ALEX HALL is disgusted by the misuse of ‘emotional narratives’ to justify uninformed geo-political prejudice
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Illusions of the Ponzi circus
WILL PODMORE takes issue with a faulty analysis of capitalist crisis that cannot see the wood for the trees
BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATERS: Farmers have parked their tractors on a small bridge over a highway in Frankfurt, Germany on January 26 2024
SUE TURNER welcomes a thoughtful, engaging book that lays bare the economic realities of global waste management
JOHN GREEN welcomes an insider account of the achievements and failures of the transition to democracy in Portugal
SIMON PARSONS applauds an imaginative and absorbing updating of Strindberg’s classic
PETER MASON is enthralled by an assembly of objects, ancient and modern, that have lain in the mud of London’s river
MICK McSHANE rubs shoulders with Mod legend Steve Craddock and joins in with the joyous Glasgow choir
DENNIS BROE sifts out the ideological bias of the newest TV series offerings, and picks out what to see, and what to avoid
You always hurt the one you love: central banks and the murder of capitalism
Bernard Connolly
Unicorn, £30
BERNARD CONNOLLY is the excellent economist who wrote the brilliant critique of the euro, The Rotten Heart Of Europe. In this fine book, he analyses what he calls “the global Ponzi scheme” that is present-day capitalism.
He acknowledges that “there has been extractive behaviour (what Marxists would call exploitation) on a massive scale... What has happened in Western economies in this century in terms of financial crises and massive inequalities of income and particularly, wealth, can appear to validate Marxist predictions.”
As he notes, Marx believed that crisis was inherent in the nature of capitalism and wanted the crisis to be resolved by instituting a socialist system. Friedrich von Hayek, by contrast, believed that recurrent crises in capitalism were caused not by the nature of private property but by monetary mismanagement, and wanted crises to be resolved in a way that preserved capitalism.
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WILL PODMORE recommends an excellent and useful introduction to a lesser-known giant of the scientific revolution in Britain
WILL PODMORE is enthralled by the convincing case that guilds of Islamic craftsmen were responsible for the European gothic style
WILL PODMORE is intrigued by a study the British ruling class that follows statistical analysis with totally inadequate proposals for change
WILL PODMORE welcomes a demonstration of the incomparable virtues of rail travel, and the political obstacles to realising its potential
