 1870) a ‘carbon budget’ of about 3,200 billion
