Freedom has been the ultimate battle cry of liberal politics. It has shaped the battle field from the French revolution, the American war of independence,…
“The more laws and commands there are, the more thieves and robbers there will be.” Lao Tzu Information leaked in the Panama Papers about the use…
When we find ourselves in need of a miracle there is a simple formula that can be applied: “Don’t panic, take stock, and do the…
The verdict and sentence on Radovan Karadjic, forty years imprisonment, has exposed persistent deep divisions in Bosnia. For Bosnian Muslims, Karadjic is a monster who…
The infamous Conservative March 2016 budget was to capture ‘the next generations’ and control their cognitive map.
Separating economics and politics is impossible, so it’s important to point out that the misguided notion of austerity is not just killing people, but also…
It is not often you hear of a priest who worried the former British Prime Minister dubbed ‘The Iron Lady’. Margret Thatcher called Donald Reeves a ‘very dangerous man’ due to his support of the oppressed and his refusal to see foreign policy in terms of black and white.
Private institutions who sell education as a commodity for profit are putting their interests above that of children. This corrosive shift is not what children, teachers or the world needs. Economist Prabhat Patnaik explains how real education is being deconstructed.
The night has been lit up with the red white and blue of the French flag, which, projected on landmarks across the occident, showed solidarity…
The late fourteen hundreds saw the scramble of enlightened countries towards conquest of what was once known as “the new world”. Fuelled by the righteous…
Ross Ashcroft speaks to Anat Admati, Finance and Economics professor at Stanford School of Business. She is author of The Bankers’ New Clothes and gives a truthful view into the banking sector and the damage it has caused to the real economy.
David Graeber, anthropologist and author of Debt: The First 5000 years, explains in this ‘Comment is Free’ video that ‘if the government balances its books, it becomes impossible for the private sector to do the same. And, he claims, this inevitable debt often gets landed on those in society least able to pay it back’.
In the first episode of our new podcast series Thinking Differently, Ross Ashcroft speaks to Oscar winning filmmaker and educator Lord David Puttnam.
Currently we are taxed on what we produce, perhaps it would be more progressive to tax land instead of our labour?
In this Renegade Inc. talk show at Camp Kotok in Maine, Ross Ashcroft speaks to Matt Tyrmand from the NGO American Transparency which focuses on government accountability….
Why do we celebrate one person’s right to a job for life when they never interviewed for the position asks Matthew Lacey.
Despite their bed-hopping antics, the most important legacy of the Bloomsbury Group is what can be achieved by people who are prepared to challenge convention in pursuit of a better world, argues Mark Braund.
Make no mistake, the purposeful exclusion of growing numbers from economic activity is an integral aspect of the economic system. The argument that there is…
Making a job, not taking a job means so much more than simply turning your back on employment and setting up on your own. It is more a way of life, a new distinctive multiple income stream lifestyle. It requires a new way of thinking, and not relying on big business or government to put our best interests first.
We need a more sophisticated debate about business and how it impacts on wider society, writes Mark Braund.
Anyone who believes in the possibility of a better world should support Labour leadership hopeful Jeremy Corbyn, even if they’re not convinced by his traditional left-wing agenda, argues Mark Braund.
In the ancient world, empire building usually entailed the territorial conquest of one self-identifying group by another. Typically it involved exploitation based on racial or…
In this extract from the documentary Four Horsemen, Professor Michael Hudson explains how the German Debt was cancelled in 1947.
If people feel alienated when they are denied access to decent economic opportunities, then it must be the case that an inclusive economy would have…
The chances of reducing the number of lives ruined by war and other forms of social violence depend on our ability to identify the root…
Ross Ashcroft interviews Ann Pettifor director of Policy Research in Macroeconomics, PRIME and fellow at New Economics Foundation. They discuss Ann’s 2003 prediction of the…
Changes on the scale and complexity outlined in this book will require global coordination if they are to be effectively implemented. The power of vested…
In 1970, ninety per cent of financial flows were used to finance trade or investment in the real economy; only ten per cent was speculative….
Watch our ‘Comment is Free’ piece with The Guardian.
Perhaps surprisingly, the term ‘military-industrial complex’ was coined by a former soldier. On the occasion of his farewell address to the nation after serving two…
Steve Keen Interview - Part 1: In the aftermath of the Conservatives’ surprise victory in the UK, Steve Keen tells us why he thinks this…
The cognitive map that has been put in place by our schools, universities and our media does not encourage us to question accepted norms… instead there is apathy.
Apart from supine politicians, the greatest friends of the elite are those who control much of the mass media. The elite have proved exceptionally adept…
The principal factor driving people to get involved in terrorism is a strong sense of injustice, both at a personal level and in respect of…
The following list is neither definitive nor exhaustive, but it summarises the main points of the book and is provided here as a starting point…
Why don’t we look at the root causes of the Baltimore riots…?
The wider public is depressingly disinterested in the workings of the economy; nowhere is this more evident than in their ignorance of the monetary system….
Ed Milliband’s conference speech in Liverpool (2011) was typical of any populist career politician. The central theme was “I’m different so you can trust me…
What we have ignored is what citizens can do with the importance of real involvement - versus just having somebody in Washington make a rule.
Elinor Ostrom
At issue is who shall rule the world: the emerging 1% as a financial oligarchy, or elected governments. The two sets of aims are antithetical: rising living standards & national independence, or a renting economy, austerity & international dependency.
Michael Hudson
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
Groucho Marx
There is an accepted view in politics and the media that roughly equates to this: a professional class of ‘experts’ are far better at commentary…
Since 1984 (surely an appropriate year) while the elderly have grown their wealth in nominal terms, the young are much worse off both in inflation-adjusted terms, as well as nominal terms(pretty hard to believe given that the money supply has expanded eightfold in the intervening years). So why are the elderly doing over fifty times better than the young when they were only doing ten times better before?
Look around. Oil companies guzzle down the billions in profits. Billionaires pay a lower tax rate than their secretaries, and Wall Street CEOs, the same ones that direct our economies and destroyed millions of jobs still strut around Congress, no shame, demanding favours, and acting like we should thank them. Does anyone here have a problem with that?
Elizabeth Warren
UK politics is dominated by middle England pre-occupations, there are vaguely hysterical fears of the UK having a ‘Depardieu moment’, and capital flight in case of…
A president is a high-level official who is elected to carry out a function. He is not a king, not a god. He is not the witch doctor of a tribe who knows everything. He is a civil servant. I think the ideal way of living is to live like the vast majority of people whom we attempt to serve and represent.
José 'Pepe' Mujica
I’ve lost count of the times I’ve used the words ‘elite’ and ‘minority’ in this series on unearned wealth, but I’m certainly not going to…
The idea that society can set up a single "independent" committee of men to make far reaching decisions about the quantity of money needed by a nation of sixty four million people, all engaged in varied and complex activities - is bordering on authoritarian.
Ann Pettifor
We now live in a nation where doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, governments destroy freedom, the press destroys information, religion destroys morals, and our banks destroy the economy.
Chris Hedges
Four Horsemen
As Gillian Tett of The Financial Times observes, “Most societies have an elite and the elite try to stay in power; and the way they…
Education Seen in a longer timeframe, education is best imparted from kindergarten and up. In this regard it can be said that true education is…
Four Horsemen
Former Chief of Staff to US Secretary of State Colin Powell, Lawrence Wilkerson is a retired United States Army Colonel and Visiting Professor of Government and…
In Britain the term “Lost Generation” was originally used for those who died in World War I. People mourned that “the best of the nation…
The Victorian age was one of great progress and great folly, and particularly a time of great ideas. While we scoff at buttoned down Victorian…
Hierarchy v Self-responsibility Disintegrating hierarchy will eventually be replaced by self-responsibility - but we are not there yet. Combine a lack of strong principled leadership…