This is my third blog on Branko Milanovic’s ‘The Global Transformation’, which suggests I’m both enjoying reading it and finding doing so challenging and rewarding. My first comments have to do with his claim that we have entered what he calls a new era of national market liberalism. In four areas, he contends, there is… Read More »
My last blog addressed Branko Milanovic’s evidence-based statement that the ruling class in countries like the USA has taken on a new look – a fusion of the professional-managerial class and the top capitalists (see his ‘The Great Global Transformation’). In this second effort to draw on Milanovic’s thesis, I sketch his analysis of the… Read More »
This blog draws on Branko Milanovic’s new book entitled ‘The Great Global Transformation’, an impressive volume that offers an evidence-based assessment of the present state of geopolitics. My immediate focus in on his concept of ‘homoploutia’. This is his way of articulating the emergence of a new ruling class in ‘the new capitalism’. He notes… Read More »
The ‘Epstein scandal’ has understandably and rightly led to a focus on the sexual abuse of young women. But there is more to say about this – if I might deploy a technical term once more – ‘greedy bastard’. There will be more information leaked later I’m sure, but we already have some to be… Read More »
Last year (16/6/23) I blogged about the fact, and dwelt on the ramifications of, the intrusion of private providers into the NHS, not least via general practice. I focused on Operose, formed in 2020 when its American parent company Centene Corporation brought together its UK subsidiaries, The Practice Group and Simply Health. In a nutshell,… Read More »
I have long adopted Chomsky’s formula: capital buys power to make policy. I was interested therefore to read a new report ‘Politics for Sale: Analysing Twenty-One years of UK Political Donations’ by Tom Mills and colleagues. The report draws on official data from the Electoral Commission plus data from Companies House, Wikidata and the Parliamentary… Read More »
In what amounts to a fairly prolific series of blogs condemning the Conservative assault on the English National health Service (NHS), I have bemoaned their clandestine advance planning, their ideological subversion, the calculated politics of austerity from 2010-2020, and the two Health and Social Care Acts of 2012 and 2022 (the first of which left… Read More »
Gordon Brown has much to answer for, but he was not Blair. Politicians’ autobiographies can be expected to comprise a litany of excuses. I’ve just read his My Life, Our Times, in which he seems surprised that he could not accomplish more of what – I think – he genuinely wanted to accomplish. I’m with… Read More »
Another quick explanation of the technical phrase ‘greedy bastards’ might be in order here: in my published writings and my blogs this denotes those transnational (Bauman calls them ‘nomads’) ‘capital monopolists’ (financiers, major shareholders, CEOs of multinational corporations etc) who buy power from leading national politicians to make policy in their own interests, namely, the… Read More »
This is my 400th blog, another milestone of sorts. In the past I’ve ruminated on the pluses and minuses of blogging, but I’ve little new to add, so here’s a quick one on the companion rewards of buying power by donating to the Conservative Party. You get cultural kudos as well as favourable policy shifts.… Read More »