Designed especially with Brown undergraduates in mind, but welcoming all members of the University and wider community, this seminar series meets in the weeks both before and after Election Day to analyze what’s truly at stake in this election. In the context of American history, contemporary global politics, and current issues in U.S. social, political, […]
The Euro’s Future Is Secure, But It May Not Be The One That We Expect
While the Greek crisis has occupied much attention in recent weeks, in terms of the Eurozone’s longevity, the Greek crisis will prove to be a sideshow. Greece’s threat to the Euro, once Finance Minister Schäuble’s ‘temporary exit’ was unveiled, was reduced to questioning whether a currency union ‘with exits’ is still a currency union? The […]
The SPD Has To Do More Than Enforce A Creditor’s Paradise In Europe
As I sat in my office at Brown University on December 16, 2014, an email popped into my inbox with the title “Herzlichen Glückwunsch – Sie sind der 1. Preisträger des Hans-Matthöfer-Preises für Wirtschaftspublizistik.” This was the award given by the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES), the research foundation closest to the German Social Democratic Party (SPD), and […]
The Return Of Class Politics In The UK
For David Cameron, cutting spending in a highly unequal society works because it doesn’t affect those who matter to him. This used to be called class politics. The prime minister’s speech at the lord mayor’s banquet last year was notable in part because its main message, that “we need to do more with less. Not just now, […]
Don’t Learn The Wrong Lesson If Europe Recovers
According to the European Commission the eurozone is on the mend and austerity policies are responsible. The first part of this statement is, we hope, supportable. The second is not and needs to be called-out. If the eurozone recovers and the lesson learned is that austerity worked, then we are, like Marx’s historical stooges, doomed […]
Austerity – The History of a Dangerous Idea
Governments today in both Europe and the United States have succeeded in casting government spending as reckless wastefulness that has made the economy worse. In contrast, they have advanced a policy of draconian budget cuts – austerity – to solve the financial crisis. We are told that we have all lived beyond our means and […]
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