JAMIE BRITTON recommends this fine analysis of the architectural, ecological and infrastructural destruction of the Gaza Strip
Latest editorial
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
NADIA JOSEPH welcomes a survey of the role that TV played in the debate over apartheid and race relations in Britain
New releases from Rosa Walton, Paul McCartney, and Aidan Thorne & Jason Ball
RON JACOBS welcomes a sharp, intelligent and witty exposé of the corruption and right-wing politics that have taken over international professional football
ALEX HALL welcomes the memoir of a prominent British academic of Ugandan/Zimbabwean heritage
JONATHAN TAYLOR reviews a collection of short stories wherein news - and the absence of news - changes lives
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.
Similar stories
MARTIN GRAHAM welcomes, with reservations, a scholarly addition to the unfinished business of understanding how capital works on a world scale
In Part 4 of her look at the Chinese revolution JENNY CLEGG addresses the relationship between the Peasant Movement and the National Movement
From summit to summit, imperialist companies and governments cut, delay or water down their commitments, warn the Communist Parties of Britain, France, Portugal and Spain and the Workers Party of Belgium in a joint statement on Cop30
Starmer sabotaged Labour with his second referendum campaign, mobilising a liberal backlash that sincerely felt progressive ideals were at stake — but the EU was then and is now an entity Britain should have nothing to do with, explains NICK WRIGHT