Socialdem. 21st Century

Another video of Robert Skidelsky, a British economic historian and the author of the best biography of John Maynard Keynes in existence. Skidelsky’s Keynesian economic ideas have also converged with Post Keynesian economics over the years.Here he gives lecture 1 of a series at the University of Warwick on economics. This lecture is an analysis of the financial crisis of 2008 and how orthodox neoclassical economics brought the world to this catastrophe.[embedded content]

Robert Skidelsky, author of Keynes: The Return of the Master (London, rev. edn. 2010), speaks below in an interview on the state of neoclassical economics, banks, and inequality. Unfortunately, I don’t think Skidelsky sees the how rotten the current EU is and the merits of a possible Brexit, but apart from this there is much of interest here.[embedded content]

This is lecture 10 of Steve Keen’s course at Kingston University in the UK. This lecture concerns the history of money and the certain myths of fractional reserve banking.[embedded content]

The myth is this: (1) Women, when they do the same job or same type of work as men, get paid on average 77% less in their (i) hourly wages or (ii) weekly or yearly earnings (when they work the same amount of time), and (2) this hourly/weekly/annual wage gap is caused by a systemic, institutionalised, and misogynist wage discrimination against women in the West. Christina Hoff Sommers discusses this below.[embedded content][embedded content]First, one must distinguish between (1) full-time,...

It is in the news here and here.And people wonder why the French National Front did so well in the first round of French regional elections.We now learn that disgraceful far left anarchists are inciting the migrants to violence.Is this the future of Europe? Nations with no control over borders, and Europe filled up with large numbers of migrant camps, with people living as an underclass and with serious breakdown of law and order, and governments unwilling or powerless do to anything?At some...

Note well: Chomsky is a radical man of the left and he (1) condemns hate speech laws, (2) the idea that the government should determine what is history, and (3) laws against Holocaust denial. Why? Because is a radical defender of free speech, the most precious foundation of a free society.But the regressive left these days would no doubt subject him to the most vicious abuse for this sort of defence of freedom of speech, because the regressive left often opposes free speech. Could there be...

It may not even be a problem at all.That is, in light of the massive revolutionary effects of automation and robotics that is happening as we speak, as we can see here, here and here.It is potentially so revolutionary it is rightly being dubbed the “fourth industrial revolution.”The warning signs have been here for years: e.g., a 2013 Oxford study suggests that about 47% of human jobs will be lost to AI by 2030. First, working class and then middle class jobs will be hit.When, for example,...

The Swiss global financial services company UBS has put out a report called “The Future of Europe” on 13 January, 2016: “The Future of Europe,” UBS, Chief Investment Office, January 2016. If you want to see one example of a neoliberal vision for the future of Europe, read it.At one level, there is some very interesting analysis in it and at least the recognition that the EU needs some central fiscal policy.But, in its other economic proposals, it makes horrifying reading. Because of the...

An International Monetary Fund study is gushing over the benefits of 1.1 million new migrants in Germany.Why, you ask?Once you put aside the minor point about a temporary boost to GDP, we get to the real issue: according to the pro-business IMF, Germany can get migrants into jobs in the coming years by ramping up “labor-market flexibility” – which is nothing but neoliberal code for smashing up what’s left of German labour market regulations and trade unions, since unhinged neoliberal...

Quite simple. He’s in favour of the UK staying in the EU, even when a heroic wing of his own Labour party is anti-EU and wants out, because they correctly see that the EU is a corporate tyranny and threat to democracy and left-wing economics.Democracy and the EU are incompatible, and more and more people in Europe agree.Meanwhile, over at the European parliament, it’s left to the leader of the UK’s right-wing, populist Thatcherite party to complain that the EU is anti-democratic. Poor old...