economics
Italy’s Five Star Movement – is this what The End of History looks like?
Tweet In 1992, Francis Fukayama predicted in The End of History that the end of the Cold War would impend not only an era of triumphant liberal-democratic capitalism, but one where political evolution had reached its final form. Western democracy, he argued, was the best form of state organisation practically achievable by humans. The folly [...] more »
The Failings of Global Aid- is it Time to Make Charity History?
Tweet Walking by a lake you see a child drowning. There is no one else around- what should you do? The clear moral answer is to jump in and pull the child out without sparing a thought for potential inconvenience. It has long been argued that the same moral reasoning applies to world poverty- we [...] more »
Time to end the war in Afghanistan?
Tweet Yesterday was the deadliest day so far for the United States of its 10-year war in Afghanistan, as thirty members of the American special forces were killed when the Taliban shot down a Chinook helicopter. That brings the US death toll since the start of the conflict to over 1,000. The UK has lost over [...] more »
Exposing economic literacy as orthodoxy
Tweet I suspect that the tenor of the debate around the economy is going to take an ugly turn with the entry of various independents into the electoral race over the next week or two. Prior to the dissolution of the Dáil, there was the grotesque spectacle of Fine Gael and Labour facilitating the passage [...] more »
Growth or deficit: “Economics is the method. The object is to change the soul”
Tweet There’s a good piece in The Guardian from Julian Glover who says, yes, the Coalition does want cuts for ideological reasons, but then what of it? Yet ministers, by and large, hesitate before admitting this. Liberal Democrats worry about scaring their voters. Conservatives aren’t sure the country will understand their big idea. It’s easier [...] more »
What Ireland did right (and what it needs to do)…
Tweet It is difficult to believe now that one country recently sent 19 delegations to Ireland to study how well our economy was managed. The revelation that our model of economic management featured positively in political and economic discussion in countries including Estonia, Greece and Scotland may also come as a surprise. As we survey [...] more »
Euro crisis: The Hollow Euro
Tweet Twice in the past century Germans have learnt, the hard way, the value of sound money. Between 1921 and 1923 the Weimar Republic, under the strain of massive WW1 reparations, fell into a hyper-inflationary death spiral. The Mark plunged in value, measured against Gold Standard Marks it fell from a ratio of 1:1 to [...] more »
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Books
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Spare us a phoney row about racism, we’ve got enough on
Tweet A silly media row about racism just had to figure in the riots’ post mortem. Was the Tudor history expert David Starkey racist on Newsnight when he said: The whites have become black. A particular sort of violent, destructive, nihilistic, gangster culture has become the fashion. And black and white, boy and girl, operate [...] read our review »
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Hearing the Other Voice from the Grave: Why Should we Listen to David Ervine’s Stories?
Tweet Ed Moloney’s Voices from the Grave: Two Men’s War in Ireland has received considerable attention in the press and in the public realm since its publication earlier this year. Although the book relates the experiences of the Provisional IRA’s Brendan Hughes and the PUP/UVF’s David Ervine, much of the discussion has focused on Hughes’ [...] read our review » -
Ex- Combatants, Religion and Peace in Northern Ireland: Book Review
Tweet It’s probably safe to assume that most people in Northern Ireland would not associate religion either with ‘peace’, or with ‘ex-combatants.’ But a new book by John Brewer, David Mitchell and Gerard Leavey, Ex-Combatants, Religion and Peace in Northern Ireland: The Role of Religion in Transitional Justice (Palgrave, 2013) fruitfully brings the three together [...] read our review »
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