General – Page 319 – Boadicea's Chariot

I am lucky. In this neck of the woods there are quite a few independent bookshops, each doing a wonderful job and something slightly different. I guess to keep going as a bookshop these days there has to be something ‘extra’ that is not available from the on-line alternatives. Continue reading “Independent Book shops”

B—-y cynic!

The meek shall inherit the Earth, but not its mineral rights.
J. Paul Getty

Goodnight everyone, sleep well.

Straws in the Wind

Empires do not collapse in one cataclysmic event. Rather, death creeps up on them in a series of incremental setbacks, so slowly that most of those living within the walls remain unaware of their growing frailty, their complacency and decadence making the probable end inevitable. Though external enemies may hasten decline, they cannot strike fatally when the empire is at the height of its power, but must wait until that power wanes as the system on which it has been built is superseded by another. We live now in such a time. The enemies of American style capitalism, whether they be Muslims or others, need only wait.

Both America and its British satellite are destined to social fragmentation and economic decline because of two aspects of globalisation: migration and the attachment to ‘free’ trade and movement of capital. Voices are raised in awareness, but they are of a minority. Two recent books, ‘The End of the Free Market’ by Ian Bremmer, and ‘Free Trade Doesn’t Work’ by Ian Fletcher, both authors being American and pro-capitalist, warn of impending doom, but the majority of economists bury their heads in trusted models.

William J Barber began the prologue to his book ‘A History of Economic Thought’ with the question “Why should the history of economics be studied?” To me, the answer is plain: those who do not know their history are likely to repeat its mistakes. Modern theorists such as Bremmer and Fletcher are reminiscent of earlier observers like Adam Smith and David Ricardo who so effectively criticised mercantile thinking that preceded the capitalist system. Continue reading “Straws in the Wind”