centre right

300 results back to index


pages: 691 words: 203,236

Whiteshift: Populism, Immigration and the Future of White Majorities by Eric Kaufmann

4chan, Abraham Maslow, affirmative action, Amazon Mechanical Turk, anti-communist, anti-globalists, augmented reality, battle of ideas, behavioural economics, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Boris Johnson, Brexit referendum, British Empire, centre right, Chelsea Manning, cognitive dissonance, complexity theory, corporate governance, correlation does not imply causation, critical race theory, crowdsourcing, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, data science, David Brooks, deindustrialization, demographic transition, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, en.wikipedia.org, facts on the ground, failed state, fake news, Fall of the Berlin Wall, first-past-the-post, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, gentrification, Great Leap Forward, Haight Ashbury, Herbert Marcuse, illegal immigration, immigration reform, imperial preference, income inequality, it's over 9,000, Jeremy Corbyn, knowledge economy, knowledge worker, liberal capitalism, longitudinal study, Lyft, mass immigration, meta-analysis, microaggression, moral panic, Nate Silver, New Urbanism, Norman Mailer, open borders, open immigration, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, Overton Window, phenotype, postnationalism / post nation state, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Republic of Letters, Ronald Reagan, Scientific racism, Silicon Valley, Social Justice Warrior, statistical model, Steve Bannon, Steven Pinker, the built environment, the scientific method, The Wisdom of Crowds, transcontinental railway, twin studies, uber lyft, upwardly mobile, urban sprawl, W. E. B. Du Bois, Washington Consensus, white flight, working-age population, World Values Survey, young professional

The West is becoming less like homogeneous South Korea, where foreign policy and economic divisions dominate, and more like South Africa, where ethnicity is the main political division.89 The rise of anti-immigration parties in Western Europe presents challenges to the main centre-right and centre-left parties. After some hesitation, the centre right in most European countries has attempted to co-opt the populist right. This has paid off handsomely and placed centre-left parties on the back foot.90 From Norway to the Netherlands to Austria, the centre right has either entered into coalition with the populist right or tried to move onto its territory to win ownership of immigration and integration issues.91 In Austria, the centre-right ÖVP entered into coalition with Haider’s FPÖ after the latter’s 27 per cent showing in the election.

In Britain, notwithstanding May’s unpopularity, the Tories were seen as the party of Brexit, permitting them to absorb UKIP support, reducing the populist right from its 12.7 per cent showing in 2015 to just 1.8 per cent. In the Netherlands, Mark Rutte’s ‘Act normal or leave’ commercial burnished his anti-Muslim credentials, helping his centre-right VVD best Geert Wilders’ PVV in 2017. In Austria, 31-year-old Sebastian Kurz of the centre-right ÖVP positioned immigration and hostility to ‘parallel communities’ – a thinly veiled reference to Islam – at the centre of his message. This was a winning strategy. Kurz’s 24 per cent, combined with the FPÖ’s 21 per cent, easily allowed the ÖVP-FPÖ coalition to outdistance the Social Democrats’ 26 per cent.

‘We have erected a whole series of taboos that we cannot debate without being immediately described as incendiary,’ announced Laurent Wauquiez, aspiring leader of the French centre-right Les Républicains in October 2017. ‘The nation, massive immigration, identity, the transmission of values, Islamism.’12 Wauquiez’s attempt to steal the populist right’s clothing was a promising technique whose worth has been proven by the success of other centre-right leaders in capturing these voters, including Mark Rutte in the Netherlands, Sebastian Kurz in Austria and Theresa May in Britain. For our purposes, what jumps out is Wauquiez’s politicization of the term ‘taboo’, a frequent refrain of conservative politicians going back to Pim Fortuyn in the Netherlands and William Hague in Britain in the early 2000s.


pages: 323 words: 95,492

The Rise of the Outsiders: How Mainstream Politics Lost Its Way by Steve Richards

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Airbnb, banking crisis, battle of ideas, Bernie Sanders, Boris Johnson, Brexit referendum, call centre, centre right, collapse of Lehman Brothers, David Brooks, Dominic Cummings, Donald Trump, driverless car, Etonian, eurozone crisis, fake news, falling living standards, full employment, gentrification, high-speed rail, housing crisis, Jeremy Corbyn, low skilled workers, manufacturing employment, Martin Wolf, mass immigration, Neil Kinnock, obamacare, Occupy movement, post-truth, Ronald Reagan, Silicon Valley, Steve Bannon

In supporting two outsiders, the voters were rebelling against another grand coalition, another government tottering grandly. In contrast, the outsiders in Austria retained their ideological purity. The parties from the centre left and centre right became impure as they governed erratically, changing their positions on the refugee crisis and coming to terms with the aftermath of the financial crisis. This was not a time for grandeur in the grand coalition. Alliances between the main centre-right and centre-left parties in Europe were labelled ‘grand’ because they used to command mighty majorities: around 80 per cent of the electorate. The adjective was absurdly misplaced.

Similarly, social democrats in much of Europe lost support after the financial crash, without much debate as to why they were becoming unpopular. On the centre right there was also little ideological revisionism after the financial crash. Guiding assumptions about the role of government remained largely unchanged for decades. These assumptions were the dominant force in much of the Western world from the early 1980s, and were based around the virtues of the light-touch state. From the turn of the century, centre-right parties showed themselves to be fairly adaptable in terms of their support for social liberalism. But some of them continued to worship at the altar of the Reagan/Thatcher economic orthodoxies that took hold in the incomparably different circumstances of the early 1980s.

Democratic politics would benefit from a more robust debate between centre left and centre right, in the aftermath of the financial crash. The centre-left case for a Keynesian response to the 2008 financial crash was put much more confidently by a few newspaper columnists – Paul Krugman in The New York Times, Martin Wolf in the Financial Times, William Keegan in The Observer – than it was by politicians. The centre-left politicians, with their nervy eyes on the voters, could not find a way of explaining why a deficit could be addressed by more government borrowing. With the centre left in retreat, the centre right had much of the stage to itself and, in imposing an excess of spending cuts, made itself so unpopular that it gave space to those even further to the right, who put the case for government hyperactivity.


pages: 217 words: 35,662

Yoga Nidra Scripts 2: More Meditations for Effortless Relaxation, Rejuvenation and Reconnection by Tamara Verma

centre right, Mahatma Gandhi

Begin with awareness of the right hand Hello, right hand thumb Index finger Middle finger Ring finger Little finger Moving over to the left hand thumb Quick kiss or smile of attention to the index finger Middle finger Ring finger Little finger And now shift awareness to the right wrist Left wrist Right elbow Left elbow Right shoulder Left shoulder Hollow of the throat Travelling up to the back of the head near the top Crown of the head Eyebrow centre Right eyebrow Left eyebrow Right eye Left eye Right ear Left ear Right cheek Left cheek Tip of the nose Upper lip Lower lip Chin Hollow of the throat The heart centre Navel centre Right hip Left hip Right knee Left knee Right ankle Left ankle Right big toe Second toe Third toe Fourth toe Little toe Left big toe Second toe Third toe Fourth toe Little toe Awareness of the whole right side of the body The whole right side of the body, comforted by your attention Awareness of the whole left side of the body The whole left side of the body, comforted by your attention Awareness of the whole body together The whole body together The whole body together (pause) Held in the hug of your own loving attention.

Begin with awareness of the right side of the body Be aware of the right hand Right hand thumb Index finger Middle finger Ring finger Little finger Palm of the hand Back of the hand Right wrist Right lower arm Right elbow Right upper arm Right shoulder Moving over to the left side of the body Be aware of the left hand Left hand thumb Index finger Middle finger Ring finger Little finger Palm of the hand Back of the hand Left wrist Left lower arm Left elbow Left upper arm Left shoulder Steady awareness Moving up to the crown of the head Crown of the head Forehead Right temple Left temple Right eyebrow Left eyebrow Eyebrow centre Right eye Left eye Right ear Left ear Right cheek Left cheek Right nostril Left nostril Upper lip Lower lip Chin Throat centre Right collarbone Left collarbone Right side of the chest Left side of the chest Heart centre Navel Lower abdomen Move awareness back up to the crown of the head Back of the head Back of the neck Right shoulder blade Left shoulder blade Upper back Middle back Lower back Sacrum Right hip Right thigh Right knee Right lower leg Right ankle Right heel Sole of the foot Top of the foot Right big toe Second toe Third toe Fourth toe Fifth toe Steady awareness Move over to the left hip Left thigh Left knee Left lower leg Left ankle Left heel Sole of the foot Top of the foot Left big toe Second toe Third toe Fourth toe Fifth toe Be aware of the whole right side of the body (pause) The whole left side of the body (pause) The whole body together The whole body together The whole body together (long pause) Breath Awareness Now become aware of the navel.

Begin with awareness of the right hand Right hand thumb Index finger Middle finger Ring finger Little finger Sweeping awareness over to the left hand thumb Index finger Middle finger Ring finger Little finger Energizing the body, effortlessly, simply by moving awareness Move awareness over to the right wrist Left wrist Right elbow Left elbow Right shoulder Left shoulder Hollow of the throat Sweeping awareness to the back of the head near the top Crown of the head Eyebrow centre Right eyebrow Left eyebrow Right eye Left eye Right ear Left ear Right cheek Left cheek Tip of the nose Upper lip Lower lip Chin Hollow of the throat Heart centre Right side of the chest Heart centre Left side of the chest Heart centre Navel centre Lower abdomen Right hip Left hip Right knee Left knee Right ankle Left ankle Right big toe Second toe Third toe Fourth toe Little toe Left big toe Second toe Third toe Fourth toe Little toe Be aware of the whole right side of the body As you sweep awareness through the whole right side of the body, you sweep energy through the whole right side of the body (pause) Be aware of the whole left side of the body As you sweep awareness through the whole left side of the body, you sweep energy through the whole left side of the body (pause) Now be aware of the whole body together The whole body together Awareness diffused over the whole body, infusing energy through the whole body.


pages: 263 words: 40,886

Yoga Nidra Scripts: 22 Meditations for Effortless Relaxation, Rejuvenation and Reconnection by Tamara Verma

centre right

Sweep awareness over to the right hand The right hand thumb Tip of the index finger Tip of the middle finger Tip of the ring finger Tip of the little finger Drawing over to the left hand thumb – energetic current, beam of light, or another way of experiencing Tip of the index finger Tip of the middle finger Tip of the ring finger Tip of the little finger Over to the right wrist Then the left wrist Right elbow Left elbow Connecting energy Right shoulder Left shoulder Hollow of the throat Back of the head near the top Crown of the head Eyebrow centre Right eyebrow Left eyebrow Right eye Left eye Right ear Left ear Right cheek Left cheek Tip of the nose Upper lip Lower lip Tip of the chin Hollow of the throat Heart centre Right side of the chest Heart centre Left side of the chest Heart centre Navel centre Tip of the tailbone Right hip Left hip Right knee Left knee Sweeping energy Right ankle Left ankle Right big toe Second toe Third toe Fourth toe Little toe Left big toe Second toe Third toe Fourth toe Little toe Now the whole right side of the body The whole left side of the body The whole body together The whole body together The whole body together (pause) Welcome the whole body of energetic connections, all at once.

Move awareness over to the right hand Right hand thumb Index finger Middle finger Ring finger Little finger Physical awareness, point of light, energy or other experience Moving over to the left hand thumb Index finger Middle finger Ring finger Little finger And now over to the right wrist Left wrist Right elbow Left elbow Sweeping awareness, sweeping energy Right shoulder Left shoulder Hollow of the throat Back of the head near the top Crown of the head Eyebrow centre Right eyebrow Left eyebrow Right eye Left eye Right ear Left ear Right cheek Left cheek Tip of the nose Upper lip Lower lip Chin Hollow of the throat Heart centre Right side of the chest Heart centre Left side of the chest Heart centre Navel centre Tip of the tailbone Right hip Left hip Right knee Left knee Right ankle Left ankle Right big toe Second toe Third toe Fourth toe Little toe Left big toe Second toe Third toe Fourth toe Little toe The whole right side of the body The whole left side of the body The whole body together The whole body together The whole body together Breath Awareness Now become aware of the breath in the nostrils.

(pause) Float awareness over to the right hand Welcome the right hand thumb Index finger Middle finger Ring finger Little finger Awareness floating over to the left hand thumb All experiences are welcome Index finger Middle finger Ring finger Little finger Right wrist Left wrist Right elbow Left elbow Soothing caress of energy Right shoulder Left shoulder Hollow of the throat Back of the head near the top Crown of the head Eyebrow centre Right eyebrow Left eyebrow Right eye Left eye Right ear Left ear Right cheek Left cheek Tip of the nose Upper lip Lower lip Tip of the chin Hollow of the throat Heart centre Right side of the chest Heart centre Left side of the chest Heart centre Navel centre Tip of the tailbone Right hip Left hip Right knee Left knee Sweeping energy Right ankle Left ankle Right big toe Second toe Third toe Fourth toe Little toe Left big toe Second toe Third toe Fourth toe Little toe The whole right side of the body All is welcome.


pages: 337 words: 101,440

Revolution Française: Emmanuel Macron and the Quest to Reinvent a Nation by Sophie Pedder

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Airbnb, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, bike sharing, carbon tax, centre right, clean tech, DeepMind, disruptive innovation, Donald Trump, Downton Abbey, driverless car, Erik Brynjolfsson, eurozone crisis, failed state, fake news, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Future Shock, ghettoisation, growth hacking, haute couture, Jean Tirole, knowledge economy, liberal capitalism, mass immigration, mittelstand, new economy, post-industrial society, public intellectual, rent-seeking, ride hailing / ride sharing, Second Machine Age, sharing economy, Sheryl Sandberg, Silicon Valley, Tony Fadell, Travis Kalanick, urban planning, éminence grise

In what was to become the most contentious element of the speech, Hollande announced that he planned to write into the constitution the power to strip nationality from French-born dual citizens convicted of terrorism, a measure known as déchéance. The Socialists were aghast. So were Republicans on the liberal centre-right. The proposal flew in the face of the French legal tradition of droit du sol, or the right to nationality based on birth on French soil, and created the impression that those of dual citizenship would become a second-class category of French nationals. Thomas Piketty, the economist on the left, accused the government of ‘running after the National Front’. Alain Juppé, on the centre-right, described its likely effectiveness as a counter-terrorism measure as ‘feeble, if not zero’. This episode was the moment at which Macron’s plans accelerated.

For the first time since the Fifth Republic was established by Charles de Gaulle in 1958, the two broad political groups that had run modern France were eliminated from the second-round presidential run-off. A month later, Macron’s chaotic fledgling movement was swept into the National Assembly, bagging 60 per cent of the seats, decimating the Socialist Party, and reducing the centre-right Republicans to a nationalist rump. In a country famed for its resistance to change, Mr Macron cast aside the ancien régime, overturned the left-right divide and crushed the two biggest political parties. Out went a generation of grey-haired men in suits. Fully 75 per cent of incoming deputies in the National Assembly had not held seats in the previous parliament.

But her adult children also left to settle elsewhere, and family reunions usually took place in Le Touquet. Macron, said one acquaintance from Amiens days, ‘became more of an Auzière than a Macron’. Amiens belonged to the past. ‘Macron rarely comes back. He launched his campaign here, but it was just publicity,’ Brigitte Fouré, the centre-right mayor of Amiens, declared during the 2017 election campaign. Macron had left too young to have had any involvement in local politics. He seldom visited. The connection to the town was remote. It was politics, in the end, that brought Macron back to Amiens. On 6 April 2016 he launched En Marche in this Picardy city, a place it suited him to reclaim.


pages: 322 words: 84,580

The Economics of Belonging: A Radical Plan to Win Back the Left Behind and Achieve Prosperity for All by Martin Sandbu

air traffic controllers' union, Airbnb, Alan Greenspan, autonomous vehicles, balance sheet recession, bank run, banking crisis, basic income, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, Boris Johnson, Branko Milanovic, Bretton Woods, business cycle, call centre, capital controls, carbon footprint, carbon tax, Carmen Reinhart, centre right, collective bargaining, company town, debt deflation, deindustrialization, deskilling, Diane Coyle, Donald Trump, Edward Glaeser, eurozone crisis, Fall of the Berlin Wall, financial engineering, financial intermediation, full employment, future of work, gig economy, Gini coefficient, green new deal, hiring and firing, income inequality, income per capita, industrial robot, intangible asset, job automation, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, Kenneth Rogoff, knowledge economy, knowledge worker, labour market flexibility, liquidity trap, longitudinal study, low interest rates, low skilled workers, manufacturing employment, Martin Wolf, meta-analysis, mini-job, Money creation, mortgage debt, new economy, offshore financial centre, oil shock, open economy, pattern recognition, pink-collar, precariat, public intellectual, quantitative easing, race to the bottom, Richard Florida, Robert Shiller, Robert Solow, Ronald Reagan, secular stagnation, social intelligence, TaskRabbit, total factor productivity, universal basic income, very high income, winner-take-all economy, working poor

Leftist parties reforming themselves in the 1990s took on board much of the deregulation and tax cutting that had been controversially pushed through by centre-right parties in the 1980s. Sometimes they doubled down on the 1980s reforms—witness the German labour reforms in the early 2000s (mentioned in chapter 4), which made work more precarious and caused wage stagnation for many, passed and put in place under Gerhard Schröder, a Social Democratic Party leader. In general, the “third way” centre-left was prepared to let free markets work much like its centre-right rivals, but using the fruits of growth to increase redistribution or spend more on public services. In this way, both the centre-right and the centre-left either left unchecked or spurred on the underlying dynamics of divergence and inequality in the economy, which were beginning to take effect but escaped serious attention.

The most seductive explanation for why governments let these problems happen is the wave of centre-right support that washed over the West in the 1980s. That was above all the Reagan and Thatcher revolution, a carefully prepared (and often well-funded) intellectual and political crusade to discredit New Deal liberalism and postwar social democracy. But the ideas these politicians brought with them into power in the United States and the United Kingdom also enjoyed far-reaching influence in many other countries, including those where centre-right parties were not as electorally successful. A programme of deregulation, lower tax rates, and looser state control of the postwar social democratic economy was implemented in many countries over the following decades.

But the centrist parties that commanded Western politics in the 1990s and early 2000s should not find it difficult to embrace. The value of “belonging” itself sits comfortably with all parts of the political centre. Traditional centre-right conservative parties and traditional social democratic parties alike can find a space for belonging in their political vocabularies—and more importantly, their political programmes—and so, of course, can traditional liberal parties. While some specific elements of the economics of belonging I have proposed may seem closer to particular centre-right or centre-left parties readers may have in mind, there is nothing that could not be endorsed in full by a principled politician of either camp.


pages: 382 words: 100,127

The Road to Somewhere: The Populist Revolt and the Future of Politics by David Goodhart

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, agricultural Revolution, assortative mating, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, borderless world, Boris Johnson, Branko Milanovic, Bretton Woods, Brexit referendum, British Empire, call centre, capital controls, carbon footprint, central bank independence, centre right, coherent worldview, corporate governance, credit crunch, Crossrail, deglobalization, deindustrialization, Donald Trump, Downton Abbey, Edward Glaeser, en.wikipedia.org, Etonian, European colonialism, eurozone crisis, falling living standards, first-past-the-post, gender pay gap, gig economy, glass ceiling, global supply chain, global village, Great Leap Forward, illegal immigration, income inequality, informal economy, Jeremy Corbyn, job satisfaction, knowledge economy, labour market flexibility, low skilled workers, market friction, mass immigration, meritocracy, mittelstand, Neil Kinnock, New Urbanism, non-tariff barriers, North Sea oil, obamacare, old-boy network, open borders, open immigration, Peter Singer: altruism, post-industrial society, post-materialism, postnationalism / post nation state, race to the bottom, Richard Florida, Ronald Reagan, selection bias, shareholder value, Skype, Sloane Ranger, stem cell, the long tail, Thomas L Friedman, transaction costs, trickle-down economics, ultimatum game, upwardly mobile, wages for housework, white flight, women in the workforce, working poor, working-age population, World Values Survey

And as recent Conservative governments have shown, it is possible for other parties to borrow the policies—living wage, apprenticeship levy—and even the language of social democracy. Parties of the centre-right have seen their vote share fall in many countries too, and have also lost votes to right-wing populists, but have generally found it easier to straddle the Anywhere/Somewhere divide. At least in the British Conservative Party opposition to liberal openness on immigration and European integration has co-existed, if not always happily, with support for free markets and business de-regulation. Cross-class and cross-value appeal has been achieved by the centre-right through a liberal ‘modernisation’ drive tempered by a more traditional Conservative belief in a strong nation state.

3 EUROPEAN POPULISM AND THE CRISIS OF THE LEFT A few months ago I was sitting in a bar in Amsterdam with a couple of Dutch friends when one of them, the political writer René Cuperus, came up with a phrase (adapted from Tony Blair’s famous couplet on crime)—‘tough on populism, tough on the causes of populism.’ I have had occasion to borrow it on many occasions since. We were talking about the rise of European populism over the past fifteen years and how 2002 was the year that changed everything. Political systems dominated by competition between a main party of the centre-left and the centre-right had been slowly fraying in much of continental Europe in the last decades of the twentieth century, with proportional representation making it easier for small parties to eat into the voter base of the big ones. But then came 2002. It was the year in which Jean-Marie Le Pen unexpectedly beat the Socialist Lionel Jospin into the final round of the French presidential election before going down to a heavy defeat to Jacques Chirac.

Scheffer, a charming man in his early 60s, wrote an essay in 2000 called ‘The Multicultural Tragedy’, taking a critical look at the hands-off way that the Netherlands had managed immigration, Islam and national cohesion.1 He was, and remains, an influential member of the Dutch Labour party but his challenge to liberal squeamishness about minority segregation and illiberalism led to a heated national ‘integration debate’.2 That Scheffer debate in the Netherlands helped to clear intellectual space for the anti-multiculturalism candidate Pim Fortuyn to gather a growing wave of support in the 2002 Dutch election. When Fortuyn was assassinated two days before the election by an unhinged vegan activist his death swept away any remaining taboos about opposing immigration and multiculturalism in the Netherlands. A series of governments, of both centre-left and centre-right, have subsequently implemented more overtly integrationist policies—pushed hard from the outside (and briefly from the inside) by Geert Wilders and his anti-immigration, anti-Islam Party of Freedom (PVV). The Wilders party, which emerged in the 2006 election, has consistently claimed between 10 and 20 per cent of the popular vote ever since, which in the Netherlands’ fragmented political system usually makes it the second or third largest party in popular support.


pages: 267 words: 74,296

Unhappy Union: How the Euro Crisis - and Europe - Can Be Fixed by John Peet, Anton La Guardia, The Economist

"World Economic Forum" Davos, bank run, banking crisis, Berlin Wall, Bretton Woods, business cycle, capital controls, Celtic Tiger, central bank independence, centre right, collapse of Lehman Brothers, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, debt deflation, Doha Development Round, electricity market, eurozone crisis, Fall of the Berlin Wall, financial engineering, fixed income, Flash crash, illegal immigration, labour market flexibility, labour mobility, light touch regulation, low interest rates, market fundamentalism, Money creation, moral hazard, Northern Rock, oil shock, open economy, pension reform, price stability, quantitative easing, special drawing rights, supply-chain management, The Great Moderation, too big to fail, transaction costs, éminence grise

Thus Greece has seen the rise not just of Golden Dawn, an explicitly extreme-right party, but also of Syriza, an anti-austerity left-wing party that is running ahead of the ruling New Democracy party in opinion polls. Spain and Portugal have, so far, escaped the rise of populist parties of the right, but the more extreme United Left party is doing well in Spain and support for the two mainstream centre-right and centre-left parties has collapsed. Italy has seen the spectacular rise of Beppe Grillo’s Five Star movement, which took almost 25% of the vote in the election of February 2013, forcing the centre-left and centre-right parties into an uneasy coalition. In France, Marine Le Pen’s National Front is running close to 20% in the opinion polls. The rise of populists and extremists is not confined to troubled euro-zone countries alone.

On this the key person was the new German chancellor, Angela Merkel, who took office in late 2005 at the head of a “grand coalition” between her Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats. She was determined to revive as much as she could from the constitution, not least because the new voting system that it proposed at long last recognised that Germany’s population is larger than that of other EU countries. After her fellow centre-right leader, Nicolas Sarkozy, became French president in mid-2007, the two pressed ahead with what later became the Lisbon treaty, which incorporated most of what had been in the constitution but in a disguised and less comprehensible fashion. Critics complained that reviving the treaty in this way was a backdoor route around the negative votes in France and the Netherlands.

Europe à I’Hollandaise The election on May 6th 2012 of a Socialist president in France, François Hollande, who had campaigned on an anti-austerity platform, was greeted with mixed feelings: hope that the Merkozy diktat would end, but also worry that the untested Merkhollande might lead to paralysis or worse. There was not much of a honeymoon. On the same day, Greek voters crushed both main centrist parties, the centre-right New Democracy and especially the Socialist Pasok. The old giants barely mustered 30% of the vote between them. It was, in a sense, as if the abortive referendum that cost George Papandreou his job had been held after all. But having expressed their revulsion with the political elite, Greek voters were less clear about what should replace it.


pages: 390 words: 109,870

Radicals Chasing Utopia: Inside the Rogue Movements Trying to Change the World by Jamie Bartlett

Andrew Keen, back-to-the-land, Bernie Sanders, bitcoin, Black Lives Matter, blockchain, blue-collar work, Boris Johnson, brain emulation, Californian Ideology, centre right, clean water, climate change refugee, cryptocurrency, digital rights, Donald Trump, drone strike, Elon Musk, energy security, Ethereum, ethereum blockchain, Evgeny Morozov, failed state, gig economy, hydraulic fracturing, income inequality, intentional community, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Jaron Lanier, Jeremy Corbyn, job automation, John Markoff, John Perry Barlow, Joseph Schumpeter, Kickstarter, life extension, military-industrial complex, Nick Bostrom, Occupy movement, off grid, Overton Window, Peter Thiel, post-industrial society, post-truth, postnationalism / post nation state, precariat, QR code, radical life extension, Ray Kurzweil, RFID, Rosa Parks, Ross Ulbricht, Satoshi Nakamoto, self-driving car, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, Skype, smart contracts, stem cell, Stephen Hawking, Steve Jobs, Steven Pinker, systems thinking, technoutopianism, the long tail, Tragedy of the Commons

Superficial deviations are fine, but anything outside of that window is too unusual, unworkable, unrealistic to be accepted by the public. Too radical. The Overton window has barely moved for years. But when I started this book in late 2014 there were signs it was beginning to widen. Fewer people were voting, and those who did bother were drifting away from the centre-right and (especially) centre-left parties towards the edges.3 There is even a word for this collapse of the centre: ‘Pasokification’, after the once-dominant Greek social democratic party Pasok, whose public support fell from 45 per cent to 4 per cent in 2015, a pattern mirrored in several other countries.4 According to various surveys, citizens’ trust in elected officials, parliament, the justice system and even democracy itself had been falling steadily for years and was at record lows.

It’s an effort to explore how and why new groups and ideas emerge and gain currency. Of course, the distinction between radical ideas and mainstream ones is not always clear. Received wisdoms always change over time, and what passes for political consensus exists in a mild state of flux and change. But that process is quickening. Centre-right and centre-left parties across Western democracies are watching helplessly as their long-assumed monopoly on power slips away, and candidates spouting ideas once considered the lunacy of the tin-hat fringe-types—Marine Le Pen in France, Podemos in Spain—are surging in opinion polls. Against the wishes of the majority of political and business leaders, the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union.

After the collapse of the First Republic and Craxi in the early 1990s, several parties disappeared entirely. But no one could quite believe it when the results came in on 25 February 2013. Five Star received 26 per cent of the vote in the Chamber of Deputies and 24 per cent in the Senate, making it the single largest party in Italy. (They did not ‘win’, as both the centre-left and centre-right parties formed an alliance, and so secured—only just—more votes.†) Days later, 163 Five Star MPs—54 senators and 109 deputies, none of whom had ever held national political office before—headed to Rome. ‘Beppe Grillo’s enormous tidal wave crashes on the Italian political system, revolutionising it forever’ wrote a stunned La Repubblica.


pages: 310 words: 85,995

The Future of Capitalism: Facing the New Anxieties by Paul Collier

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", accounting loophole / creative accounting, Airbnb, An Inconvenient Truth, assortative mating, bank run, Bear Stearns, behavioural economics, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, bitcoin, Bob Geldof, bonus culture, business cycle, call centre, central bank independence, centre right, commodity super cycle, computerized trading, corporate governance, creative destruction, cuban missile crisis, David Brooks, delayed gratification, deskilling, Donald Trump, eurozone crisis, fake news, financial deregulation, full employment, George Akerlof, Goldman Sachs: Vampire Squid, greed is good, income inequality, industrial cluster, information asymmetry, intangible asset, Jean Tirole, Jeremy Corbyn, job satisfaction, John Perry Barlow, Joseph Schumpeter, knowledge economy, late capitalism, loss aversion, Mark Zuckerberg, minimum wage unemployment, moral hazard, negative equity, New Urbanism, Northern Rock, offshore financial centre, out of africa, Peace of Westphalia, principal–agent problem, race to the bottom, rent control, rent-seeking, rising living standards, Robert Shiller, Robert Solow, Ronald Reagan, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley ideology, sovereign wealth fund, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, theory of mind, too big to fail, trade liberalization, urban planning, web of trust, zero-sum game

Even in Germany, Chancellor Merkel’s brief flirtation with a curious blend of Rawlsian legalism and populism that opened Germany’s borders for a few months, was sufficient to drive one-in-eight voters to a new Nativist party in the 2017 election. The vote share of her Christian Democrat party of the centre-right collapsed to its lowest level since its foundation in 1949. Yet the collapse of the centre-right did not help the centre-left. The vote share of the Social Democrats collapsed even more sharply, also to its post-1949 low. The centre is shrinking, leaving the field to populist ideologues. RESTORING THE CENTRE: SOME POLITICAL MECHANICS We need a process by which the mainstream parties are driven back to the centre.

In the post-war era, across Europe many of these social democrat parties came to power and used it to implement a range of pragmatic policies that effectively addressed these anxieties. Health care, pensions, education, unemployment insurance cascaded from legislation into changed lives. These policies proved to be so valuable that they became accepted across the central range of the political spectrum. Political parties of the centre-left and centre-right alternated in power, but the policies remained in place. Yet, social democracy as a political force is now in existential crisis. The last decade has been a roll-call of disasters. On the centre-left, mauled by Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton lost against Donald Trump; the Blair–Brown British Labour Party has been taken over by the Marxists.

In France, President Hollande decided not even to seek a second term, and his replacement as the Socialist Party candidate, Benoît Hamon, crashed out with merely 8 per cent of the vote. The Social Democrat parties of Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway and Spain have all seen their vote collapse. This would normally have been good news for the politicians of the centre-right, yet in Britain and America they too have lost control of their parties, while in Germany and France their electoral support has collapsed. Why has this happened? The reason is because the social democrats of the left and right each drifted away from their origins in the practical reciprocity of communities, and became captured by an entirely different group of people who became disproportionately influential: middle-class intellectuals.


pages: 308 words: 99,298

Brexit, No Exit: Why in the End Britain Won't Leave Europe by Denis MacShane

"World Economic Forum" Davos, 3D printing, Alan Greenspan, Alvin Toffler, banking crisis, battle of ideas, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Boris Johnson, Bretton Woods, Brexit referendum, British Empire, centre right, Corn Laws, deindustrialization, Doha Development Round, Donald Trump, Etonian, European colonialism, fake news, financial engineering, first-past-the-post, fixed income, Gini coefficient, greed is good, illegal immigration, information security, James Dyson, Jeremy Corbyn, labour mobility, liberal capitalism, low cost airline, low interest rates, Martin Wolf, mass immigration, military-industrial complex, Mont Pelerin Society, negative equity, Neil Kinnock, new economy, non-tariff barriers, offshore financial centre, open borders, open economy, post-truth, price stability, purchasing power parity, quantitative easing, reshoring, road to serfdom, secular stagnation, Silicon Valley, Thales and the olive presses, trade liberalization, transaction costs, women in the workforce

Juncker placed a late-night call to Angela Merkel to convey his pessimism about the lack of knowledge or understanding in Downing Street about the Brexit policy of the EU27 governments – every bit as sovereign and accountable to their voters as May is in Britain. The next day Merkel told the Bundestag that Britain suffered from ‘illusions’ over Brexit, which produced the predictable insults from anti-EU Tories and London’s monolingual journalists writing for the off-shore-owned press. What is surprising is that anyone is surprised. The dominant centre-right confederation of EU conservative parties, the European People’s Party, published a full-page advertisement in the Brussels weekly Politico setting out Brexit negotiating priorities. These include ‘EU citizens will not pay the bill for the British; EU citizens will not accept British blockades; The right order of the negotiations has to be respected’, along with other demands.

It is not quite clear when the European Parliament would have to ratify any negotiated agreement on Britain leaving the EU, but it is likely to be after the end of Article 50 negotiations, which should be the autumn of 2018 to allow the elected governments of 27 member states and the European Parliament to agree the withdrawal agreement before the new Commission and newly elected European Parliament begin operations in May 2019. The decision in 2009 of the Conservative Party to break links with all its sister centre-right parties in the federation known as the European People’s Party means that Tory ministers and MPs have very little contact or networking relationship with elected politicians in other EU member states. After Prime Minister May’s aggressive anti-EU speech at her party conference in October 2016 the reaction from other key EU leaders became much more resolute, following the example of Chancellor Merkel, President Hollande and Commission President Juncker.

Mrs May went to see the prime ministers of Denmark and the Netherlands to explain her position. She was received politely. One person who was present at the meeting in Copenhagen with Lars Løkke Rasmussen said that Mrs May just sat there and said nothing beyond polite banalities. After the Dane, Mrs May met another centre-right prime minister, the Netherlands’ Mark Rutte. The British prime minister tried to butter him up by talking of a ‘mature, cooperative relationship with Europe’, but the Dutch leader replied coldly that ‘It is evident that we will also have shared interests in the future, but the fact remains that very complex negotiations lie ahead.’


pages: 162 words: 56,627

Top 10 Venice by Gillian Price

call centre, centre right, G4S, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Murano, Venice glass

It is only 3 km (2 miles) from Verona’s railway station. d Salita Fontana del Ferro 15, Verona • Bus No. 73 (Mon–Sat), 91 (evenings & Sun) from the railway station • 045 590 360 • € Note: Price categories for hostels and camp sites are per person per night and range between €6–30 151 General Index Index A A Guide in Venice 136 Aalto, Alvar 102 Accademia Bridge 21 Accademia Galleries 7, 24–5, 91 Acqua Alta 19 Agriturismo Le Garzette 119 Ai Assassini 79 Ai Cacciatori 119 air travel 133 disabled visitors 139 Al Bottegon 57 Albanian community 53 Albinoni, Tomasso Giovanni 67 alcohol 140 Alexander III, Pope 39 Altana Terraces 33 ambulances 22, 142 American community 53 Anafesto, Paoluccio 15 Angiò Bar 103 animals 49 Anthony, St 39, 123 Antica Birraria La Corte 83, 85 Antica Mola 99 Antica Trattoria alla Maddalena 113 apartments 150 Arbor Boutique 118 architecture 43, 45 Armenian community 53 Armoury, Doge’s Palace 13, 64 Arsenale 54, 101 artists 44 art courses 143 ArtStudio 112 ATMs (cash dispensers) 141 Attila the Hun 31 Attombri 68 audio guides 136 Auditorium Santa Margherita 67 Aulenti, Gae 68, 74 AVA Venice Hoteliers’ Association 134 B Bac Art Studio 92 Bacaro Jazz 61 Bach, J.S. 52 Bacini 48 Banco Giro Arcade 29 Banco Giro 85 banking 141 Bar Abbazia 93 Bar all’Angolo 78 Bar del Corso 129 Bar al Teatro 78 Barattieri, Nicolò 17 Barbara Boutique 98 Barbari, Jacopo de’ 18 Barbaro family 75 Barbarossa 39 Barchessa Valmarana 127 152 bargaining 138 Barovier & Toso 112 bars osterie (wine bars) 56–7 San Marco 78 Basilica (Torcello) 30–31 Basilica del Santo (Padua) 123 Basilica San Marco 6, 8–11, 75 beaches 37, 115 Bella, Gabriel 40 Bellini, Gentile 18, 44, 82 Procession in St Mark’s Square 25 Bellini, Giovanni 7, 12, 18, 26, 38, 44, 97, 103 San Giobbe Altarpiece 24 Madonna Enthroned with Saints 27 Mary with Child 44 Bellini, Jacopo 18, 44 bells 17 Benetton 118 Bernini, Luigi 127 Bevilacqua 77 Biblioteca Marciana 18 Biennale 62, 102 birds 49, 65 Le Bistrot de Venise 61 Bloom Caffè 129 Bo University 123 boats 22–3, 37 arriving in Venice 133 disabled visitors 139 ferries 133, 135 gondolas 135, 136 guided tours 136 Regata Storica 62 trips for children 64 watersports 63 Boccherini, Luigi 67 Bon, Bartolomeo 26, 45, 81 Bon, Giovanni 45 bookshops 138 books 51 Boutique del Gelato 105 bragozzo (watercraft) 22 Brancusi, Constantin, Bird in Space 34 Brek (Cannaregio) 99 Brenta Canal 36 Brenta villas 136 Bridge of Sighs 13, 46 Bridge with No Parapet 47 bridges 46–7 disabled visitors 139 British community 53 Bruno Lazzari 118 budget travel 137 buildings restoration 36, 143 Bulgari 76 Burano 109, 111 buses 133 disabled visitors 139 Byron, Lord 20, 27, 50–51 C Ca’ Dario 21, 42 Ca’ Foscari 42 Ca’ Macana 92 Ca’ Nigra Lagoon Resort 147 Ca’ d’Oro 42, 95, 97 Ca’ Pesaro 20, 41, 83 Ca’ Pisani 147 Ca’ Rezzonico 21, 42 Ca’ Vendramin di Santa Fosca 148 Cabot, John 52 cafés, San Marco 78 Caffè Florian 17, 75 Caffeteria Doria 78 Calder, Alexander, Mobile 35 Callas, Maria 73 Calle del Forno 33 Calle del Paradiso 49 camp sites 137, 151 Campiello del Remer 48 Camping Alba d’Oro 151 Camping Fusina 151 Campo della Celestia 49 Campo della Maddalena 49 Campo dei Mori 95–6, 97 Campo San Bartolomeo 74 Campo San Giacomo dell’Orio 81, 83 Campo San Polo 81, 83 Campo San Stefano 73 Campo San Zan Degolà 83 Campo Santa Margherita 7, 32–3, 91 Campo Santa Maria Formosa 102, 103 Campo Santi Giovanni e Paolo 102, 103 Canaletto 44, 148 Rio dei Mendicanti 44 canals Grand Canal 6, 20–23, 29 Rio Terrà 33 Cannaregio 94–9 canoeing trips 136 Canova, Antonio 18, 27 Cantieri Navali 55 Cantina Do Mori 56 Cantina Vecia Carbonera 61 Cappella degli Scrovegni 123 Cappelleria Palladio 128 car ferries 22 Carefree Italy 150 Carnival 62 Carpaccio, Vittorio 40–41, 44, 97 Meeting and Departure of the Betrothed Ursula and Ereo 25 Two Venetian Ladies 18 Carriera, Rosalba 25, 91 cars 132, 133 Cartier 76 Casa di Giulietta 124–5 concerts 66–7 consulates 142 conversions, historic 54–5 cookery courses 143 Copernicus, Nicolas 123 Cornaro, Caterina 53 Correr Ballroom 18 Corte dell’Anatomia 48 Corte de Ca’ Sarasina 39 Corte del Duca Sforza 48 Corte del Fondaco 33 Corte Nova 39 Corte Sconta 58 Corte Seconda del Milion 95 Coryate, Thomas 50 Cotonificio 54 Cozzi, Marco 26 craft shops San Marco 77 San Polo and Santa Croce 84 credit cards 141, 142 crime 142 currency 141 Curtis family 43 cycling 63 D Da Cico 83 Da Fiore 58 Dai Nodari 129 Da Ponte, Antonio 45, 46 Da Porto, Luigi 124 Da Romano 111 Dalmatian community 53 Dandolo, Enrico 15 Dario, Giovanni 42 Delle Masegne brothers 10 Deposito del Megio 55 designer boutiques 76 Diaghilev, Sergei 43, 110 Dickens, Charles 51, 101 disabled visitors 139 Disney Store 65 Do Forni 59 Dogado 99 Doge’s Palace 6, 12–15, 64, 75, 136 Donatello, St John the Baptist 27 Dorsoduro 88–93 drinks 57 driving licences 132 drugs 140 Dufy, Raoul, Studio with a Fruit Bowl 41 Dürer, Albrecht 53 E electrical appliances 132 embassies 142 Enoteca do Colonne 57 entertainment 66–7 Ernst, Max, Attirement of the Bride 34 Ex Chiesa di Santa Margherita 32 Ex Ospedale degli Incurabili 90 F Fabbriche Nuove 29 Falieri, Marin 12, 15 Fallopius, Gabriel 123 Farmacia Ponci 96 Feltrinelli Internazionale 128 Fendi 76 La Fenice 66, 73 ferries 64, 133, 135 Festa del Redentore 62 Festa di San Rocco 63 festivals and events 62–3 films 66, 67 fire boats 22 floods 19 Fondaco dei Turchi 20 Fondamenta della Misericordia 96 Fondamente Nuove 97 Fondamenta degli Ormesini 96 Fondazione Querini Stampalia 40 food 59, 137 shops 69, 138 foreign communities 53 Fortuny y Madrazo, Mariano 74–5 Foscari, Doge Francesco 14, 27, 42 foundations, buildings 36 fountains 37 Franchetti, Baron Giorgio 95 Francis, St 109 Francis Xavier, St 90 French community 53 Frette 76 Fumiani, Gian Antonio 39 Index Casa dei Varoteri 33 Casanova, Giovanni 13, 52 Casinò Municipale 60 Castello 100–105 Celestia 48 Centrale 60 Le Ceramiche 104 ceramics courses 143 Certosa 111 Chagall, Marc 41 chamber music 66 Chet Bar 60 children 64–5, 132 Chioggia 117 Chorus church pass 135 churches 38–9 Basilica (Torcello) 30–31 Basilica San Marco 6, 8–11 etiquette 140 Gesuati, Chiesa dei 90–91 Madonna dell’Orto 39, 97 San Francesco della Vigna 103 San Giacomo dell’Orio 81–2 San Giacomo di Rialto 28 San Giobbe 97 San Giorgio 115 San Giorgio Maggiore 38 San Lazzaro degli Armeni 116 San Michele 110 San Moisè 74 San Nicolò 115 San Nicolò dei Mendicoli 89 San Pantalon 39 San Sebastiano 39, 89 San Zaccaria 38 Santa Fosca (Torcello) 31 Santa Maria dei Carmini 33 Santa Maria del Giglio 75 Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari 7, 26–7 Santa Maria delle Grazie 116 Santa Maria dei Miracoli 38, 95 Santa Maria della Pietà 101 Santa Maria della Salute 21, 38–9, 91 Santi Giovanni e Paolo 38 CIGA Warehouse 55 Cima da Conegliano, La Madonna dell’Arancio 25 Cipriani 58, 144 Cloister of Sant’Apollonia 49 clothing in churches 140 shops 69 what to pack 132 Codex 98 Coducci, Mauro 38, 42, 45, 82, 102, 110 Coin Department Store 69 Colleoni, Bartolomeo 102 Column of San Marco 17 La Colomba 59 Column of San Teodoro 17 communications 141 G Galileo Galilei 123 Galleria Livio De Marchi 77 galleries see museums and galleries Gallion, Al 149 garbage vessels 22 gardens see parks and gardens Garibaldi, Giuseppe 102 El Gato Ristorante 119 Gautier, Théophile 53 Gelateria Alaska 85 Gelateria Il Doge 93 Gelateria Nico 93 Il Gelatone 99 German community 53 Ghetto, Jewish 95, 97, 136 Giacometti, Alberto, Woman Walking 35 Giardinetti Reali 17 Giardini 102 Giardini Papadopoli 82–3 Giorgione 7, 44 Giotto 123 Giovanna Zanella 104 Giudecca 115 153 Index glass 69, 74 demonstrations 64–5 glass glassmaking courses 143 Murano 109 shops 138 Goethe, Johann Wolfgan von 50 Goldoni, Carlo 50, 66, 74 golf 63 gondolas 22, 23, 29, 135 gondola serenades 136 shrines 39 Squero di San Trovaso 89 Grand Canal 6, 20–23, 29 Grand Canal, Hotel Monaco 58 Greek community 53 Gritti Palace hotel 146 Guarana 43 Guardi, Francesco 44 Guariento, Coronation of the Virgin 14 Guggenheim, Peggy 34, 35 guided tours 136 H Harry’s Bar 21, 75 Harry’s Dolci 119 health 142 Helicopter trips 136 Hemingway, Ernest 21, 31, 51, 144 Henry III, King of France 101 Henry VII, King of England 52 Hitler, Adolf 126 holidays, public 132 horses 49 hospitals 142 Hostaria ai Rusteghi 78 hostels 137, 151 Hotel Danieli 101, 144 hotels 144–9 budget hotels 145 converted palaces 147 disabled visitors 139 hotels with charm 146 luxury hotels 144 medium-priced 149 in relaxing locations 148 reservations 134, 140 “House of the Moor” 33 house numbers 37 hypermarkets 138 I Ignatius Loyola, St 90 Il Refolo 85 Impronta Caffè 93 information sources 134 insect repellent 132 insurance 142 Internet 134, 141 Irish Pub 60 islands 108–13 boat trips 136 Istituto Venezia 143 Italian Culture Week 137 154 J James, Henry 27, 43, 51, 67 Jews 53, 97 Ghetto 95, 97, 136 Josephine, Empress 43 Juliet’s House 124–5 Junghans Factory 55 K Klee, Paul, Magic Garden 35 Klimt, Gustav 41 L La Bottega Ai Promessi Sposi 99 Laboratorio Blu Bookshop 65 Lagoon depth 36 language 140 Lazzaretto Nuovo 110 left luggage 133 Libreria Sansoviniana 18 Lido 37, 111, 115–16 Linea d’Ombra 93 Locanda Cipriani 31, 113, 146 Locanda Leon Bianco 149 Loggia dei Cavalli 9 Lombardo, Pietro 12, 26, 38, 42, 45, 82, 97 Longhena, Baldassare 20, 39, 45, 63, 103 Longhi, Pietro 40, 44, 49, 124 Lotto, Lorenzo, Portrait of a Gentleman 25 luggage 140 Luigi Bevilacqua 68 Luke, St 10, 116 M Macello 55 Madonna dell’Orto 39, 97 Madonna della Salute 63 Madera 92 magazines 134 Magazzini del Sale 54 Magritte, René, Empire of Light 35 Malamocco 116, 117 Malibran, Maria 66 Manin, Daniele 53 Manin 56, 112 Mann, Thomas 50, 51, 67, 115 Mantegna, Andrea 95 maps 139 Marathon 63 Marco Polo Airport 133 Margaret of Antioch, St 32 Margaret DuChamp 91 Margherita, Queen 68 Marini, Marino, Angel of the City 35 Mark, St 10, 11, 15, 49 Martini Scala-Club Piano Bar 60–61 masks 69, 90 courses 143 Massari, Giorgio 74, 91 Mastelli family 95–6 Mazzon, Augusto 92 Mazzorbo 109 Mechtar, Venerable 116 Medici, Alessandro de’ 81 Medici, Cosimo de’ 81 Medici, Lorenzino de’ 81 Mercerie 73, 75 Michelangelo 46, 115 Miozzi, Eugenio 21, 46 Mistero Atelier 104 Mocenigo, Pietro 38 Mocenigo family 82 Molino Stucky 54, 144 Mondo in Miniatura 92 Mondonovo 68 Monet, Claude 43, 53 money 141 Monteverdi, Claudio 26, 52 Moore, Henry, Three Standing Figures 35 Moretti, Carlo 76 Mori & Bozzi 98 Moro, Doge Cristoforo 33, 97 Murano 109, 111 museums and galleries 40–41 Accademia Galleries 7, 24–5, 91 Basilica Museum 9 Ca’ d’Oro 95 Ca’ Pesaro Galleria d’Arte Moderna 41 Ca’ Pesaro Museo di Arte Orientale 83 combined tickets 135 Fondazione Querini Stampalia 40 guided tours 136 Museo Civico di Scienze Naturale 125 Museo Correr 18, 40 Museo dell’Estuario 31 Museo Fortuny 74–5 Museo del Merletto 41 Museo dell’Instituto Ellenico 41 Museo dell’Opera 12 Museo del Vetro 40 Museo di Storia Naturale 64 Museo Storico Navale 41, 64 Peggy Guggenheim Collection 7, 34–5, 65 Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni 40–41 Scuola Grande di San Rocco 40 music, concerts 66–7 Mussolini, Benito 126 N Napoleon I, Emperor 6, 15, 16, 18, 19, 24, 33, 49, 97, 126 Nardi 68 newspapers 141 Niel, Joseph da 101 nightspots 60–61 Nono, Luigi 53, 73 Northern Lagoon 108–13 Novecento hotel 149 opening hours 138 opera 66, 67 Orange Laundry 137 Ospedaletto 103 Ospite di Venezia 134 Osteria Banco Giro 85 Osteria Boccadoro 58 Osteria alla Botte 57 Osteria dei Fabbri 129 Osteria alla Frasca 56 Osteria Mocenigo 85 Osteria La Perla ai Bisatei 113 Osteria Ruga Rialto 56 Osteria del Sacro e Profano 56 Osteria San Marco 79 Osteria di Santa Marina 59 osterie (wine bars) 56–7 Ottico Fabbricatore 76 P Padua 122–3 tourist office 134 painting courses 143 Palace Bonvecchiati hotel 144 Pala d’Oro 9 Palaces Doge’s Palace 6, 12–14, 64, 75, 136 Palazzo Barbaro 43 Palazzo dei Camerlenghi 29 Palazzo Contarini degli Scrigni 43 Palazzo Foscolo-Corner 32 Palazzo Grassi 74 Palazzo Labia 96 Palazzo Leoni Montanari 124 Palazzo Mastelli 42–3 Palazzo Mocenigo 82 Paazzo Pisani-Moretta 43 Palazzo Vendramin-Calergi 42, 60 Palladio, Andrea, 45 Palladio Bauer 148 Palma il Vecchio 102 Paolo Olbi 69 paper, marbled 69 papier mâché 104 Paradiso Perduto 60 parking 133 Parks and gardens Giardinetti Reali 17 Giardini 102 Giardini Papadopoli 82–3 Parco Savorgnan 48 Parlamento, Al 99 passports 132 Pasticceria Ponte delle Paste 105 Pasticceria Rizzardini 85 Q Querini, Giovanni 40 questions about Venice 36–7 R rail travel see trains rats 49 Regata Storica 62 Restaurants 58–9 budget travel 137 Cannaregio 99 Castello 105 disabled visitors 139 Dorsoduro 93 Northern Lagoon 113 San Marco 79 San Polo and Santa Croce 84 Southern Lagoon and Venice Lido 119 Veneto 129 restoration courses 143 Rialto Bridge 20, 46 Rialto Market 7, 28–9, 83 Rio Novo 33 Rio Terrà 33 Rio Terrà dei Catecumeni 89 Rio Terrà Rampani 48, 83 Ristorante Greppia 129 Riva degli Schiavoni 101 Riva del Vin 21 La Rivista 93 Rizzo 69, 118 Rizzo, Antonio 12, 45 Rolling Venice 137 Rosa Salva 78 Romeo and Juliet 124–5 Rossini, Gioacchino 73 rowing 63, 143 Rubelli 69 Ruga degli Orefici 29 Ruskin, John 14, 27, 51, 74, 101, 103, 146 Ruzzini Palace Hotel 147 Index O Peggy Guggenheim Collection 7, 34–5, 65 Pentecost Dome 9 Pesaro, Doge Giovanni 27 pharmacies 142 Piazza delle Erbe 125 Piazza San Marco 6, 16–19, 49, 75, 111 Piazza dei Signori 124 Piazzetta, Giovanni Battista 24 Piazzetta dei Leoncini 17 Picasso, Pablo, The Poet 34 Piccolo Mondo 61 pickpockets 142 picnics 137 pigeons 49 Piron, Al 99 Pisani, Doge Alvise 126 Piscopia, Elena Lucrezia Corner 52, 123 place names 29 play areas 64 police 22, 142 Polo, Marco 13, 52, 94, 95 Ponte della Libertà 46 Ponte Lungo 47 Ponte dei Pugni 47 Ponte degli Scalzi 46 Ponte dei Sospiri 13 Ponte delle Tette 47 Ponte dei Tre Archi 46, 97 population 37 porters 133 post offices 141 posters 134 Procuratie Nuove 17 Procuratie Vecchie 17 public conveniences 139, 142 public holidays 132 Punta della Dogana 21, 90 Punta Sabbioni 111 S safety 142 sailing 63 St Mark’s see Basilica San Marco sales 138 San Basilio Port Zone 91 San Clemente Palace hotel 144 San Francesco del Deserto 109 San Giorgio 115, 145 San Lazzaro degli Armeni 116 San Leonardo Market 98 San Marco 72–9 San Michele 110 San Nicolò 115 San Pietro di Castello 102 San Pietro in Volta 117 San Polo and Santa Croce 80–85 San Servolo 116 sandolo (watercraft) 22 Sanmicheli, Michele 45, 111 sanpierota (watercraft) 22 Sansovino, Andrea 45 Sansovino, Jacopo 45, 46, 123 Biblioteca Marciana 18 Chiesa di San Francesco della Vigna 103 Doge’s Palace 13 Fabbriche Nuove 29 Giants’ Staircase 14 tomb of 10 Zecca 54 Santa Croce see San Polo and Santa Croce Sant’Erasmo 110 Santa Maria delle Grazie 116 Santo Bevitore 99 Sarpi, Paolo 53 Scala Contarini del Bovolo 73 Scamozzi, Vincenzo 43, 124 scams 140 Scarpa, Carlo 24, 40, 45, 68, 102 Scarpagnino 13, 81 Scrovegni, Enrico 123 Scuola Grande dei Carmini 32 Scuola Grande della Misericordia 39 155 Index Scuola Grande di San Giovanni Evangelista 82 Scuola Grande di San Rocco 40, 81, 83 Scuole 82 security 142 self-catering 150 Selva, Giannantonio 45, 73, 102 La Sensa 63 Shakespeare, William 33, 50, 124 shopping 68–9, 138 budget travel 137 Cannaregio 98 Castello 104 Dorsoduro 92 Northern Lagoon 112 receipts 140 San Marco 76–7 San Polo and Santa Croce 84 Southern Lagoon and Venice Lido 118 Veneto 128 shrines 39 Sile Canal 36 silverwork shops 69 Smith, Joseph 44 Sottoportego de la Madonna 39 Southern Lagoon and Venice Lido 114–19 Spizzico 65 sports 63 Squero di San Trovaso 89 State Archives 27 Stirling, James 102 Stravinsky, Igor 73, 110 street sellers 138 street signs 135 students 132, 137 studying in Venice 143 Su e Zo per i Ponti 63 sun protection 132 swimming 37, 63 T tabernacles 39 Taverna del Campiello Remer 99 tax-free shopping 138 Teatro Fondamente Nuove 67 Teatro Goldoni 66 Teatro La Fenice 66, 73 Teatro Malibran 66 Teatro Olimpico (Vicenza) 124 telephones 141 theft 142 Theodore, St 11 Throne of Attila 31 Tiepolo, Giambattista 44 Basilica del Santo 123 Ca’ Rezzonico 42 Chiesa dei Gesuati 91 Palazzo Labia 96 Palazzo Pisani-Moretta 43 Santa Maria della Pietà 101 Scuola Grande dei Carmini 32 Villa Pisani 126 156 time 132 Tintoretto, Domenico, Paradise 14 Tintoretto, Jacopo 44, 94 Doge’s Palace 12 Paradise 14 San Giorgio Maggiore 38 Santa Maria della Salute 39 Scuola Grande di San Rocco 40, 80, 81 The Triumph of Venice 14 tipping 140 Tirall, Andrea 46 Titian 44, 94, 97 Accademia Galleries 7 Assumption of the Virgin 26 Basilica del Santo (Padua) 123 Biblioteca Marciana 18 Corte del Duca Sforza 48 Doge’s Palace 12 monument to 27 Osteria alla Frasca 56 Pietà 25 Santa Maria della Salute 39 Self-portrait 44 toilets, public 139, 142 Tommaseo, Niccolò 73 topo (watercraft) 22 Torcello 7, 30–31, 111 Basilica di Torcello 30–31 Santa Fosca 31 Torre dell’Orologio 16 tourist offices 134 tours 136 traghetto points 39 trains 133, 137 disabled visitors 139 Trattoria alla Madonna 59 Trattoria dai Tosi Piccoli 105 travel 133, 135 budget travel 137 disabled visitors 139 travellers’ cheques 141, 142 Tre Ponti 47 Treviso Airport 133 Turkish community 53 U UNESCO 122 Un Mondo di Vino osteria 56 Upim 128 V Valmarana, Count 126 vaporetti (watercraft) 22 Venetian Republic 15 Veneto 122–9 map 122 restaurants 129 shops 128 villas 126–7 Veneziano, Paolo 18, 82 Coronation of the Virgin 25 Venice Carnival Show, The 67 Venice Marathon 63 Venice Pavilion Bookshop 69 Venice in Peril Fund 89 Venini 68 Verdi, Giuseppe 27, 73, 124 Verona 122, 124–5 tourist office 134 Verona Arena 124, 125 Veronese, Paolo 18, 39, 44, 89, 102, 126 Rape of Europe 14 Supper in the House of Levi 25 The Victorious Return of Doge Andrea Contarini 15 Via Garibaldi 102, 103 Vicenza 122, 124 tourist office 134 villas 126–7, 136 Barchessa Valmarana 127 Villa Barbarigo 127 Villa Barbaro 126 Villa Contarini 127 Villa Cornaro 127 Villa Emo 127 Villa Foscari ”La Malcontenta” 126–7 Villa Pisani – La Nazionale 126 Villa Valmarana “Ai Nani” 126 Villa Valmarana “La Rotonda” 126 Vini da Gigio 59 Vinus 56 visas 132 Vittoria, Alessandro 18 Vittorio Emanuele II, King 101 Vivaldi, Antonio 66, 101 Vivarini 97, 102 Vogalonga 62 W Wagner, Richard 42, 101 walks Cannaregio 97 Castello 103 Dorsoduro 91 San Marco 75 San Polo 83 Southern Lagoon 117 Verona 125 water, drinking 37 water taxis 135 disabled visitors 139 watercraft 22–3, 133 websites 134 Whistler, J A M 43 wildlife, lagoon 110 wine bars 56–7 women travellers 142 writers 50–51 Z Zattere 89 Zecca 54 Zelotti, Giambattista 127 Zen, Cardinal 10 Acknowledgements libraries for permission to reproduce their photographs: Picture Credits t-top; tc-top centre; tr-top right; cla-centre left above; ca-centre above; cra-centre right above; cl-centre left; c-centre; cr-centre right; clb-centre left below; cb-centre below; crb-centre right below; bl-below left; bc belo w centre; br below right. AISA,Barcelona: 11b, 20–21c, 52tl, 86–7, 106–10;. AKG, London: 31br,34t, 35b, 50tl, 50tcr, 50tr 50b, © ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2001 “The Bird in Space” 1925 by Brancusi 7t, © Succession Picasso/DACS London 2001 “The Poet” by Picasso 34b, ©ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2001 “Dressing the Bride” by Max Ernst 34–5c, “Portrait of Vivaldi“ by Morellon 52b; Cameraphoto: 11t, 45tl, 45tr, “The Victorious Return of Doge Andrea Contarini after the Triumph in Chioggia” (detail) Paolo Veronese 15b, “Triumph of Venetia as Queen of the Seas” Tintoretto 14b, “Bathing Venus” by Antonio Canova 18b, “Supper in the House of Levi” by Veronese 24–5c, “Portrait“ by Rosalba Carriera 25cr, “Mary with Child“ by Bellini 44tc, ”Portrait of Caterina Conaro” 53b; St Domingie-M.Rabatti: “La Tempesta” by Giorgione 24t; Erich Lessing: 44tl, “Piere di Cadore” by Titian 44tr, “Rio dei Medicanti” by Canaletto 44b; AL GAZZETINO: 149tl; ALAMY IMAGES: Steven May 64tl; AL PIRON: 99tc; ALLSPORT: 62b; © DACS London 2001 ”The Magic Garden” by Paul Klee 35cr; BAROVIER & TOSO, Murano:112tl; LUIGI BEVILACQUA: 68tl; BISTRO DE VENISE: 60tl; BLOOM CAFFE: 129tr; BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY: San Giobbe Altarpiece c.1487 by Bellini 7bl, 24b, © ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2001 “Studio with a Fruit Bowl” by Dufy 41c; CAPELLERIA PALLADIO: 128tl; CENTRALE RESTAURANT LOUNGE: 60bl; CORBIS: 4–5, 19b, 20–21, 21b, 66b, 70–71, 120–21, 126tr, 130–31; HOTEL NOVECENTO: 149tc; IUAV Istituto Universitario di Architetture di Venezia: 55; MA.RE: 76tc; MARY EVANS PICTURE LIBRARY: 50tcl, 51t, 52c, 52tr; LA ZUCCA: 85tl; ESTHER LABI: 128tl; LOCANDA FIORITA: 148tr; MARKA: 62tc, M.Albonico 62tr, Barbazza 115b, 132tc, M.Cristofoti 122tl, D.Donadoni 123b, 126tl, 127tr, E.Lasagni 129tl, M.Mazzola 127tr, M.Silvano 123 tr, G.

The building we see today, a Greek cross layout surmounted by five domes, possibly modelled on the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople, dates from 1071. The main architect is depicted over the central portal, biting his fingers in frustration over a building defect. The basilica became the city cathedral in 1807. For more on Venice’s San Marco district See pp72–9 9 Venice’s Top 10 Left Museum horses Centre left Wall-slabs Centre right Altar columns Right Byzantine screens Basilica Architectural Features ! Galleries The airy catwalks over the body of the basilica reflect the eastern tradition of segregation in worship as they were exclusively for women. They are closed to visitors. Chapel ^ Zen The sumptuous 0 7 4 1 9 2 6 5 8 3 Basilica Floorplan Wall-slabs @ Stone Brick-faced until the 1100s, the walls were then covered with stone slabs from the East, sliced lengthways to produce a kaleidoscopic effect.

Periodic controls for bacterial counts are carried out and the upper Adriatic normally emerges with a clean slate. Venice’s closest beach is at the Lido, where the city’s families go en masse during the steamy summer months (see p115). 37 Venice’s Top 10 Left & centre left S Maria G dei Frari Centre right Madonna dell’Orto Right S Maria dei Miracoli Venice Churches San Marco ! Basilica See pp8–11. Maria Gloriosa @ Santa dei Frari See pp26–7. Giovanni e Paolo £ Santi The monumental tombs of 25 doges take pride of place in this solemn Gothic giant, erected by Dominican friars from the 13th to 15th centuries.


Cultural Backlash: Trump, Brexit, and Authoritarian Populism by Pippa Norris, Ronald Inglehart

affirmative action, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, bank run, banking crisis, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Black Lives Matter, Boris Johnson, Brexit referendum, Cass Sunstein, centre right, classic study, cognitive dissonance, conceptual framework, declining real wages, desegregation, digital divide, Donald Trump, eurozone crisis, fake news, Fall of the Berlin Wall, feminist movement, first-past-the-post, illegal immigration, immigration reform, income inequality, It's morning again in America, Jeremy Corbyn, job automation, knowledge economy, labor-force participation, land reform, liberal world order, longitudinal study, low skilled workers, machine readable, mass immigration, meta-analysis, obamacare, open borders, open economy, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, Paris climate accords, post-industrial society, post-materialism, precariat, purchasing power parity, rising living standards, Ronald Reagan, sexual politics, Silicon Valley, statistical model, stem cell, Steve Bannon, War on Poverty, white flight, winner-take-all economy, women in the workforce, working-age population, World Values Survey, zero-sum game

The run-­off system provides incentives for center-­left and center-­right party coalitions to unite behind two major party candidates. Under this system, coalitions led by the socialist and the republican center-­right parties rotated in office and have won the presidency in every contest since 1958. By contrast, 2017 shattered the dominance of the mainstream socialist and center-­right parties. The unpopularity of President Francois Holland’s government dragged down the socialist candidate, Benoit Hamon, who attracted just 6.4 percent of the vote in the first round, the worst result for the socialists since 1969. On the center-­right, the republican candidate, Francois Fillon, damaged by accusations of corruption, came in third with 20 percent of the vote.

The Strategic Response by Mainstream Parties The willingness of citizens to desert mainstream parties and support new challengers has been reinforced by social and partisan dealignment, widely documented in previous studies in both the United States and Western Europe.72 This process has weakened traditional class anchors linking supporters with center-­ left and center-­ right political parties, increased potential electoral volatility, and provided opportunities for new populist leaders and parties to mobilize support.73 The erosion of party loyalties and class identities seems most damaging for the electoral fortunes of center-­left Social Democratic parties, but it has also weakened support for mainstream center-­right parties. During the ‘third-­way’ era of Clinton and Blair, many left-­wing and right-­wing parties converged toward the center in their economic policies.

The winner-take-all system poses far greater challenges for minor parties given the vote threshold, and is designed to favor moderate center-­ right or center-­left parties able to mobilize support among the majority of Austrians. In these contests, the Freedom Party of Austria (Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs, FPÖ) hoped to do well given the campaign opinion polls. As we have seen, Austria was at the forefront of the wave of immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers coming through the Balkan land route. By 2015, around one-­fifth of the population was foreign born. The FPÖ was founded in 1956 as a center-­right conservative party but it shifted toward the authoritarian-­populist category when Jorg Haider became its leader in 1986.


Top 10 Greek Islands by Dorling Kindersley Publishing Staff

centre right, company town, G4S, the market place

Photographers Tony Souter, Helena Smith Additional Photography Peter Anderson, Joe Cornish, Ken Findlay, Geoff Garvey, Robin Gauldie, Michelle Grant, Paul Harris, Nigel Hicks, Rupert Horrox, Peter Jousiffe, Dave King, Ian O’Leary, Annabel Milne, David Murray, Brian Pitkin, Rob Reichenfeld, Clive Streeter, Robert Vente, Kate Whitaker, Linda Whitwam, Peter Wilson, Francesca Yorke Consultant Nick Edwards Fact Checker Anthony Clark At DK INDIA Managing Editor Aruna Ghose Editorial Manager Sheeba Bhatnagar Design Manager Kavita Saha Project Editor Shikha Kulkarni Project Designer Shruti Singhi Assistant Cartographic Manager Suresh Kumar Senior Picture Research Coordinator Taiyaba Khatoon Picture Researcher Sumita Khatwani DTP Coordinator Azeem Siddiqui Proofreader and Indexer Andy Kulkarni At DK LONDON Publisher Douglas Amrine List Manager Julie Oughton 190 Design Manager Mabel Chan Project Editors Alexandra Whittleton, Dora Whitaker Designer Tracy Smith Cartographer Stuart James DTP Operator Jason Little Production Controller Danielle Smith Picture Credits Placement Key- t=top; tc=top centre; tr=top right; cla=centre left above; ca=centre above; cra=centre right above; cl=centre left; c=centre; cr=centre right; clb=centre left below; cb=centre below; crb=centre right below; bl=bottom left; bc=bottom cen tre; br=bottom right; ftl=far top left; ftr=far top right; fcla=far centre left above; fcra=far centre right above; fcl=far centre left; fcr=far centre right; fclb=far centre left below; fcrb=far centre right below; fbl=far bottom left; fbr=far bottom right. Every effort has been made to trace the copyright holders, and we apologize in advance for any unintentional omissions.

& Doctors As with dentists, doctors’ private fees are payable immediately on treatment and a receipt is given for insurance purposes. Emergency medical situations should always be referred to a hospital, rather than a practitioner. Hotels can recommend local doctors who can assist with minor medical problems. Most will speak English well. Streetsmart Left Ambulance Centre Medical centre Right Police officer Care * Dental Dental practices are run on a private basis, with fees for emergency treatment payable immediately. Receipts are given for insurance purposes. Dentists have usually trained in Athens or further afield like the UK and, as such, the standard of knowledge and care throughout the islands is high


Corbyn by Richard Seymour

anti-communist, banking crisis, battle of ideas, Bernie Sanders, Boris Johnson, Brexit referendum, British Empire, call centre, capital controls, capitalist realism, centre right, collective bargaining, credit crunch, Donald Trump, eurozone crisis, fake news, first-past-the-post, full employment, gender pay gap, gentrification, housing crisis, income inequality, Jeremy Corbyn, knowledge economy, land value tax, liberal world order, mass immigration, means of production, moral panic, Naomi Klein, negative equity, Neil Kinnock, new economy, non-tariff barriers, Northern Rock, Occupy movement, offshore financial centre, pension reform, Philip Mirowski, post-war consensus, precariat, quantitative easing, race to the bottom, rent control, Snapchat, stakhanovite, systematic bias, Washington Consensus, wealth creators, Winter of Discontent, Wolfgang Streeck, working-age population, éminence grise

The most widely shared stories on this platform were pro-Corbyn and anti-Tory, accentuating Corbyn’s celebrity support and polling improvements, thus undermining the demonisation taking place in the traditional print and broadcast media. Labour understood this advantage and invested more energy in posting and sharing social media content than all of its rivals.16 Some journalists and centre-right politicians have responded to this change with unavailing moral panic about ‘online abuse’ and ‘fake news’. As with all moral panics, they express real tendencies, but in a way that distorts, exaggerates, and scapegoats. Certainly, the emerging attention economy has allowed sensationalist websites and sources of infotainment to exert influence and claim advertising revenue, but neither sensationalism nor infotainment are original products of online media.

What happens when it is no longer just the odd Labour seat going to George Galloway or Caroline Lucas in sudden unpredictable surges, but the whole of Scotland being lost in a single bloodbath? What happens when votes for left-of-centre rivals surge (the SNP vote trebling, the Green vote quadrupling), millions of potential voters still stay at home, and all of this takes place while the Conservatives reconstitute themselves as a viable centre-Right governing party? This is one of the reasons why Corbynism has emerged in the first place: in that circumstance, Blairite triangulation turns out to be as useful as a paper umbrella, only any good until it starts raining. This Is Not 1981 In the last analysis, Corbyn’s victory was decisively enabled not by organisational changes or by ‘infiltration’.

In this view, the goal of efficient government would be to make investors as happy as possible, and watch the wealth and contentment pile up. But the economy is inherently political. It works, insofar as it does, through a tacit compromise between owners and wage-earners. Despite the hallelujahs and hosannahs for ‘wealth creators’ that politicians of centre-Right and centre-Left are inclined to engage in, businesses only bother to generate prosperity if the circumstances are acceptably profitable to them.24 Employees, meanwhile, have to at least implicitly agree to the conditions that are necessary for profit-making. Stable governments are those which are able to secure a compromise between classes on the conditions of future growth.


pages: 458 words: 136,405

Protest and Power: The Battle for the Labour Party by David Kogan

Bear Stearns, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Boris Johnson, Bretton Woods, Brexit referendum, Brixton riot, centre right, crowdsourcing, Donald Trump, Etonian, F. W. de Klerk, falling living standards, financial independence, full employment, imperial preference, Jeremy Corbyn, means of production, Mikhail Gorbachev, Neil Kinnock, Nelson Mandela, Northern Rock, open borders, race to the bottom, Ronald Reagan, wealth creators, Winter of Discontent, Yom Kippur War

If nothing else, CLPD had proved that its tactics could win. This wasn’t just down to Vladimir Derer’s drafting, or CLPD’s lobbying and pressure. It was also due to the failure of others to respond to the CLPD threat. The right of the Labour party was divided and uncertain. The centre-left and centre-right in the PLP had never been able to agree on tactics or a unified position. They were split on whether to fight against the New Left or quit Labour and start a new party. Of course, the problem was that the fight was not really in the PLP. The battlefield had been moved to the constituencies by CLPD and the trade union branches where the traditional right had no organisation.

[Its] failure was threefold: it was London-based, a leadership organisation, had the Common Market obsession and also had a lot of personality problems. In parliament, leading members of the Labour frontbench were also divided in considering whether to fight or to leave to set up a new party. The first signs of a split had been over membership of the common market, but the attacks on the primacy of the PLP now took centre stage. The centre-right was completely divided as to how to counter it. There was no unified leadership or tactical organisation, but CLPD was winning the argument and something had to be done. The NEC decided on a time-honoured tactic to address the issue; it established a Commission of Enquiry under union leader David Basnett, to determine what to do on the constitutional issues facing the conference in 1980.

I was the Labour party’s lawyer in the case expelling Militant because when Militant took a legal action against the Labour party, we defended it and saw them off. Unfortunately, history does not record the Blair-Nellist chats over morning coffee. It was obvious that Michael Foot would stand down and that Neil Kinnock would run from the centre-left with Roy Hattersley from the centre-right. This new generation of Labour leaders would have a clear run against one another because the New Left, without Tony Benn, had no viable candidate. On Sunday 12 June 1983, they all gathered at Chris Mullin’s small flat in Brixton. The meeting included CLPD stalwarts, the newly-elected MPs Banks and Corbyn, and a few older MPs – Michael Meacher and Jo Richardson as well as Ken Livingstone, the leader of the GLC, with NUPE’s Tom Sawyer of the NEC and Tony Benn.


pages: 235 words: 73,873

Half In, Half Out: Prime Ministers on Europe by Andrew Adonis

banking crisis, Berlin Wall, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Boris Johnson, Bretton Woods, Brexit referendum, British Empire, centre right, colonial rule, congestion charging, Corn Laws, cuban missile crisis, Dominic Cummings, eurozone crisis, imperial preference, mass immigration, Neil Kinnock, oil shock, Suez crisis 1956

There is nothing to be lost and everything to be gained by putting ourselves into the same intellectual mould as our partners. There were, however, other matters of major importance to the Labour government. First, they apparently believed – and feared – that the other governments involved in the discussions and later in the proposed Coal and Steel Community, would all be Christian democratic governments of the centre right. Consequently, the organisation would have no place in a socialist government embarking for the first time on carrying through rapid and major socialist changes in the United Kingdom. There were, of course, no grounds for this belief. The countries of Europe before the Second World War had had governments of many different hues.

The irony is that with his 2002 Harz labour market reforms, Schröder became as significant a moderniser of European social democracy as Tony himself; but by 2002 Schröder and Blair were daggers drawn over Iraq and didn’t spend much time discussing labour market reform, the future of Europe or indeed anything else. Tony was constantly amazed that Schröder managed to win elections and felt New Labour and the SPD were essentially different parties. He is disarmingly frank about this in his memoirs: The truth is – and I fear this was becoming increasingly the case in my relations with the European centre right – we had more in common with [Merkel] than with the German SDP … Their view of the European social model was very traditional. Angela would see the need for change. I liked her as a person also. She seemed at first rather shy, even aloof, but she had a twinkle that swiftly came through. I thought she was honest and instinctively a kindred spirit, and we got on well.

Everyone assumed we were about to lose power, and Gordon was about to leave No. 10. It was never spoken of, but it didn’t need to be. That day, Merkel had snubbed David Cameron, who would become Prime Minister six weeks later, by refusing to meet him during her visit to Britain. She was furious with Cameron for taking the Conservative Party out of the centre-right European People’s Party grouping in the European Parliament, in favour of a new group that would collect a ragbag of right-wing populist parties – and some more sinister right-wing authoritarian parties on the fringes of mainstream politics. At lunch she told Gordon how angry with Cameron she was.


pages: 475 words: 155,554

The Default Line: The Inside Story of People, Banks and Entire Nations on the Edge by Faisal Islam

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Alan Greenspan, Asian financial crisis, asset-backed security, balance sheet recession, bank run, banking crisis, Basel III, Ben Bernanke: helicopter money, Berlin Wall, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, bond market vigilante , book value, Boris Johnson, British Empire, capital controls, carbon credits, carbon footprint, carbon tax, Celtic Tiger, central bank independence, centre right, collapse of Lehman Brothers, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, crony capitalism, Crossrail, currency risk, dark matter, deindustrialization, Deng Xiaoping, disintermediation, energy security, Eugene Fama: efficient market hypothesis, eurozone crisis, Eyjafjallajökull, financial deregulation, financial engineering, financial innovation, financial repression, floating exchange rates, forensic accounting, forward guidance, full employment, G4S, ghettoisation, global rebalancing, global reserve currency, high-speed rail, hiring and firing, inflation targeting, Irish property bubble, junk bonds, Just-in-time delivery, labour market flexibility, light touch regulation, London Whale, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, margin call, market clearing, megacity, megaproject, Mikhail Gorbachev, mini-job, mittelstand, Money creation, moral hazard, mortgage debt, mortgage tax deduction, mutually assured destruction, Myron Scholes, negative equity, North Sea oil, Northern Rock, offshore financial centre, open economy, paradox of thrift, Pearl River Delta, pension reform, price mechanism, price stability, profit motive, quantitative easing, quantitative trading / quantitative finance, race to the bottom, regulatory arbitrage, reserve currency, reshoring, Right to Buy, rising living standards, Ronald Reagan, savings glut, shareholder value, sovereign wealth fund, tail risk, The Chicago School, the payments system, too big to fail, trade route, transaction costs, two tier labour market, unorthodox policies, uranium enrichment, urban planning, value at risk, WikiLeaks, working-age population, zero-sum game

So, despite the appointment of a technocratic government in Athens, the rich north of the Eurozone still did not trust Greek democracy to carry through the bailout deal. All of this was to reach a crashing crescendo with the twin elections in May and June 2012. The parties that had enforced the recent Troika reform programmes were obliterated in May. The winners were New Democracy, a centre-right party in office just before the crisis, and partly responsible for it. But ND and PASOK combined, the duopoly of Greek politics that typically accounted for 80 per cent of Greek votes, slumped to below a third of total votes cast. In PASOK’s place Syriza, a radical left party headed by the 38-year-old Alexis Tsipras stormed into second place.

Of course, right now it seems absurd to think that Golden Dawn could ever top the polling in a Greek election. But in 2011 it was absurd to suggest they could have any MPs at all. In 1928 the Nazis won 2.8 per cent of the vote. By 1933 Hitler was chancellor. What propelled the surge in support for the Nazis? A strong showing by the far left, which drove the centre-right to Hitler. It is not unthinkable that history could repeat itself, in a situation where hundreds of thousands of young men and women have been left desperate and desolate. Greece is not just about economics. When I visited his local polling booth, Alexis Tsipras was mobbed by supporters and non-supporters alike.

In August 2010, he was at his peak – a colossus confident in his argument, bestriding government with his spending review, and displaying a missionary zeal for his fiscal plans. ‘It’s an absolute fundamental belief of mine that there is nothing progressive about losing control of the public finances, there’s nothing fair about it,’ he told me in his office at the Treasury, before listing centre-left and centre-right parties from the USA to Sweden that had cut back large deficits. The Apprentice Chancellor had some advantages. He had carefully won the argument for some sort of spending cuts in advance of the election, although he had given very little detail of his plans for raising tuition fees, slashing the housing budget, cutting non-pensioner benefits, raising VAT, freezing public pay and hiking train fares.


pages: 736 words: 233,366

Roller-Coaster: Europe, 1950-2017 by Ian Kershaw

airport security, anti-communist, Apollo 11, Ayatollah Khomeini, banking crisis, Berlin Wall, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Boris Johnson, Bretton Woods, Brexit referendum, British Empire, business cycle, centre right, colonial rule, cuban missile crisis, deindustrialization, Deng Xiaoping, Donald Trump, European colonialism, eurozone crisis, Exxon Valdez, failed state, Fall of the Berlin Wall, falling living standards, feminist movement, first-past-the-post, fixed income, floating exchange rates, foreign exchange controls, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, full employment, Herbert Marcuse, illegal immigration, income inequality, Jeremy Corbyn, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, labour market flexibility, land reform, late capitalism, Les Trente Glorieuses, liberal capitalism, liberation theology, low interest rates, low skilled workers, mass immigration, means of production, Mikhail Gorbachev, mutually assured destruction, Neil Armstrong, Nelson Mandela, Nixon triggered the end of the Bretton Woods system, North Sea oil, Northern Rock, oil shale / tar sands, oil shock, open borders, post-war consensus, precariat, price stability, public intellectual, quantitative easing, race to the bottom, reserve currency, rising living standards, road to serfdom, Ronald Reagan, Ronald Reagan: Tear down this wall, Sinatra Doctrine, Suez crisis 1956, The Chicago School, trade liberalization, union organizing, upwardly mobile, washing machines reduced drudgery, Washington Consensus, Winter of Discontent, young professional

Their ideological premises – commitment to the welfare state, state regulation of the economy, a belief in redistributive taxation to create equality – were all now questioned. Even in Scandinavia, where they had been dominant for so long, the Social Democrats were under pressure in the years following the oil crisis. In Sweden the Social Democrats found themselves in 1976 in opposition for the first time in forty years as a government centre-right coalition took office. The Norwegian Labour Party was dependent on the left-wing Socialist Party for support in a minority government after 1973. The Social Democrats had problems, too, in Denmark (where the Conservatives achieved their best result in 1984) and in Finland, though they held on as new protest parties emerged, making the formation of stable coalitions more difficult.

For the most part the trend in Western Europe was towards the conservative right. The fragmentation of ‘pillarization’ that down to the 1960s had been the hallmark of the Netherlands and Belgium continued. This produced a number of new political parties but it led by the 1980s to the election of centre-right coalition governments committed to tackling the economic problems through variants of deflationary politics. In Austria, Bruno Kreisky’s thirteen years as Chancellor came to an end when the Socialist Party lost its absolute majority at the 1983 general election. Corruption scandals had undermined the party, even though the economy was stable.

The rightward trend was less prominent here than elsewhere, given Switzerland’s sustained financial strength and stability, though in the federal elections of 1983 for the first time since 1925 the Social Democrats failed to emerge as the largest party. As the social basis of support for the political left (and trade unionism) weakened, the liberal and conservative centre-right gained ground and the influence of market forces strengthened. The sharpest turn to the right was in Britain. Without Britain’s specific experience of the crisis there, it is unlikely that Margaret Thatcher, who had replaced Edward Heath as leader of the Conservative Party in February 1975, would have become Prime Minister.


pages: 160 words: 46,449

The Extreme Centre: A Warning by Tariq Ali

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Berlin Wall, bonus culture, BRICs, British Empire, centre right, deindustrialization, Dr. Strangelove, Edward Snowden, Fall of the Berlin Wall, financial deregulation, first-past-the-post, full employment, Great Leap Forward, labour market flexibility, land reform, light touch regulation, means of production, Mikhail Gorbachev, military-industrial complex, Monroe Doctrine, mortgage debt, negative equity, Neil Kinnock, North Sea oil, obamacare, offshore financial centre, popular capitalism, reserve currency, Ronald Reagan, South China Sea, The Chicago School, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, trade route, trickle-down economics, Washington Consensus, Westphalian system, Wolfgang Streeck

Throughout the heartlands of capital we witnessed the emergence of effective coalitions: as ever, the Republicans and Democrats in the United States; New Labour and Tories in Britain; Socialists and a medley of conservatives in France; the German coalitions of one variety or another, with the Greens differentiating themselves largely as ultra-Atlanticists; the virtually identical Scandinavian centre-right and centre-left, competing in cravenness before the Empire. In almost every case the two/three-party system morphed into an effective national government. A new market extremism came into play. The entry of capital into the most hallowed domains of social provision was touted as a necessary ‘reform’.

It is premature to imagine that capitalism is on the verge of dissolution; however, its political cover is a different story. The democratic shell within which Western capitalism has, until recently, prospered is showing a number of cracks. Since the nineties democracy has, in the West, taken the form of an extreme centre, in which centre-left and centre-right collude to preserve the status quo; a dictatorship of capital that has reduced political parties to the status of the living dead. How did we get here? Following the collapse of communism in 1991, Edmund Burke’s notion that ‘in all societies consisting of different classes, certain classes must necessarily be uppermost’, and that ‘the apostles of equality only change and pervert the natural order of things’, became the wisdom of the age, embraced by servant and master alike.

Many were given consultancies as soon as they left office, as part of a ‘sweetheart deal’ with the companies concerned. Throughout the heartlands of capital we have witnessed the convergence of political choices: Republicans and Democrats in the United States, New Labour and Tories in Britain, Socialists and Conservatives in France; the German coalitions, the Scandinavian centre-right and centre-left, and so on. In virtually each case the two-party system has morphed into an effective national government. The hallowed notion that political parties and the differences between them constitute the essence of modern democracies has begun to look like a sham. Cultural differences persist, and the issues raised are important; but the craven capitulation on the fundamentals of how the country is governed means that cultural liberals, in permanent hock to the US Democrats or their equivalents, have helped to create the climate in which so many social and cultural rights are menaced.


Refuge: Transforming a Broken Refugee System by Alexander Betts, Paul Collier

Alvin Roth, anti-communist, centre right, charter city, corporate social responsibility, Donald Trump, failed state, Filter Bubble, global supply chain, informal economy, it's over 9,000, Kibera, mass immigration, megacity, middle-income trap, mobile money, Mohammed Bouazizi, mutually assured destruction, open borders, Peace of Westphalia, peer-to-peer, race to the bottom, randomized controlled trial, rising living standards, risk/return, school choice, special economic zone, structural adjustment programs, tail risk, trade route, urban planning, zero-sum game

Just as the legacy of the French Revolution still lies at the core of French commitment to liberté, égalité and fraternité, and the memory of National Socialism haunts Germans, so Hungarian and Austrian identities are influenced by their past response to Muslims in Europe. Faced with a rapidly mounting and disorderly influx of refugees, many Hungarians fell back psychologically on that historic role. President Orbán, leading a party of the centre-right, faced pressure from a party of the right which was keen to espouse this role as its cause. A recent analysis by the political scientist Sergi Pardos-Prado finds that across Europe if parties of the centre-right adopt liberal policies on immigration they heavily lose support to parties of the extreme right.5 Whether for fear of losing power, or because of genuine belief, in June 2015 President Orbán announced that Hungary would build a fence to prevent illegal entry to the European Union through its territory.

Guardian, ‘UN Agencies “Broke and Failing” in Face of Ever-Growing Refugee Crisis’, 6 September 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/06/refugee-crisis-unagencies-broke-failing. 4. The Case of M.S.S. v Belgium and Greece, ECtHR 2011. Application No. 30696/09. 5. Sergi Pardos-Prado, ‘How Can Mainstream Parties Prevent Niche Party Success? Center-Right Parties and the Immigration Issue’, The Journal of Politics, 77/2 (2015): 352–67. 6. Guardian, ‘Libya No-Fly Resolution Reveals Global Split in UN’, 18 March 2011, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/mar/18/libya-nofly-resolution-split. 7. BBC, ‘Migrant Crisis: Merkel Warns of EU “Failure” ’, 31 August 2015, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-34108224. 8.

See David Miller, Strangers in Our Midst: The Political Philosophy of Immigration (Cambridge, Mass., 2016: Harvard University Press). David Rueda, ‘Dualization, Crisis and the Welfare State’, SocioEconomic Review 12/2 (2014): 381–407. Sergi Pardos-Prado, ‘How Can Mainstream Parties Prevent Niche Party Success? Center-Right Parties and the Immigration Issue’, The Journal of Politics, 77/2 (2015): 352–67. Brian Barry, ‘The Quest for Consistency: A Sceptical View’, in B. Barry and R. Goodin (eds.), Free Movement: Ethical Issues in the Transnational Migration of People and of Money (Hemel Hempstead, 1992: Harvester Wheatsheaf).


pages: 193 words: 48,066

The European Union by John Pinder, Simon Usherwood

Berlin Wall, BRICs, central bank independence, centre right, collective bargaining, Doha Development Round, eurozone crisis, failed state, illegal immigration, labour market flexibility, mass immigration, Neil Kinnock, Nelson Mandela, new economy, non-tariff barriers, open borders, price stability, trade liberalization, zero-sum game

The political culture of the European Parliament differs radically from that of the Council. The meetings are open to the public; voting by simple majority is the routine; and the MEPs usually vote by party group rather than by state. Three-quarters of the MEPs elected in June 2009 belonged to the mainstream party groups: 271 to the centre-right Christian Democrat and Conservative EPP (European People’s Party) group; 189 to the centre-left PES (Party of European Socialists) group; and 85 to the ALDE (European Liberals, Democrats, and Reformists) group. The rest were evenly divided between smaller groups to the left, of which the most important were the Greens, and to the right, with a variety of eurosceptics of various ideological complexions.

Chart 2 Number of MEPs from each state, 2014 While agreement has not yet been reached on a uniform electoral procedure, or ‘principles common to all member states’ as the Amsterdam Treaty more tolerantly put it, all the states now operate systems of proportional representation. The balance between the mainstream parties has otherwise been fairly stable, with neither the centre-right nor the centre-left able to command a majority alone. Hence broad coalitions across the centre are needed to ensure a majority for voting on legislation or the budget; and this is all the more necessary for amending or rejecting measures under the increasingly important co-decision procedure, where an absolute majority of 376 votes is required.

The well-developed system of committees, each preparing the Parliament’s positions and grilling the Commissioners in a field of the Union’s activities, also tends to encourage consensual behaviour. But there has nonetheless been a sharper left–right division since the elections of 1999, when the centre-right became structurally larger than the centre-left, a pattern reinforced by enlargement. Although the Parliament has performed well enough in using its now considerable powers over legislation and the budget, the voters’ turnout has declined with each election, from 63.0 per cent in 1979 to 43 per cent in 2009.


Basic Income And The Left by henningmeyer

basic income, Bernie Sanders, carbon tax, centre right, eurozone crisis, income inequality, Jeremy Corbyn, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, labour market flexibility, land value tax, means of production, mini-job, moral hazard, precariat, quantitative easing, Silicon Valley, technological determinism, the market place, Tobin tax, universal basic income

On the same day, the proposal was the than 125,000 valid signatures to the federal chan‐ object of a second and final vote in the National cellery. On 27 August 2014, after validation of the Council: 157 voted were against, 19 in favour and 16 signatures and examination of the arguments, the abstained. In all cases, all the representatives from Federal Council rejected the initiative without the far right, centre right and centre parties voted making a counter-proposal. In its view, ‘an uncondi‐ against the proposal. All pro votes and abstentions tional basic income would have negative conse‐ came from the socialist party and the green party, quences on the economy, the social security system both of which were sharply divided.

And unemployment benefits higher than the current UK approximately that conforms to the more egali‐ pittance, funded by progressive taxation. But that is tarian universal welfare states of the Nordic just to make the UK look a bit more like a universal countries. welfare state. While there is a current pilot in Finland — under a And a key aspect of such states is that they are not centre-right, not social-democrat, government — just about income transfers — though they are the universal basic income has been an idea which has most effective social machine for equality ever flourished, unsurprisingly, in the Anglo-American devised in history. They are also about enhancing world familiar only with means-tested, market- personal wellbeing for all through the provision of based welfare states.


pages: 283 words: 87,166

Reaching for Utopia: Making Sense of an Age of Upheaval by Jason Cowley

"World Economic Forum" Davos, anti-communist, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Boris Johnson, Brexit referendum, Bullingdon Club, Cambridge Analytica, centre right, Charles Lindbergh, coherent worldview, Corn Laws, corporate governance, crony capitalism, David Brooks, deindustrialization, deskilling, Donald Trump, Etonian, eurozone crisis, fake news, Fall of the Berlin Wall, illegal immigration, Jeremy Corbyn, liberal world order, Neil Kinnock, Occupy movement, offshore financial centre, old-boy network, open borders, open immigration, plutocrats, post-war consensus, public intellectual, Right to Buy, Robert Mercer, Ronald Reagan, Russell Brand, technological determinism, University of East Anglia

To defeat Geert Wilders’s anti-Muslim Freedom Party in the Netherlands, the centre-right Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, had to adopt some of his rival’s positions and borrow much of his xenophobic rhetoric. In the illiberal democracies of eastern Europe – Poland, Hungary – an ugly form of the old right has re-emerged. The Czech Republic has embraced anti-establishment populism after the ruling Social Democrats were crushed by ANO (‘Yes’), an insurgent party led by a billionaire oligarch, Andrej Babiš. Meanwhile, Angela Merkel’s centre-right government has been severely weakened in Germany and her standing diminished after the far-right Alternative für Deutschland, energised by the migrant crisis, won nearly thirteen per cent of vote in the federal election in September 2017: it now has representation for the first time and is the official opposition in the Bundestag.

He had such good manners and such charm, and together these have carried him a very long way, to the top of British politics as prime minister of the first coalition government since the Second World War. At the start of their shotgun marriage, Cameron and Nick Clegg had promised so much, nothing less than a new transparency and a ‘new politics’. This was to be a historic realignment; not as progressives had long wished for on the centre-left, but on the centre-right: classical liberalism in harmony with modernised Cameroon Conservatism, with David Laws heralded as the new model national Liberal politician. In an essay published in the New Statesman in May 2010, Vernon Bogdanor, who taught Cameron at Oxford, wrote: The decision by the Lib Dems to form a coalition with the Conservatives brings to an end the project of realignment on the left, begun by Jo Grimond in the 1950s, and continued by David Steel in the 1970s and by Paddy Ashdown, with support from Tony Blair, in the 1990s . . .

In an essay published in the New Statesman in May 2010, Vernon Bogdanor, who taught Cameron at Oxford, wrote: The decision by the Lib Dems to form a coalition with the Conservatives brings to an end the project of realignment on the left, begun by Jo Grimond in the 1950s, and continued by David Steel in the 1970s and by Paddy Ashdown, with support from Tony Blair, in the 1990s . . . It seems the Labour Party and the left do not yet realise what a catastrophe has hit them. It is comparable to 1983, though then the left could at least hope that Labour and the SDP-Liberal Alliance might come together. By 2012, the promised centre-right realignment had not happened. Cameron found himself unable to evolve a coherent political strategy, or to tell a convincing story to the British people about the kind of country he wanted Britain to be when in recession and threatened with break-up, or to demonstrate a basic competence in government as he flip-flopped and U-turned and retreated as policies were introduced, only to be revised or abandoned altogether or simply botched, as with Andrew Lansley’s Health and Social Care Bill.


pages: 497 words: 150,205

European Spring: Why Our Economies and Politics Are in a Mess - and How to Put Them Right by Philippe Legrain

3D printing, Airbnb, Alan Greenspan, Asian financial crisis, bank run, banking crisis, barriers to entry, Basel III, battle of ideas, Berlin Wall, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, book value, Boris Johnson, Bretton Woods, BRICs, British Empire, business cycle, business process, capital controls, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, carbon tax, Carmen Reinhart, Celtic Tiger, central bank independence, centre right, clean tech, collaborative consumption, collapse of Lehman Brothers, collective bargaining, corporate governance, creative destruction, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, crony capitalism, Crossrail, currency manipulation / currency intervention, currency peg, debt deflation, Diane Coyle, disruptive innovation, Downton Abbey, Edward Glaeser, Elon Musk, en.wikipedia.org, energy transition, eurozone crisis, fear of failure, financial deregulation, financial engineering, first-past-the-post, Ford Model T, forward guidance, full employment, Gini coefficient, global supply chain, Great Leap Forward, Growth in a Time of Debt, high-speed rail, hiring and firing, hydraulic fracturing, Hyman Minsky, Hyperloop, immigration reform, income inequality, interest rate derivative, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Irish property bubble, James Dyson, Jane Jacobs, job satisfaction, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Rogoff, Kickstarter, labour market flexibility, labour mobility, land bank, liquidity trap, low interest rates, margin call, Martin Wolf, mittelstand, moral hazard, mortgage debt, mortgage tax deduction, North Sea oil, Northern Rock, offshore financial centre, oil shale / tar sands, oil shock, open economy, peer-to-peer rental, price stability, private sector deleveraging, pushing on a string, quantitative easing, Richard Florida, rising living standards, risk-adjusted returns, Robert Gordon, savings glut, school vouchers, self-driving car, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, Skype, smart grid, smart meter, software patent, sovereign wealth fund, Steve Jobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, too big to fail, total factor productivity, Tyler Cowen, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, working-age population, Zipcar

The ratio of 15–64s to over-64s is 3.86 in 2010 and 2.45 in 2030. 21 The incumbents thrown out include: Conservative New Democracy in Greece in October 2009 and then the Socialists in May 2012, the Socialists in Hungary in April 2010, Labour in Britain in May, Fianna Fail in Ireland in February 2011, the Centre-Party-led coalition in Finland in April, the Socialists in Portugal in May, the centre-right coalition in Denmark in September, the Socialists in Spain in November, the government in Slovenia in December, the centre-right in Slovakia in March 2012, President Nicolas Sarkozy in France in May, and both the Communists in Cyprus and Mario Monti, Italy’s technocratic prime minister turned politician, in February 2013. 22 Sweden’s centre-right coalition, which was re-elected in 2010, faces an uphill battle in 2014. The Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, only scraped through in 2012, albeit with a different coalition partner. Poland’s centre-right coalition, which was re-elected in 2011, is lagging in the polls.

It should also hold confirmation hearings for each individual commissioner and have the right to reject any individual, as the US Senate can do with many senior US officials. Another way to make the European elections more significant would be for the Parliament to behave more like a proper legislature. Instead of splitting top jobs (two-and-a-half years for the centre-right, two-and-a-half for the centre-left), one grouping should battle to get it for the full five-year term. Like in most national parliaments, bigger parties should get more committee chairs. To make the Parliament itself more representative and legitimate, party lists should be opened up so that a wider range of candidates can contest elections.

France’s President Hollande might see it as a way of countervailing German power and setting out a distinct social democratic agenda. Britain’s David Cameron might make it one of his objectives. Smaller countries could see it as an opportunity to make their voices heard. Within the Parliament, even the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) might be persuaded that change is essential if the new Parliament throws up a big constituency of extremists, populists and Eurosceptics. From the Commission’s point of view, delegating technical powers – for instance, spinning off its antitrust powers to a European Competition Authority – and refocusing it as a more political actor would greatly enhance its diminished stature.


Top 10 Prague by Schwinke, Theodore.

centre right, Defenestration of Prague, G4S, Johannes Kepler, New Urbanism, retail therapy

Maps Dominic Beddow, Simonetta Giori (Draughtsman Ltd) Additional Editorial Assistance Emma Anacootee, Sherry Collins, Michelle Crane, Integrated Publishing Solutions, Tomás Kleisner, Maite Lantaron, Marianne Petrou, Filip Polonsky, Beth Potter, Quadrum Solutions, Rada Radojicic, Ellen Root, Sands Publishing Solutions, Sadie Smith, Susana Smith, Leah Tether, Conrad van Dyk Picture Credits t-top, tl-top left; tlc-top left centre; tc-top centre; tr-top right; cla- centre left above; ca-centre above; cra-centre right above; cl-centre left; c-centre; cr-centre right; clb-centre left below; cb-centre below; crb-centre right below; bl-bottom left, b-bottom; bc-bottom centre; bcl-bottom centre left; br-bottom right; d-detail. 157 Acknowledgements Every effort has been made to trace the copyright holders of images, and we apologize in advance for any unintentional omissions.


pages: 420 words: 126,194

The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam by Douglas Murray

anti-communist, Ayatollah Khomeini, Berlin Wall, Black Lives Matter, borderless world, Boris Johnson, British Empire, centre right, cognitive dissonance, deindustrialization, European colonialism, facts on the ground, failed state, Fall of the Berlin Wall, gentrification, glass ceiling, high net worth, illegal immigration, low skilled workers, Mark Zuckerberg, mass immigration, open borders, post-industrial society, white flight

Within the space of a few months the apparently unsayable had been said by almost everybody. In each country, on each occasion, a great debate began. Was David Cameron right to twin the issue of national security and national cohesion? Was Merkel simply trying to respond to pressures and cleverly keeping a bloc of the centre-right within her political fold? Whatever the reasons, in each country the ‘multiculturalism has failed’ debate seemed to mark some kind of watershed moment. Yet despite the prolific nature of these debates, it was unclear even at the time what these statements meant. The word ‘multiculturalism’ (let alone multikulti in German) already sounded notoriously different to different people.

Even as the migration into Europe increased exponentially the justifications that officials reiterated were the same ones that had been used for decades, and they permeated everywhere from the heads of supranational organisations down to the level of local government. In the middle of August 2015, as the Chancellor prepared to open the borders, the mayor of the town of Goslar in Lower Saxony insisted that his town would welcome migrants with ‘open arms’. Mayor Oliver Junk – a member of Angela Merkel’s own centre-right party – highlighted the fact that Goslar had been losing a small part of its population each year. Over the last decade the population of 50,000 had diminished by around 4,000 people – a factor caused by young people leaving the area to look for work as well as a diminishing birth rate among local people.

That is nonsense. Islam is a religion of peace. They are not Muslims; they are monsters.’5 The media also tried hard not to address what had happened. The day after Lee Rigby was murdered on the streets of London by two Koran-quoting converts, Britain’s Daily Telegraph – the main broadsheet of the centre-right – took the Cameron line. One columnist claimed that ‘The man with the bloodied knife who spoke into a video camera at Woolwich had no discernible agenda … none of it made sense.’6 Another writer at the same paper wrote, ‘For me, yesterday’s barbaric act of terror in Woolwich was literally senseless.


pages: 482 words: 149,807

A History of France by John Julius Norwich

centre right, German hyperinflation, Henri Poincaré, Honoré de Balzac, it's over 9,000, Monroe Doctrine, Peace of Westphalia, power law, Suez canal 1869

Illustration Credits Alamy Stock Photo: here below/StevanZZ; here above left/Hemis; here below left/Heritage Image Partnership Ltd; here centre left/Josse Christophel/portrait by Quentin de la Tour/Louvre Paris; here above left/Josse Christophel/Bibliothèque Nationale Paris. Bridgeman Images: here above left, here centre right, here centre right/all De Agostini Picture Library; here above left and here below left/Photos © PVDE; here centre right; here below left and here above left/both © British Library Board All Rights Reserved; here centre right, here centre left and below right, here below left, here above right, here below/all Louvre Paris; here above right/from Vie des Femmes Célèbres, c. 1505/Musée Dobrée Nantes France; here above left/State Collection France; here below left/style of Corneille de Lyon/Polesden Lacey Surrey UK; here below right/National Gallery of Art Washington DC USA; here above left/studio of Frans II Pourbus/Château de Versailles France; here centre, here above left and below right, here above/all Musée Carnavalet Paris; here below left/La Sorbonne Paris; here below right/National Galleries of Scotland Edinburgh; here below/Château de Versailles; here below left/Private Collection; here above left/State Hermitage Museum St Petersburg Russia; here above right/Musée des Beaux-Arts Valenciennes France; here below right/photo Nadar/The Art Institute of Chicago USA; here centre; here below/UIG; here below.

Bridgeman Images: here above left, here centre right, here centre right/all De Agostini Picture Library; here above left and here below left/Photos © PVDE; here centre right; here below left and here above left/both © British Library Board All Rights Reserved; here centre right, here centre left and below right, here below left, here above right, here below/all Louvre Paris; here above right/from Vie des Femmes Célèbres, c. 1505/Musée Dobrée Nantes France; here above left/State Collection France; here below left/style of Corneille de Lyon/Polesden Lacey Surrey UK; here below right/National Gallery of Art Washington DC USA; here above left/studio of Frans II Pourbus/Château de Versailles France; here centre, here above left and below right, here above/all Musée Carnavalet Paris; here below left/La Sorbonne Paris; here below right/National Galleries of Scotland Edinburgh; here below/Château de Versailles; here below left/Private Collection; here above left/State Hermitage Museum St Petersburg Russia; here above right/Musée des Beaux-Arts Valenciennes France; here below right/photo Nadar/The Art Institute of Chicago USA; here centre; here below/UIG; here below. Getty Images: here centre right and here above right/Christophel Fine Art/UIG; here above/Andia/UIG; here below left/Apic; here above left/De Agostini; here above left/Heinrich Hoffmann/ullstein bild; here centre/Bettmann; here/Gabriel Hackett/Archive Photos. REX/Shutterstock: here above right/Gianni Dagli Orti. Suggestions for Further Reading There are libraries groaning with excellent histories of France, far longer and intimidatingly more thorough than mine.


Berlitz Pocket Guide Stockholm by Berlitz

centre right, congestion charging, low cost airline, Lyft, retail therapy

Sweden joined the European Union in 1995, and to reflect that new European status Stockholm was selected as the Culture Capital of Europe for 1998. However, it decided not to join the European single currency at its inception in 1999. In 2003, the euro was rejected by popular referendum. In 2006, a centre-right alliance headed by the Moderate Party won the election with a narrow majority, thus ending 12 years of Social Democrat rule. In 2014 the Social democrats returned to power, albeit in coalition with the Greens. However, its future seems dubious following a huge leak of classified data and the resignation of two ministers in 2017.

Eriksson starts the manufacture of telephones. 1895 Alfred Nobel establishes the Nobel Prize. 1905 Parliament dissolves the union with Norway. 1939 Sweden’s coalition government declares neutrality in World War II. 1950 Stockholm’s first underground railway is inaugurated. 1955 Obligatory national health insurance established. 1974 The monarch loses all political powers. 1986 Prime Minister Olof Palme is murdered in Stockholm. 1995 Sweden joins the European Union after a referendum. 2000 Church separates from the state after 400 years. 2003 Foreign Minister Anna Lindh murdered in Stockholm. 2006 Centre-right alliance headed by the Moderate Party wins election. 2010 The Sweden Democrats gain parliamentary seats for the first time. 2014 Social Democrats return to power forming a ruling coalition with the Greens; the Sweden Democrats become the third largest political force in Sweden with 49 deputies. 2017 Five people are killed in a terrorist attack when a truck is driven into a crowd on Drottninggatan.


Battling Eight Giants: Basic Income Now by Guy Standing

basic income, Bernie Sanders, carbon tax, centre right, collective bargaining, decarbonisation, degrowth, diversified portfolio, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Extinction Rebellion, full employment, future of work, Gini coefficient, income inequality, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), job automation, labour market flexibility, Lao Tzu, longitudinal study, low skilled workers, Martin Wolf, Mont Pelerin Society, moral hazard, North Sea oil, offshore financial centre, open economy, pension reform, precariat, quantitative easing, rent control, Ronald Reagan, selection bias, universal basic income, Y Combinator

But Britain could go further than the good Canadian example, by recycling revenue not only from a carbon tax but from levies on all forms of pollution and intrusions into the commons. (8) Populism and neo-fascism The final giant is the rise of right-wing populism, epitomized by the election of Donald Trump as US president in November 2016, and by the spread of populist parties across Europe, where over a quarter of the electorate now support populist politicians, according to recent research. The definition of populism is vague, but most populists support aggressive nationalism, anti-migration posturing, hostility to mainstream politics of the centre left and centre right and a willingness to tolerate or openly support authoritarianism and antidemocratic policies. In Britain, a national opinion poll carried out by the Hansard Society in early 2019 found disturbingly high support for political leadership prepared to disregard democratic norms, including 54% Battling Eight Giants 38 support for the proposition ‘Britain needs a strong leader willing to break the rules’.

A preliminary official analysis issued in February 2019 concluded that the payments had not produced any decline in employment – indeed, there was tentative evidence that recipients had half a day more in employment – and it had resulted in significant improvements in well-being, with a 17% incidence of better physical and mental health, and a 37% decrease in the incidence of depression.11 Making that result more impressive was the fact that the employment rate was no higher in the control group, even though an ‘activation’ scheme had been introduced by the centre-right government halfway through the pilot that sanctioned unemployed people by reducing their benefits if they did not pursue or obtain jobs. The fact that the employment rates of the basic income recipients were the same as for those threatened with punitive sanctions shows that sanctions are unnecessary.12 An interview with one of the previously unemployed recipients of the basic income reported that he had used the time and money to build up a workshop for making and selling shaman drums.13 However, it was not the money that had made that possible but the absence of behavioural conditions that had previously forced him to look for jobs and use up time to satisfy the employment bureau’s demands.


pages: 505 words: 133,661

Who Owns England?: How We Lost Our Green and Pleasant Land, and How to Take It Back by Guy Shrubsole

Adam Curtis, Anthropocene, back-to-the-land, Beeching cuts, Boris Johnson, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, centre right, congestion charging, Crossrail, deindustrialization, digital map, do-ocracy, Downton Abbey, false flag, financial deregulation, fixed income, fulfillment center, Garrett Hardin, gentrification, Global Witness, Goldman Sachs: Vampire Squid, Google Earth, housing crisis, housing justice, James Dyson, Jeremy Corbyn, Kickstarter, land bank, land reform, land tenure, land value tax, linked data, loadsamoney, Londongrad, machine readable, mega-rich, mutually assured destruction, new economy, Occupy movement, offshore financial centre, oil shale / tar sands, openstreetmap, place-making, plutocrats, profit motive, rent-seeking, rewilding, Right to Buy, Ronald Reagan, Russell Brand, sceptred isle, Stewart Brand, the built environment, the map is not the territory, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Tragedy of the Commons, trickle-down economics, urban sprawl, web of trust, Yom Kippur War, zero-sum game

The owners of such strips – which can sometimes just be a few feet wide – can effectively hold potential developers to ransom, by refusing them access to their site unless they give them a slice of the profits. A 1961 court case determined that the owners of ransom strips are entitled to one-third of the increase in the value of the land to which they grant access. Such piratical behaviour has recently prompted centre-right think tank Onward to advocate the reform of compulsory purchase rules so that councils can buy land more cheaply; otherwise, ‘there will sometimes be one landowner or someone with a ransom strip who tries to hold out for a windfall profit’. Offshore fraudsters, pension funds lobbying to rip up the Green Belt and land pirates with their ransom strips are all intriguing examples of corporate malfeasance towards the land.

That meant that if a council wanted to buy a landowner’s field, say, for building council homes, the landowner would still be compensated, but only for the field’s existing agricultural value – not for the additional ‘hope value’ the landowner may have hoped to realise one day by selling it for housing. If they refused to sell, the council could issue a compulsory purchase order. ‘For 11 years,’ writes Daniel Bentley, editorial director at centre-right think tank Civitas, ‘councils were able to buy land for their housebuilding programmes at, or close to, existing use value.’ Over that same period, about 1.8 million council homes were constructed in England – a third of all the council housing built in the country since the Second World War. Twenty-one entirely new towns – such as Stevenage, Harlow and Milton Keynes – were built by public development corporations under this land purchase framework.

Title Land (acres) Farm subsidies 1873 2001 Total 2015 Single area payments Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry 460,108 270,700 £1,643,510 £707,036 Duke of Grafton 25,773 11,000 £835,559 £495,320 Duke of Westminster 19,749 129,300 £815,805 £462,775 Duke of Devonshire 198,572 73,000 £768,623 £218,856 Duke of Beaufort 51,085 52,000 £688,097 £345,075 Duke of Bedford 86,335 23,020 £543,233 £431,163 Duke of Marlborough 23,511 11,500 £526,549 £284,468 Duke of Norfolk 49,866 46,000 £449,166 £259,605 Duke of Richmond, Lennox, and Gordon 286,411 12,000 £379,085 £253,038 Duke of Roxburghe 60,418 65,600 £361,919 £175,938 Duke of Rutland 70,137 26,000 £358,430 £314,531 Duke of Northumberland 186,397 132,200 £327,403 £133,553 Duke of Sutherland 1,358,545 12,000 £191,802 £170,419 Duke of Atholl 201,640 148,000 £172,436 £60,287 Duke of Fife (Title did not exist then) 1,500 £169,905 £144,364 Duke of Argyll 175,114 60,800 £120,097 £0 Duke of Wellington 19,116 31,700 £80,878 £66,486 Duke of Montrose 103,447 8,800 n/a n/a Duke of Somerset 25,387 2,000 n/a n/a Duke of Hamilton 157,368 12,000 n/a n/a Duke of Abercorn 78,662 15,000 n/a n/a Duke of St Albans 8,998 4,000 n/a n/a Duke of Manchester 27,312 0 n/a n/a Duke of Leinster 73,100 0 n/a n/a Totals 3,747,051 1,148,120 £8,432,497 £4,522,914 Organisations campaigning on land issues • Land Justice Network – activists’ network that advocates for land reform and organises demonstrations www.landjustice.uk • Land Workers Alliance – a grassroots union representing farmers, growers and land-based workers landworkersalliance.org.uk • Three Acres and a Cow – a travelling show telling the history of land rights and protest in folk song and story threeacresandacow.co.uk • Shared Assets – a think-and-do-tank that supports people managing land for the common good www.sharedassets.org.uk • The Land – an occasional magazine about land rights www.thelandmagazine.org.uk • Friends of the Earth – environmental campaigning group friendsoftheearth.uk • Shelter – housing and homelessness charity www.shelter.org.uk • New Economics Foundation – think tank proposing ideas for a new economy where people really take back control neweconomics.org • IPPR – centre-left think tank advocating land reform • Civitas – centre-right think tank advocating land reform • Who Owns Scotland – campaigner Andy Wightman’s fantastic maps and blog about Scottish land ownership, one of the inspirations for this book www.whoownsscotland.org.uk For more about Who Owns England, including blogs, interactive maps and tips about exploring land ownership, visit whoownsengland.org FOOTNOTES 3.


pages: 209 words: 89,619

The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class by Guy Standing

8-hour work day, banking crisis, barriers to entry, basic income, behavioural economics, Bertrand Russell: In Praise of Idleness, bread and circuses, call centre, Cass Sunstein, centre right, collective bargaining, company town, corporate governance, crony capitalism, death from overwork, deindustrialization, deskilling, emotional labour, export processing zone, fear of failure, full employment, Herbert Marcuse, hiring and firing, Honoré de Balzac, housing crisis, illegal immigration, immigration reform, income inequality, independent contractor, information security, it's over 9,000, job polarisation, karōshi / gwarosa / guolaosi, labour market flexibility, labour mobility, land reform, libertarian paternalism, low skilled workers, lump of labour, marginal employment, Mark Zuckerberg, mass immigration, means of production, mini-job, moral hazard, Naomi Klein, nudge unit, old age dependency ratio, Panopticon Jeremy Bentham, pension time bomb, pensions crisis, placebo effect, post-industrial society, precariat, presumed consent, quantitative easing, remote working, rent-seeking, Richard Thaler, rising living standards, Ronald Coase, Ronald Reagan, science of happiness, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, technological determinism, The Market for Lemons, The Nature of the Firm, The Spirit Level, Tobin tax, transaction costs, universal basic income, unpaid internship, winner-take-all economy, working poor, working-age population, young professional

Antipublic sector critics were helped by media stories of a few former senior public employees living in opulence on their pensions. The United States is only the harbinger. The attack on the public sector is part of the post-2008 adjustment across all industrialised countries. In Greece, under a centre-right government, 75,000 civil servants were added to the already huge public sector between 2004 and 2009. Once the crunch came in 2010, the public salariat was slashed, feeding the Greek precariat. The government also announced it would remove barriers to entry to some professions, lowering their wages to reduce public spending.

In the European Union elections of 2009, average turnout was 43 per cent, the lowest since 1979. Left-of-centre parties did badly almost everywhere. Labour took 16 per cent of the vote in the United Kingdom. Right-wing parties did well everywhere. Socialists were crushed in Hungary, while the extreme right-wing Jobbik won almost as many seats. In Poland, the ruling centre-right Civic Platform won. In Italy, the centre-left gained 26 per cent of the vote, seven percentage points less than in the 2008 general election before the crisis, against 35 per cent for Berlusconi’s People of Liberty Party. In the German elections of 2009, there was a record low turnout of 71 per cent; the right did well.

Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for me and by that time no one was left to speak up. A POLITICS OF PARADISE 183 The warning is relevant because the dangerous class is being led astray by demagogues like Berlusconi, mavericks like Sarah Palin and neo-fascists elsewhere. While the centre-right is being dragged further to the right to hold its constituents, the political centre-left is giving ground and haemorrhaging votes. It is in danger of losing a generation of credibility. For too long, it has represented the interests of ‘labour’ and stood for a dying way of life and a dying way of labouring.


pages: 300 words: 99,410

Why the Dutch Are Different: A Journey Into the Hidden Heart of the Netherlands: From Amsterdam to Zwarte Piet, the Acclaimed Guide to Travel in Holland by Ben Coates

Berlin Wall, Bernie Madoff, bike sharing, British Empire, centre right, clean water, colonial rule, company town, drug harm reduction, Easter island, failed state, financial innovation, glass ceiling, invention of the printing press, joint-stock company, Kickstarter, megacity, Nelson Mandela, offshore financial centre, short selling, spice trade, starchitect, trade route, urban sprawl, work culture

Among major political parties, there was an unwritten agreement that issues of race and multiculturalism should be kept off the agenda, for fear of reigniting the kind of prejudices that had sent thousands of Dutch Jews to Auschwitz. The national media, for example, long refused to report the ethnic identity of convicted criminals. For a politician to raise questions about the desirability of immigration was seen as beyond the pale. When the centre-right politician Frits Bolkestein warned in the early 1990s that intolerant beliefs were being allowed to flourish, he was roundly condemned for pandering to racism and extremism. Within a few years, many people had come to believe that he was right. As in many other countries, matters came to a head in 2001.

Hate mail soon arrived, but she made little effort to win allies, launching fierce attacks on the political establishment and drafting an article referring to the Jewish mayor of Amsterdam as ‘Ayatollah Cohen’. In 2002, shortly after the collapse of the post-Fortuyn coalition government, Hirsi Ali shocked the political world by announcing she would leave the centre-left Labour Party for which she worked to join the centre-right VVD. The Labour Party historically had enjoyed strong support from immigrant communities, and Hirsi Ali felt it was unwilling to criticise Islam as strongly as it should. In 2003 she was elected to Parliament as a VVD member. Given a new platform to promote her ideas, she won a host of international awards and was named ‘Person of the Year’ by a Dutch newspaper.

After studying law and living briefly in Israel, Wilders took a job as a speechwriter for Frits Bolkestein, the same politician who had controversially warned of the perils of Dutch multiculturalism and mentored Hirsi Ali. In 1997, Wilders was elected to Utrecht city council, and year later to the Dutch national parliament as a member of Bolkestein’s centre-right VVD. Aided by a memorable physical appearance – a wig-like breaking wave of bleached blond hair – Wilders quickly made a name for himself, joining those arguing that Dutch tolerance had gone too far. In 2003, as the Dutch-backed invasion of Iraq became increasingly chaotic, Wilders and Hirsi Ali penned a joint op-ed in the NRC Handelsblad titled ‘It’s Time for a Liberal Jihad’.


pages: 521 words: 110,286

Them and Us: How Immigrants and Locals Can Thrive Together by Philippe Legrain

affirmative action, Albert Einstein, AlphaGo, autonomous vehicles, Berlin Wall, Black Lives Matter, Boris Johnson, Brexit referendum, British Empire, call centre, centre right, Chelsea Manning, clean tech, coronavirus, corporate social responsibility, COVID-19, creative destruction, crowdsourcing, data science, David Attenborough, DeepMind, Demis Hassabis, demographic dividend, digital divide, discovery of DNA, Donald Trump, double helix, Edward Glaeser, en.wikipedia.org, eurozone crisis, failed state, Fall of the Berlin Wall, future of work, illegal immigration, immigration reform, informal economy, Jane Jacobs, job automation, Jony Ive, labour market flexibility, lockdown, low cost airline, low interest rates, low skilled workers, lump of labour, Mahatma Gandhi, Mark Zuckerberg, Martin Wolf, Mary Meeker, mass immigration, moral hazard, Mustafa Suleyman, Network effects, new economy, offshore financial centre, open borders, open immigration, postnationalism / post nation state, purchasing power parity, remote working, Richard Florida, ride hailing / ride sharing, Rishi Sunak, Ronald Reagan, Silicon Valley, Skype, SoftBank, Steve Jobs, tech worker, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, The future is already here, The Future of Employment, Tim Cook: Apple, Tyler Cowen, urban sprawl, WeWork, Winter of Discontent, women in the workforce, working-age population

Until recently, the far right had failed to make inroads in Spain either, perhaps because memories of General Franco’s fascist dictatorship were still fresh, as well as because many Spaniards had relatives who had emigrated. But in the November 2019 elections the anti-immigrant Vox party came third, its far-right views having been legitimised by centre-right parties that had sought to capitalise on opposition to Catalan separatism by becoming more nationalistic. Far-right populist nationalists blame corrupt liberal elites (their enemies) for betraying ‘real people’ (their supporters) by bringing in unwelcome foreigners. They exploit fears that white locals are being replaced by non-white outsiders.16 As well as threatening immigrants and people from an immigrant background, they also often have a reactionary social agenda.

Instead, far-right politicians’ views need to be challenged, their lies and hypocrisies exposed. Demolishing their arguments, or better still ridiculing them, can help. The far right needs to be isolated, not ignored. Mainstream politicians often swing from dismissing far-right views to pandering to them. Centre-right politicians worry about being outflanked on the right and losing socially conservative voters. Centre-left ones fret about losing socially disaffected and conservative working-class voters. Both then try to win back those voters by emulating the far right. In effect, they say, ‘Populists are right.

If people wrongly believe that their long wait to see a doctor is due to immigrants, even though migrants are in fact net contributors to public finances and disproportionately medical-care providers, it is neither fair to migrants nor helpful to voters to validate their mistaken view. The claim that such pandering is nonetheless necessary to ward off the far right is wrong-headed. Anti-immigrant prejudice isn’t acceptable simply because it comes from a ‘mainstream’ politician. Centre-left or centre-right politicians who echo the lines of the far right don’t defeat it, they become it. In contrast, Emmanuel Macron defeated Marine Le Pen to become president of France in 2017 by refusing to pander to anti-immigrant views, showing that openness could go hand in hand with security and appealing to moderate sceptics’ values, notably by arguing that being open was patriotic.


pages: 940 words: 16,301

Routes to Rejoin by Stay European

Boris Johnson, Brexit referendum, centre right, coronavirus, COVID-19, Dominic Cummings, Donald Trump, first-past-the-post, lockdown, Rishi Sunak

The most immediate issue is that the party leaderships, particularly Labour and the Lib Dems, have no truck with the idea of an alliance. This isn’t just a matter of stubbornness as it is sometimes portrayed: the reason why it is possible for the Lib Dems to take seats from the Conservatives is that they are able to attract centre-right voters under some circumstances, but a formal pact would make it easy for the Tories to paint the Lib Dems as just an adjunct of Labour to these voters. The question in any case is less what we would do in an ideal world, but what is possible in the circumstances we face. This is where local factors come into play.


pages: 232 words: 76,830

Dreams of Leaving and Remaining by James Meek

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, agricultural Revolution, anti-communist, bank run, Boris Johnson, Brexit referendum, centre right, Corn Laws, corporate governance, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Etonian, full employment, global supply chain, illegal immigration, Jeff Bezos, Jeremy Corbyn, Leo Hollis, low skilled workers, Martin Wolf, mega-rich, Neil Kinnock, North Sea oil, Northern Rock, obamacare, offshore financial centre, race to the bottom, Ronald Reagan, savings glut, Shenzhen special economic zone , Skype, sovereign wealth fund, special economic zone, Stephen Hawking, working-age population

It tore up the rules intended to ensure senior civil servants are qualified, recruited in open competition, and protected from arbitrary dismissal. The head of the prime minister’s office has spoken openly of firing any civil servant suspected of being infected with the ‘social pathology’ of the previous pro-European, socially liberal, economically centre-right government. The government violated the constitution in order to gain control of the constitutional tribunal, the court that rules on whether laws are constitutional or not. Law and Justice openly encourages emnity towards refugees; just before the election, Kaczyński said they were carriers of cholera and dysentery and ‘other, even more severe diseases’.

When he lived in Brzeg, he was a founding member of the local branch of the extreme right-wing movement ONR. His sacked deputy was a Law and Justice supporter. Anna Pasternak was hostile; the party’s attempts to establish a religious state annoyed her. But nor did she care for Civic Platform, Law and Justice’s economically centre-right, socially liberal rivals, who ruled Poland for eight years before Kaczyński’s triumph. Like almost half of Polish voters, she sat out the 2015 election. Brexit was won on the votes of more than a third of the electorate; the Conservatives and Donald Trump won power in Britain and the US with the support of a quarter; Law and Justice won it with the support of less than a fifth.


pages: 890 words: 133,829

Sardinia Travel Guide by Lonely Planet

car-free, carbon footprint, centre right, haute couture, Honoré de Balzac, Kickstarter, low cost airline, Skype

A swift clean-up operation, however, has left almost no visible traces of the cyclone and resorts have been completely rebuilt. Political Change The centre-left Partito Democratico candidate Francesco Pigliaru (42.45%) won Sardinia's regional elections in February 2014, defeating outgoing governor Ugo Cappellacci (39.65% of votes) of Berlusconi’s centre-right Forza Italia party. Riding the tides of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi's popularity and Berlusconi's disgrace, Pigliaru was seen as a 'clean' candidate and not a career politician, with sound policies and an honest background as a Professor of Economics at the University of Cagliari. In spring 2014, the European elections ushered in a new political era for Sardinia, which with only 1.6 million people is under-represented in the 'Italia Insulare' constituency consisting of Sardinia and the much-larger Sicily.

He sets the cat among the pigeons by banning building within 2km of the coast and taxing holiday homes and mega-yachts. 2008 After 36 years, the US Navy withdraws from the Arcipelago di La Maddalena. It had long divided opinion: friends pointed to the money it brought; critics highlighted the risks of hosting atomic submarines. 2009 Renato Soru is defeated in the February regional election by centre-right candidate Ugo Cappellacci. 2011 In a May referendum, 98% of Sardinians vote against nuclear power. Enel gets the green light to build a 90 megawatt wind farm at Portoscuso. 2013 Cyclone Cleopatra tears across the island, bringing apocalyptic flash floods and storms that kill 18 people and leave thousands homeless.

Combining socialist themes (a call for social justice and development of agricultural cooperatives) with free-market ideology (the need for economic liberalism and the removal of state protectionism), it created a distinct brand of Sardinian social-democratic thought. More than 90 years on, the party is still active. It stood independently in the 2009 regional election, winning 4.3% of the Sardinian vote. In 2013, the PSd'Az broke away from Ugo Cappellacci of Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right Forza Italia (FI) party. It rejoined the coalition, however, in time for the regional elections in 2014, which saw Francesco Pigliaru of the centre-left Partito Democratico (PD) beat Cappellacci. The PSd'Az won 4.7% of the vote. In 1921 DH Lawrence spent six days travelling from Cagliari to Olbia.


pages: 934 words: 135,736

The Divided Nation: A History of Germany, 1918-1990 by Mary Fulbrook

Albert Einstein, banking crisis, Berlin Wall, bread and circuses, centre right, classic study, coherent worldview, collective bargaining, death from overwork, deindustrialization, Fall of the Berlin Wall, feminist movement, first-past-the-post, fixed income, full employment, it's over 9,000, joint-stock company, land reform, means of production, Mikhail Gorbachev, open borders, Peace of Westphalia, Sinatra Doctrine, union organizing, unorthodox policies

The USPD share grew from 7.6% to 17.8% while the KPD (which had not contested the 1919 elections) won 2% of the vote; on the right, the German People's Party (DVP) increased its poll from 4.4% to 13.9%, and the German National People's Party (DNVP) gained 15%, compared to its earlier 10.3% share of the vote. The SPD-led coalition government was replaced by a centre-right coalition. From 1921 to the summer of 1923, governmental policies served to exacerbate Germany's political and economic difficulties. Wirth's government of 19212 pursued a so-called 'policy of fulfilment' which, by attempting to fulfil Germany's reparations obligations, served to demonstrate that the German economy was in fact too weak to pay reparations as envisaged.

However, given the lack of experience and resources down to the level of typewriters and functioning telephones for most East German parties, the real issue became that of which East German political forces would gain the support of the major West German parties. In the event, the forces which had spearheaded the autumn revolution in particular New Forum were swamped and consigned to political oblivion by the entrance of the West German juggernauts. Kohl's CDU finally threw its not inconsiderable weight behind the centre-right 'Alliance for Germany'. This was made up of the Democratic Awakening (DA), the German Social Union (DSU), which had been founded as a sister party to the Bavarian CSU, and the old East German CDU, now supposedly free of any taint of its forty-year compromise with the Communist regime. The West German SPD supported the East German SPD, which was founded the previous autumn, and which had attempted to resist being infiltrated or flooded by former SED members.

As the prospect of unification became ever more immediate, with West German entrepreneurs exploring the possibilities of acquiring East German enterprises, and West Germans with Page 339 legal claims to expropriated properties in the East beginning to institute legal proceedings, many East Germans began to be more concerned about safeguarding certain fundamental elements of their existence, particularly in connection with low rents, guaranteed employment, and extensive provisions for child care. In the event, the vote of 18 March 1990 was a decisive one in favour of rapid unification and the introduction of the West German Deutschmark under conservative auspices. The scale of the centre-right victory, with over forty-eight per cent of the vote, was decisive, even though a coalition would be required for putting through key constitutional changes. The masses, who for decades had suffered in passivity or retreated into their private niches of 'grumbling and making do', finally had their hour; and once again, the dissident intellectuals found themselves isolated.


pages: 302 words: 84,881

The Digital Party: Political Organisation and Online Democracy by Paolo Gerbaudo

Airbnb, barriers to entry, basic income, Bernie Sanders, bitcoin, Californian Ideology, call centre, Cambridge Analytica, centre right, creative destruction, crowdsourcing, data science, digital capitalism, digital divide, digital rights, disintermediation, disruptive innovation, Donald Trump, Dunbar number, Edward Snowden, end-to-end encryption, Evgeny Morozov, feminist movement, gig economy, industrial robot, Jaron Lanier, Jeff Bezos, Jeremy Corbyn, jimmy wales, Joseph Schumpeter, Mark Zuckerberg, Network effects, Occupy movement, offshore financial centre, oil shock, post-industrial society, precariat, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Richard Florida, Richard Stallman, Ruby on Rails, self-driving car, Silicon Valley, Skype, Slavoj Žižek, smart cities, Snapchat, social web, software studies, Stewart Brand, technological solutionism, technoutopianism, the long tail, Thomas L Friedman, universal basic income, vertical integration, Vilfredo Pareto, WikiLeaks

Podemos’s electoral force has proved itself since the European elections in 2014, when it received 8 per cent of the votes and five MEPs were elected just two months after its foundation. In the 2015 municipal elections in Barcelona and Madrid, two women, Ada Colau and Manuela Carmena, were elected as mayors, supported by civic lists assisted by Podemos. In the parliamentary elections of December 2015 and June 2016, Podemos came third behind the Socialist PSOE, and the centre-right Partido Popular. After opposing a coalition government of the PP and Ciudadanos, it is now externally backing a Socialist government led by PSOE leader Pedro Sanchez. Compared to the Pirate Parties and the Five Star Movement, Podemos is more traditional in its leftist identity and its organisational structure, which incorporates various organs typically found in mass parties, such as the secretary and the party’s central committee.

To this day, historical comparisons aimed at identifying new party types tend to begin from the mass party, the form of political party that dominated the industrial era. The notion of mass party is mostly associated with the large parties of the left, social-democratic, socialist and communist. But it has also progressively become dominant on the centre-right (in Britain the Conservative Party and the Labour Party, in Italy DC and PCI, and in Germany the SPD and the CDU). The mass party came to constitute the foremost organisational structure of industrial modernity, one that still survives, though often in tatters, in some political parties as those of social-democracy.


pages: 632 words: 159,454

War and Gold: A Five-Hundred-Year History of Empires, Adventures, and Debt by Kwasi Kwarteng

accounting loophole / creative accounting, Alan Greenspan, anti-communist, Asian financial crisis, asset-backed security, Atahualpa, balance sheet recession, bank run, banking crisis, Bear Stearns, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Bretton Woods, British Empire, business cycle, California gold rush, capital controls, Carmen Reinhart, central bank independence, centre right, collapse of Lehman Brothers, collateralized debt obligation, credit crunch, currency manipulation / currency intervention, Deng Xiaoping, discovery of the americas, Etonian, eurozone crisis, fiat currency, financial engineering, financial innovation, fixed income, floating exchange rates, foreign exchange controls, Francisco Pizarro, full employment, German hyperinflation, Glass-Steagall Act, guns versus butter model, hiring and firing, income inequality, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, it's over 9,000, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, joint-stock company, joint-stock limited liability company, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Rogoff, labour market flexibility, land bank, liberal capitalism, low interest rates, market bubble, money: store of value / unit of account / medium of exchange, moral hazard, new economy, Nixon triggered the end of the Bretton Woods system, oil shock, plutocrats, Ponzi scheme, price mechanism, quantitative easing, rolodex, Ronald Reagan, South Sea Bubble, subprime mortgage crisis, Suez canal 1869, The inhabitant of London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed, the various products of the whole earth, the market place, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, too big to fail, War on Poverty, Yom Kippur War

‘From 1800 to well after World War II, Greece found itself virtually in continual default,’ noted Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff in their important history of financial crises, This Time is Different.40 Such a history would perhaps have disqualified Greece automatically from ever being considered as a full participant in the euro. But it became such a participant, because political considerations were paramount in the promotion of the European single currency; economics played only a minor part. The Greek panic began when Papandreou, to discredit his political rivals, the nominally centre-right New Democracy, soon after taking office revealed that the budget deficit had reached 12.5 per cent in 2009. By contrast, the outgoing government had estimated its 2009 budget deficit at 3.7 per cent. In reality, the figure turned out to be closer to 14 per cent.41 Greece had joined the euro in 2001, a couple of years later than other participant countries.

The election campaign was particularly tense, since one of the principal parties, Syriza, was an avowedly left-wing party which stood on a platform of rejecting the austerity imposed upon Greece as a condition for receiving a bailout. Syriza’s thirty-seven-year-old leader, Alexis Tsipras, was young and charismatic. The first Greek elections of 2012, which had taken place in May, had produced inconclusive results. The centre-right party, New Democracy, had won just under 19 per cent of the vote. After a month during which Tsipras and Antonis Samaras, the leader of New Democracy, had attempted to form a government, new elections were called. Tsipras was an engineer by training, but had spent most of his adult life as a political activist, first as a Communist and eventually as head of Syriza, a motley collection of smaller parties on the Greek left.

He stressed, ‘We want somebody from our country to oversee our economic system.’2 There had been a genuine fear that, if Tsipras became Prime Minister, Greece would ‘crash out of the euro and Europe’s ambitious experiment with a common currency could collapse’.3 Such fears seemed to be fantastic to many people at the time, but the victory of New Democracy in the June 2012 elections did turn out to be a buying signal for Greek assets. The coming to power of an overtly pro-European party of the centre-right was exactly the reassurance that Greece’s international investors wanted. As if to demonstrate how closely international capital movements were now tied to politics, money started to flow into Greece; new deals were forged; the atmosphere of panic and collapse experienced at the beginning of 2012, when many observers feared Greece might actually abandon the euro, was slowly dissipated.


pages: 282 words: 89,266

Content Provider: Selected Short Prose Pieces, 2011–2016 by Stewart Lee

accounting loophole / creative accounting, Boris Johnson, Bullingdon Club, call centre, centre right, David Attenborough, Etonian, gentrification, James Dyson, Jeremy Corbyn, Livingstone, I presume, Mark Zuckerberg, mass immigration, Nelson Mandela, offshore financial centre, plutocrats, pre–internet, Right to Buy, Robert Gordon, Russell Brand, Saturday Night Live, sensible shoes, Socratic dialogue, Stephen Fry, trickle-down economics, wage slave, young professional

The fact maven Norris McWhirter was, unusually, standing outside the studio in the distinctive concrete doughnut of TV Centre, acknowledging the applause of thousands of members of his centre-right pressure group the Freedom Association. The concerned libertarians were showing their opposition to sporting sanctions on apartheid-era South Africa by dressing up as Zulus and doing a mass hokey-cokey to Booker T and the MG’s’ “Soul Limbo”, the theme for the BBC’s cricket coverage. Norris McWhirter’s record-breaking dream was to choreograph the largest centre-right dance that had ever been seen in the Shepherd’s Bush area. And he realised it spectacularly. But what stayed with me that day was not Norris McWhirter’s freedom dance itself, but the fact that Norris McWhirter’s non-partisan followers were cavorting in blackface through an identifiably existent environment, the actual BBC TV Centre itself.


Noam Chomsky: A Life of Dissent by Robert F. Barsky

Albert Einstein, anti-communist, centre right, feminist movement, Herbert Marcuse, Howard Zinn, information retrieval, language acquisition, machine translation, means of production, military-industrial complex, Murray Bookchin, Norman Mailer, profit motive, public intellectual, Ralph Nader, Ronald Reagan, strong AI, The Bell Curve by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, theory of mind, Yom Kippur War

In June of 1995, a press named after Avukah launched its first publication: Partners in Hate: Noam Chomsky and the Holocaust Deniers, by Werner Cohn, professor emeritus at the University of British Columbia. Norman Epstein explains how something such as this could occur: "In the later years of Avukah, the organization split into a Centre Right (e.g., Nat Glazer, Seymour Lipset) and a Left (e.g., Melman, Harris); apparently the [Centre] Right has now captured the name" (6 July 1995). The suggestion that there is any relationship between the now-defunct organization named Avukah and Avukah Press, is, according to Chomsky, "sheer fraud." He correctly notes that Glazer-Lipset have not had the remotest connection with anything associated with Avukah or its ideals for half a century (in Lipset's case, ever, to my knowledge).


pages: 638 words: 156,653

Berlin by Andrea Schulte-Peevers

Albert Einstein, Berlin Wall, biodiversity loss, call centre, car-free, carbon footprint, centre right, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Frank Gehry, gentrification, glass ceiling, Google Earth, indoor plumbing, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Kickstarter, low cost airline, Prenzlauer Berg, retail therapy, Ronald Reagan, Ronald Reagan: Tear down this wall, Skype, starchitect, trade route, upwardly mobile, urban planning, urban renewal

The steady growth in foreign nationals since reunification has, however, been offset by a decline in the indigenous population, due in part to the exodus of young families from the capital to the surrounding countryside, and the overall population of the city has actually fallen since 1993. Return to beginning of chapter BERLIN TODAY Berlin is whole once more, but rejoining the two city halves has proven to be painful and costly. Mismanagement, excessive spending and corruption led to the collapse of the centre-right city government under Eberhard Diepgen and the election of a ‘red-red’ coalition of the centre-left SPD and the far left Die Linke in 2001. Led by the charismatic Klaus Wowereit (SPD) as governing mayor, the new government inherited a fiscal storm that had been brewing since 1990. Following reunification, Berlin lost the hefty federal subsidies it had received during the years of division.

National über-rag Bild is the pride of media tycoon Axel Springer’s publishing empire (see the boxed text, opposite). BZ should not be confused with the respected Berliner Zeitung, a left-leaning daily newspaper that is most widely read in the eastern districts. Of the other broadsheets, the Berliner Morgenpost is especially noted for its vast classified section, while Der Tagesspiegel has a centre-right political orientation, a solid news and foreign section, and decent cultural coverage. At the left end of the spectrum is the tageszeitung or taz, which appeals to an intellectual crowd with its news analysis and thorough reporting. Early editions of many dailies are available after 9pm. Die Zeit is a highbrow national weekly newspaper, with in-depth reporting on everything from politics to fashion.

Abfahrt – departure (trains and buses) Ankunft – arrival (trains and buses) Ärztlicher Notdienst – emergency medical service Ausfahrt, Ausgang – exit Bahnhof (Bf) – train station Bahnpolizei – train station police Bahnsteig – train station platform Bedienung – service, service charge Behinderte – disabled persons Berg – mountain Bezirk – district Bibliothek – library BRD – Bundesrepublik Deutschland (abbreviated in English as FRG – Federal Republic of Germany); see also DDR Brücke – bridge Brunnen – fountain or well Bundestag – German parliament CDU – Christliche Demokratische Union (Christian Democratic Union), centre-right party DB – Deutsche Bahn (German railway) DDR – Deutsche Demokratische Republik (abbreviated in English as GDR – German Democratic Republic); the name for the former East Germany; see also BRD Denkmal – memorial, monument Deutsches Reich – German empire 1871–1918 Dom – cathedral Drittes Reich – Third Reich; Nazi Germany 1933–45 Eingang – entrance Eintritt – admission ermässigt – reduced (eg admission fee) Fahrplan – timetable Fahrrad – bicycle FDP – Freie Demokratische Partei (Free Democratic Party), liberal-centrist party Feuerwehr – fire brigade Flohmarkt – flea market Flughafen – airport FRG – Federal Republic of Germany; see also BRD Gasse – lane or alley Gästehaus, Gasthaus – guesthouse Gaststätte – informal restaurant GDR – German Democratic Republic (the former East Germany); see also DDR Gedenkstätte – memorial site Gepäckaufbewahrung – left-luggage office Gestapo – Geheime Staatspolizei (Nazi secret police) Gründerzeit – literally ‘foundation time’; early years of German empire, roughly 1871–90 Hafen – harbour, port Haltestelle – bus stop Hanseatic League – an alliance that created a trade monopoly over northern Europe between the 13th and 17th centuries Hauptbahnhof (Hbf) – main train station Heilige Römische Reich – Holy Roman Empire; from 8th century to 1806 Hochdeutsch – literally ‘High German’; standard spoken and written German, developed from a regional Saxon dialect Hof (Höfe) – courtyard(s) Hotel garni – a hotel without a restaurant where you are only served breakfast Imbiss – snack bar, takeaway stand Insel – island Jugendstil – Art Nouveau Kabarett – satirical stand-up, sketch or musical comedy Kaffee und Kuchen – literally ‘coffee and cake’; trad-itional afternoon coffee break Kaiser – emperor; derived from ‘Caesar’ Kapelle – chapel Karte – ticket Kartenvorverkauf – ticket booking office Kino – cinema König – king Konzentrationslager (KZ) – concentration camp Kristallnacht – literally ‘Night of Broken Glass’; Nazi pogrom against Jewish businesses and institutions on 9 November 1938 Kunst – art Kunsthotels – hotels either designed by artists or liberally furnished with art Kurfürst – elector (ie rulers who had a vote in the election of the emperor) Land (Länder) – state(s) lesbisch – lesbian (adj) Lesbe(n) – lesbian(s) Mehrwertsteuer (MWST) – value-added tax Mietskaserne(n) – tenement(s) built around successive courtyards Notdienst – emergency service Ossis – literally ‘Easties’; nickname for East Germans Ostalgie – fusion of the words Ost and Nostalgie, meaning nostalgia for East Germany Palais – small palace Palast – palace Parkhaus – car park Passage – shopping arcade PDS – Partei des Demokratischen Sozialismus (Party of Democratic Socialism) Pfand – deposit levied on most beverage containers Platz – square Rathaus – town hall Reich – empire Reisezentrum – travel centre in train or bus stations Rezept – prescription rezeptfrei – describes over-the-counter medications SA – Sturmabteilung; the Nazi Party militia Saal (Säle) – hall(s), large room(s) Sammlung – collection Schiff – ship Schifffahrt – literally ‘boat way’; shipping, navigation Schloss – palace schwul – gay (adj) Schwuler (Schwule) – gay(s) (n) SED – Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschland (Socialist Unity Party of Germany); only existing party in the GDR See – lake SPD – Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (Social Democratic Party of Germany) SS – Schutzstaffel; organisation within the Nazi Party that supplied Hitler’s bodyguards, as well as concentration camp guards and the Waffen-SS troops in WWII Stasi – GDR secret police (from Ministerium für Staats-sicherheit, or Ministry of State Security) Strasse (Str) – street Szene – scene (ie where the action is) Tageskarte – daily menu; day ticket on public transport Telefonkarte – phonecard Tor – gate Trabant – GDR-era car boasting a two-stroke engine Trödel – junk, bric-a-brac Turm – tower Übergang – transit point Ufer – bank verboten – prohibited, forbidden Viertel – quarter, neighbourhood Wald – forest Weg – way, path Weihnachtsmarkt – Christmas market Wende – ‘change’ or ‘turning point’ of 1989, ie the collapse of the GDR and the resulting German reunification Wessis – literally ‘Westies’; nickname for West Germans Zeitung – newspaper * * * Return to beginning of chapter BEHIND THE SCENES * * * THIS BOOK THANKS OUR READERS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS * * * THIS BOOK The 6th edition of Berlin was researched and written by Andrea Schulte-Peevers, Anthony Haywood and Sally O’Brien.


pages: 443 words: 98,113

The Corruption of Capitalism: Why Rentiers Thrive and Work Does Not Pay by Guy Standing

"World Economic Forum" Davos, 3D printing, Airbnb, Alan Greenspan, Albert Einstein, Amazon Mechanical Turk, anti-fragile, Asian financial crisis, asset-backed security, bank run, banking crisis, basic income, Ben Bernanke: helicopter money, Bernie Sanders, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Big Tech, bilateral investment treaty, Bonfire of the Vanities, Boris Johnson, Bretton Woods, business cycle, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, carried interest, cashless society, central bank independence, centre right, Clayton Christensen, collapse of Lehman Brothers, collective bargaining, commons-based peer production, credit crunch, crony capitalism, cross-border payments, crowdsourcing, debt deflation, declining real wages, deindustrialization, disruptive innovation, Doha Development Round, Donald Trump, Double Irish / Dutch Sandwich, ending welfare as we know it, eurozone crisis, Evgeny Morozov, falling living standards, financial deregulation, financial innovation, Firefox, first-past-the-post, future of work, Garrett Hardin, gentrification, gig economy, Goldman Sachs: Vampire Squid, Greenspan put, Growth in a Time of Debt, housing crisis, income inequality, independent contractor, information retrieval, intangible asset, invention of the steam engine, investor state dispute settlement, it's over 9,000, James Watt: steam engine, Jeremy Corbyn, job automation, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, labour market flexibility, light touch regulation, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, lump of labour, Lyft, manufacturing employment, Mark Zuckerberg, market clearing, Martin Wolf, means of production, megaproject, mini-job, Money creation, Mont Pelerin Society, moral hazard, mortgage debt, mortgage tax deduction, Neil Kinnock, non-tariff barriers, North Sea oil, Northern Rock, nudge unit, Occupy movement, offshore financial centre, oil shale / tar sands, open economy, openstreetmap, patent troll, payday loans, peer-to-peer lending, Phillips curve, plutocrats, Ponzi scheme, precariat, quantitative easing, remote working, rent control, rent-seeking, ride hailing / ride sharing, Right to Buy, Robert Gordon, Ronald Coase, Ronald Reagan, Sam Altman, savings glut, Second Machine Age, secular stagnation, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, Simon Kuznets, SoftBank, sovereign wealth fund, Stephen Hawking, Steve Ballmer, structural adjustment programs, TaskRabbit, The Chicago School, The Future of Employment, the payments system, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, Thomas Malthus, Thorstein Veblen, too big to fail, Tragedy of the Commons, Travis Kalanick, Uber and Lyft, Uber for X, uber lyft, Y Combinator, zero-sum game, Zipcar

However, research covering over 800 elections in twenty rich countries between 1870 and 2014 has found that far-right parties have usually been the main beneficiaries of financial crises.13 The rise of the far right also reflects slow economic growth, which tends to produce fragmentation of political parties and parliaments, accentuated by financial crises.14 Of course, fractionalisation creates scope for new movements and political realignments on the left as well as the right. But this may take time. Second, an emboldened centre-right has moved to entrench its advantage by becoming the representative of global finance and rentier capitalism, remaking economies and societies to serve their interests. Consider how that is being done in Britain. The Conservatives won the general election in 2015 with about 37 per cent of the votes and the support of just 24 per cent of the total electorate.

A progressive response is overdue. Today we are in dangerous times because mainstream parties of the left are in intellectual paralysis, their leaderships wedded to utilitarianism, trying to appeal to an alliance of their perception of the middle class and proletariat. In their weakness, they are allowing the baser elements of centre-right parties to go unchallenged. Healthy democracies need morally and intellectually strong combatants. Party politics is at its strongest when parties represent class interests and aspirations, and when they eschew utilitarianism. As precariat parties take shape, this will become clearer. The precariat must build its own future, not expect old structures to do so.


pages: 357 words: 99,684

Why It's Still Kicking Off Everywhere: The New Global Revolutions by Paul Mason

anti-globalists, back-to-the-land, balance sheet recession, bank run, banking crisis, Berlin Wall, business cycle, capital controls, capitalist realism, centre right, Chekhov's gun, citizen journalism, collapse of Lehman Brothers, collective bargaining, creative destruction, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, currency manipulation / currency intervention, currency peg, disinformation, do-ocracy, eurozone crisis, Fall of the Berlin Wall, floating exchange rates, foreign exchange controls, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, full employment, ghettoisation, illegal immigration, informal economy, land tenure, Leo Hollis, low skilled workers, mass immigration, means of production, megacity, Mohammed Bouazizi, Naomi Klein, Network effects, New Journalism, Occupy movement, price stability, quantitative easing, race to the bottom, rising living standards, short selling, Slavoj Žižek, Stewart Brand, strikebreaker, union organizing, We are the 99%, Whole Earth Catalog, WikiLeaks, Winter of Discontent, women in the workforce, working poor, working-age population, young professional

., just as the last Molotovs are being thrown, Merkel abandons the idea that banks should lose money as a result of giving Greece leeway on its debt repayments. Shortly afterwards, the EU and IMF agree to waive conditions on the €12 billion tranche of bailout money that will tide Greece over until September 2011. Papandreou, meanwhile, is in a panic. First, he attempts to create a government of national unity. He invites the centre-right opposition party, New Democracy, into a coalition and even offers to stand down as prime minister. But who would want to govern Greece? New Democracy spurns Papandreou’s offer, so he declares the formation of a ‘new government’, reshuffling the cabinet. For hours, one insider tells me, he fails to achieve even this: ‘nobody will pick up the phone’.

There is not even much of that ‘anomie’ activism anymore; the movement that defied road tolls in 2011 is tiny in 2012. If anything captures the buzz of late 2012 in Greece, it is the person who sprayed the slogan ‘Love or Nothing’. It’s less about anomie, more about depression and fear. What has depressed and frightened much of Greek society—from the liberal centre-right to the liberal left—is the rapid rise of Golden Dawn. In the two elections of May/June 2012 this party scored between 6–7 per cent. That is nothing like a 1930-style breakthrough. But once its MPs were in parliament, while austerity gnawed away at the fabric of society, its support leapt to 14 per cent.


pages: 126 words: 32,936

Berlitz: Sardinia Pocket Guide (Berlitz Pocket Guides) by Apa

car-free, centre right, low cost airline

Mid-1990s Last of the Sardinian mines closed. 2005 Four new Sardinian provinces created: Olbia-Tempio, Ogliastra, Carbonia-Iglesias and Medio-Campidano. 2008 Renato Soru resigns as president of Sardinia. American nuclear submarine base at La Maddalena is shut down. 2009 Soru stands for president; loses to right-wing Ugo Capellacci. 2010 Shepherds cause disruption at Olbia airport in protest at the decline of of their livelihood. 2011 Cagliari's ruling PdL (Berlusconi's centre-right party) falls to the centre-left democratic PD. Where To Go Getting Around The island is too large to explore from a single base. If touring, two weeks would be just adequate to sample the different aspects of the coast and the sightseeing highlights, but to see the island comfortably you would need a month.


pages: 414 words: 119,116

The Health Gap: The Challenge of an Unequal World by Michael Marmot

active measures, active transport: walking or cycling, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Atul Gawande, Bonfire of the Vanities, Broken windows theory, cakes and ale, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, Carmen Reinhart, Celtic Tiger, centre right, clean water, cognitive load, congestion charging, correlation does not imply causation, Doha Development Round, epigenetics, financial independence, future of work, Gini coefficient, Growth in a Time of Debt, illegal immigration, income inequality, Indoor air pollution, Kenneth Rogoff, Kibera, labour market flexibility, longitudinal study, lump of labour, Mahatma Gandhi, Mahbub ul Haq, meta-analysis, microcredit, move 37, New Urbanism, obamacare, paradox of thrift, race to the bottom, Rana Plaza, RAND corporation, road to serfdom, Simon Kuznets, Socratic dialogue, structural adjustment programs, the built environment, The Spirit Level, trickle-down economics, twin studies, urban planning, Washington Consensus, Winter of Discontent, working poor

Set the wealth producers free and we will all benefit, runs the argument. But what if such a policy made health inequality worse? In Britain, a senior Labour politician said that he was ‘intensely relaxed’ about how much the rich earned.12 Governments of the centre-right and centre-left have both contrived to do very little to reduce economic inequality. The centre-left wants to reduce poverty; the centre-right appears to believe that if they get the incentives right, and the economy grows, poverty will look after itself. But neither has seen economic inequality as a problem, although that is now changing. We should change our focus.


pages: 424 words: 115,035

How Will Capitalism End? by Wolfgang Streeck

"there is no alternative" (TINA), accounting loophole / creative accounting, air traffic controllers' union, Airbnb, Alan Greenspan, basic income, behavioural economics, Ben Bernanke: helicopter money, billion-dollar mistake, Bretton Woods, business cycle, capital controls, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, Carmen Reinhart, central bank independence, centre right, Clayton Christensen, collective bargaining, conceptual framework, corporate governance, creative destruction, credit crunch, David Brooks, David Graeber, debt deflation, deglobalization, deindustrialization, disruptive innovation, en.wikipedia.org, eurozone crisis, failed state, financial deregulation, financial innovation, first-past-the-post, fixed income, full employment, Gini coefficient, global reserve currency, Google Glasses, haute cuisine, income inequality, information asymmetry, invisible hand, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, junk bonds, Kenneth Rogoff, labour market flexibility, labour mobility, late capitalism, liberal capitalism, low interest rates, market bubble, means of production, military-industrial complex, moral hazard, North Sea oil, offshore financial centre, open borders, pension reform, plutocrats, Plutonomy: Buying Luxury, Explaining Global Imbalances, post-industrial society, private sector deleveraging, profit maximization, profit motive, quantitative easing, reserve currency, rising living standards, Robert Gordon, savings glut, secular stagnation, shareholder value, sharing economy, sovereign wealth fund, tacit knowledge, technological determinism, The Future of Employment, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thorstein Veblen, too big to fail, transaction costs, Uber for X, upwardly mobile, Vilfredo Pareto, winner-take-all economy, Wolfgang Streeck

Since this might become a problem if it became all-too-obvious, the champions of the Brussels non-parliament took for last year’s ‘European election’ – the first since the European ramifications of the global ‘financial crisis’ were felt – to some of the same devices that have long been used in national democracies to make voters believe they have a choice.18 Rather than asking for a vote for or against ‘Europe’ or the euro, the leaders of the two centrist blocs, the centre-right and the centre-left, who had never been able to discover even the slightest difference in their interests and political persuasions, decided to personalize the election and present themselves as Spitzenkandidaten competing for the presidency of the European Commission (which, of course, is filled not by the ‘Parliament’ but by member state governments) – an exercise in Fassadendemokratie (Habermas) if there ever was one.

Furthermore, that their desperate efforts to revive inflation have up to now failed testifies to the effective destruction of trade unions in the course of the neoliberal revolution – another channel of political participation through which the asymmetry of power in a capitalist political economy has sometimes been redressed. We also observe an emerging new political configuration pitting Grand Coalitions of centre-left and centre-right TINA parties – parties that subscribe to the There Is No Alternative rhetoric of the age of globalization – against so-called ‘populist’ movements cut off from official policymaking: an opposition excluded from ever becoming the government, and easy to discredit as insufficiently responsible due to being improperly or unrealistically responsive to those that feel railroaded by developments that established democratic parties tell them they can do nothing about.6 Why is it so difficult, in spite of a veritable plethora of alarming symptoms, for people to understand the crisis of contemporary democracy and take it as seriously as it deserves?


Lonely Planet Best of Spain by Lonely Planet

augmented reality, bike sharing, centre right, discovery of the americas, flag carrier, Frank Gehry, G4S, Guggenheim Bilbao, haute cuisine, high-speed rail, illegal immigration, market design, place-making, retail therapy, trade route, young professional

It also oversaw the rise of the Spanish middle class, established a national health system and improved public education, and Spain’s women streamed into higher education and jobs, although unemployment was the highest in Europe. But the PSOE finally became mired in scandal, and in the 1996 elections, the centre-right Partido Popular (PP; People’s Party), led by José María Aznar, swept the PSOE from power. Upon coming to power, Aznar promised to make politics dull, and he did, but he also presided over eight years of solid economic progress. Spain’s economy grew annually by an average of 3.4%, and unemployment fell from 23% (1996) to 8% (2006).

Government Travel Advice The following government websites offer travel advisories and information for travellers: Australian Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade (www.smartraveller.gov.au) Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs & International Trade (www.travel.gc.ca) French Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres Europeennes (www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/fr/conseils-aux-voyageurs) New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs & Trade (www.safetravel.govt.nz) UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office (www.gov.uk/government/organisations/foreign-commonwealth-office) US Department of State (www.travel.state.gov) Practicalities o Smoking Banned in all enclosed public spaces. o Weights & Measures The metric system is used. o Newspapers Three main newspapers: centre-left El País (www.elpais.com), centre-right El Mundo (www.elmundo.es) and right-wing ABC (www.abc.es). The widely available International New York Times includes an eight-page supplement of articles from El País translated into English, or visit www.elpais.com/elpais/inenglish.html. o Radio Nacional de España (RNE) has Radio 1 (general interest and current affairs); Radio 5 (sport and entertainment); and Radio 3 (Radio d’Espop).


pages: 361 words: 117,566

Money Men: A Hot Startup, a Billion Dollar Fraud, a Fight for the Truth by Dan McCrum

air gap, Amazon Web Services, Bernie Madoff, Big Tech, bitcoin, Brexit referendum, Buckminster Fuller, call centre, Cambridge Analytica, centre right, Citizen Lab, corporate governance, corporate raider, COVID-19, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, fake news, forensic accounting, Internet Archive, Kinder Surprise, lockdown, Market Wizards by Jack D. Schwager, multilevel marketing, new economy, off-the-grid, offshore financial centre, pirate software, Ponzi scheme, Potemkin village, price stability, profit motive, reality distortion field, rolodex, Salesforce, short selling, Silicon Valley, Skype, SoftBank, sovereign wealth fund, special economic zone, Steve Jobs, Vision Fund, WeWork

Pushing for other countries to move their embassies into one of the world’s most politically sensitive locations, where Israel maintained an illegal occupation, was a cause célèbre of far-right politicians around the world, including Austria, as Marsalek explained in his response. He claimed to have a close relationship with the leadership of the far-right nationalist Freedom Party (FPÖ), which had just entered into a coalition government with the mainstream centre-right party. Describing the FPÖ’s ‘unfortunate history of affiliation with ultra-right-wing organizations and individuals and a strained relationship with parts of Austria’s Jewish community’, he said its leadership ‘looked favourably on moving the Austrian embassy to Jerusalem as part of a broader initiative to reshape EU foreign policy’.

There were grand events in a castle thrown by his friend Alexander Schütz, a Viennese money manager who oversaw the Atlas supporting Germany’s financial system, Deutsche Bank, as a member of its supervisory board. In this crowd, the impression flourished that Braun had a second fortune salted away because he understood technology and so was early into the big tech stocks like Apple and Google. He threw a little money at politics, backing the centre-right Austrian People’s Party, whose government was propped up by the far-right FPÖ. In the summer of 2017, Braun appeared at a campaign event with Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, and he travelled in influential circles as a member of a think tank linked to the party and as a captain of industry, invited to intimate private dinners with the Austrian premier and his wife.


pages: 388 words: 125,472

The Establishment: And How They Get Away With It by Owen Jones

anti-communist, Asian financial crisis, autism spectrum disorder, bank run, battle of ideas, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, bonus culture, Boris Johnson, Bretton Woods, British Empire, call centre, capital controls, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, centre right, citizen journalism, collapse of Lehman Brothers, collective bargaining, disinformation, don't be evil, Edward Snowden, Etonian, eurozone crisis, falling living standards, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, full employment, G4S, glass ceiling, hiring and firing, housing crisis, inflation targeting, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), investor state dispute settlement, James Dyson, Jon Ronson, laissez-faire capitalism, land bank, light touch regulation, low interest rates, market fundamentalism, mass immigration, Monroe Doctrine, Mont Pelerin Society, moral hazard, Neil Kinnock, night-watchman state, Nixon triggered the end of the Bretton Woods system, Northern Rock, Occupy movement, offshore financial centre, old-boy network, open borders, Overton Window, plutocrats, popular capitalism, post-war consensus, profit motive, quantitative easing, race to the bottom, rent control, road to serfdom, Ronald Reagan, shareholder value, short selling, sovereign wealth fund, stakhanovite, statistical model, subprime mortgage crisis, Suez crisis 1956, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, transfer pricing, Tyler Cowen, union organizing, unpaid internship, Washington Consensus, We are all Keynesians now, wealth creators, Winter of Discontent

He had been intrigued by the Business for Sterling movement of the late 1990s and early 2000s, which mounted a high-profile campaign against joining the European single currency. That was a campaign which, he stresses, ‘involved not being a think tank’. Rather, ‘it involved quite savvy campaigning involving lots of people on the centre-right – but without explicitly being a centre-right campaign’. This was a step change in strategy from the original outriders, who were explicitly ideological think tanks. The TaxPayers’ Alliance would instead be a campaigning organization, cleverly presenting itself as a non-partisan mass movement. For Elliott, the trick was to be unashamedly populist.


pages: 891 words: 220,950

Winds of Change by Peter Hennessy

anti-communist, Beeching cuts, Berlin Wall, Bletchley Park, Bretton Woods, British Empire, centre right, Corn Laws, creative destruction, cuban missile crisis, Dr. Strangelove, Etonian, Fall of the Berlin Wall, floating exchange rates, full employment, government statistician, Great Leap Forward, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, Joseph Schumpeter, land tenure, liberal capitalism, meritocracy, Mikhail Gorbachev, Nelson Mandela, Norman Macrae, North Sea oil, oil shock, reserve currency, rising living standards, Robert Gordon, Scramble for Africa, Suez canal 1869, Suez crisis 1956, Ted Sorensen, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, total factor productivity, upwardly mobile, uranium enrichment

In terms of compound rates of growth in gross domestic product France had prospered mightily since the late 1940s (4.6 per cent between 1948 and 1963) but West Germany was the success story of the postwar boom (7.6 per cent over the same period compared with Britain’s relatively meagre 2.5 per cent25). West Germany, since its creation as a political entity, had been staunchly Christian Democrat centre-right rather than SPD Social Democrat centre-left. Yet the head of the centre-right government in London since January 1957 found nothing attractive about the combination of Catholic social teaching and free enterprise that shaped the increasingly buoyant and export-led West German economy since Dr Erhard pioneered currency reform in the western zones of occupied Germany in 1948.

If federalism was the idea, Gaitskell declared, ‘it does mean … the end of Britain as an independent European state … It means the end of a thousand years of history. You may say, “Let it end”, but, my goodness, it is a decision that needs a little care and thought. And it does mean the end of the Commonwealth.’13 Membership of a federal Europe was the political and emotional fault line for Hugh Gaitskell, to the intense regret of his acolytes on the centre right such as Roy Jenkins, who stood but did not applaud at the end of his friend’s oration (‘Charlie, all the wrong people are cheering,’ Gaitskell’s wife, Dora, said to Charles Pannell, Labour MP for Leeds West14). In Paris, General de Gaulle had thought hard about what it meant. He would have none of it and, like Gaitskell, he too invoked Britain’s deeper history.


pages: 476 words: 144,288

1946: The Making of the Modern World by Victor Sebestyen

anti-communist, Ayatollah Khomeini, Berlin Wall, Bretton Woods, British Empire, centre right, classic study, clean water, colonial rule, disinformation, Etonian, European colonialism, Fall of the Berlin Wall, full employment, Herbert Marcuse, illegal immigration, imperial preference, Kickstarter, land reform, long peace, Mahatma Gandhi, mass immigration, Mikhail Gorbachev, Monroe Doctrine, moral hazard, operation paperclip

In every country where elections were permitted the communists did badly, except in Czechoslovakia. Before the first free Hungarian elections in November 1945, Rákosi told Stalin that the communists could, with the socialists, win between 60 and 70 per cent of the vote and form a ‘popular front’ government. But they each won around 17 per cent, while the centre-right Small-holders Party won a plurality. The Soviets did not wish to risk further such humiliations so they resorted to more tried and tested methods to get their way: bribery, intimidation, threats and, eventually, violence. Stalin was deeply suspicious of local communists who had remained underground in their own countries during the German Occupation.

In regrettable armed confrontations on the front of political struggles in Poland some Jews, unfortunately, perish, but the number of Poles perishing is incomparably greater.7 The second-ranking Polish prelate, Archbishop Sapieha in Kraków, was described even by some of his own priests and fellow bishops as ‘a virulent Jew hater’. Emmanuel Mournier, an eminent French Catholic, and founder of the centre right political and cultural newspaper L’Esprit, met Sapieha when he visited Poland in 1946 and was baffled by ‘an anti-Semitism so vivid, even amongst the high ranking Catholics . . . as if the extermination of the Jews never happened.’ The Bishop of Kielce and his priests blamed the government and the police.


pages: 473 words: 132,344

The Downfall of Money: Germany's Hyperinflation and the Destruction of the Middle Class by Frederick Taylor

Albert Einstein, anti-communist, banking crisis, Berlin Wall, British Empire, central bank independence, centre right, collective bargaining, falling living standards, fiat currency, fixed income, full employment, German hyperinflation, housing crisis, Internet Archive, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, mittelstand, offshore financial centre, plutocrats, quantitative easing, rent control, risk/return, strikebreaker, trade route, zero-sum game

Since the left was not prepared to take on the responsibility of the chancellorship, however, the new leader had to come from one of the ‘bourgeois’ parties, and Stresemann was recognised as highly competent, a skilled political negotiator and a convincing, even inspiring, orator. And, after all, other powerful and capable figures on the business-orientated nationalist centre-right had veered towards an extreme, sometimes violently, anti-republican position during the post-war years (Karl Helfferich being perhaps the most spectacular example), but Stresemann had gone in the other direction. When forced to choose, the tavern-keeper’s son from Berlin had moved steadily in the direction of acceptance of the Republic as an accomplished fact and of the parliamentary system as the one most capable of uniting the majority of Germans.

Grocers’ and butchers’ shops looted. The French turn back all food shipments from the Reich to the occupied area that do not have customs duties paid on them, causing widespread hunger. By presidential decree, trading in German marks outside the Reich is made illegal. Cuno loses a vote of confidence in the Reichstag. Centre-right politician Gustav Stresemann becomes chancellor. Plans made to abandon ‘passive resistance’ in the Ruhr. One gold mark now equals 1,000,000 paper marks. In December 1922 it was 1,000. The fall continues and accelerates. On 20 August a loaf of bread in Berlin costs 200,000 marks. Unemployment in Germany almost doubles in one month from 3.5 to 6.3 per cent. 4,620,455 September.


pages: 515 words: 142,354

The Euro: How a Common Currency Threatens the Future of Europe by Joseph E. Stiglitz, Alex Hyde-White

"there is no alternative" (TINA), "World Economic Forum" Davos, Alan Greenspan, bank run, banking crisis, barriers to entry, battle of ideas, behavioural economics, Berlin Wall, Bretton Woods, business cycle, buy and hold, capital controls, carbon tax, Carmen Reinhart, cashless society, central bank independence, centre right, cognitive dissonance, collapse of Lehman Brothers, collective bargaining, corporate governance, correlation does not imply causation, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, currency peg, dark matter, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, disintermediation, diversified portfolio, eurozone crisis, Fall of the Berlin Wall, fiat currency, financial innovation, full employment, George Akerlof, Gini coefficient, global supply chain, Great Leap Forward, Growth in a Time of Debt, housing crisis, income inequality, incomplete markets, inflation targeting, information asymmetry, investor state dispute settlement, invisible hand, Kenneth Arrow, Kenneth Rogoff, knowledge economy, light touch regulation, low interest rates, manufacturing employment, market bubble, market friction, market fundamentalism, Martin Wolf, Mexican peso crisis / tequila crisis, money market fund, moral hazard, mortgage debt, neoliberal agenda, new economy, open economy, paradox of thrift, pension reform, pensions crisis, price stability, profit maximization, purchasing power parity, quantitative easing, race to the bottom, risk-adjusted returns, Robert Shiller, Ronald Reagan, Savings and loan crisis, savings glut, secular stagnation, Silicon Valley, sovereign wealth fund, the payments system, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, too big to fail, transaction costs, transfer pricing, trickle-down economics, Washington Consensus, working-age population

In describing the potential electoral victory of Syriza, after observing that “analysts said politicians have been reluctant to loosen the tycoons’ grip on the economy, since they rely on their handouts to finance election campaigns and pay party workers,” the paper went on to observe: “Among the criticisms of prime minister Antonis Samaras’ handling of the bailout by troika officials has been his reluctance to go after the vested interests of his centre-right New Democracy party.” Indeed, the article notes that even some “in the troika feel that there has been too little burden sharing of Greece’s austerity programme, with the working classes bearing the brunt of spending cuts and tax rises while wealthier citizens and politically connected businesses were shielded by New Democracy.”

The same is true, to some degree, in economics. I have been traveling to Europe since 1959—in recent decades, multiple times a year—and spent six years teaching and studying there. I have worked closely with many of the European governments (mostly in the center-left, though not infrequently with the center-right). As the 2008 global financial crisis and the euro crisis brewed and broke out, I interacted closely with several of the crisis countries (serving on an advisory council for Spain’s former prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and as a long-term friend and adviser to Greece’s former prime minister George Papandreou).

Perhaps the worst instance of this “nondemocratic” stance became evident after Greece elected a leftist government in January 2015, headed by 41-year-old Alexis Tsipras, that had run on an antiausterity platform—not a surprise given five years of failed prior programs, with GDP falling by a quarter and youth unemployment peaking above 60 percent. Conditions and terms that had been proposed to the previous center-right government of Antonis Samaras (from the New Democracy Party, closely linked to the oligarchs, and a party that had been engaged in some of the deceptive budgetary practices that brought on the Greek crisis) were withdrawn. Harsher conditions were imposed. As support for Tsipras and his unconventional finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis (who is an excellent economist, having come from a teaching stint at the University of Texas at Austin), grew, if anything the eurozone negotiators took a still harder stance.


pages: 1,057 words: 239,915

The Deluge: The Great War, America and the Remaking of the Global Order, 1916-1931 by Adam Tooze

anti-communist, bank run, banking crisis, British Empire, centre right, collective bargaining, Corn Laws, credit crunch, failed state, fear of failure, first-past-the-post, floating exchange rates, Ford Model T, German hyperinflation, imperial preference, labour mobility, liberal world order, low interest rates, mass immigration, Mikhail Gorbachev, Monroe Doctrine, mutually assured destruction, negative equity, price stability, reserve currency, Right to Buy, Suez canal 1869, Suez crisis 1956, the payments system, trade route, transatlantic slave trade, union organizing, zero-sum game

To the critics of Prime Minister Briand, the British idea of a general European security pact seemed less suited to protecting France than to offering Germany immunity against any vigorous enforcement of the Versailles Treaty. The invitation to the Soviets remained controversial so long as France’s loans remained unpaid.22 To invite both of the pariah states to the same conference on friendly terms seemed nothing short of suicidal. On 12 January 1922 the restless centre-right majority in the French Chamber of Deputies ousted Briand in favour of Raymond Poincaré. The new French Prime Minister is often caricatured as a narrow-minded chauvinist. He soon became the object of a concerted propaganda campaign sponsored by Germany and the French Communist Party to paint him as a warmonger, whose secret diplomacy with Imperial Russia had been the true cause of war in August 1914.23 This historical interpretation found eager adherents amongst latter-day Wilsonians in the anglophone world.24 For Poincaré, however, no less than for Clemenceau, Millerand and Briand, the pursuit of an Entente with Britain was the priority.

Despite his open contempt for the League, Mussolini was too sensitive a politician not to realize the seriousness of the international indignation he had provoked. Until the more general collapse of the international order in the early 1930s, Corfu marked the limit of his aggression. Whilst the Corfu crisis was contained, in Germany the crisis escalated sharply. On 13 August 1923, with the population of the Ruhr on the point of starvation, the centre-right government of Chancellor Wilhelm Cuno resigned. Gustav Stresemann took office as Chancellor of a cross-party coalition of national solidarity. Stresemann’s accession to power in 1923 was the defining moment in his remarkable trajectory from wartime imperialist ideologue to the architect of a new German foreign policy.

Following only weeks after the surrender to France, the result of the Saxon intervention was to throw German politics once more into crisis. Having been abandoned by the right wing in September, Stresemann’s coalition was now deserted by the Socialist Party, which departed in protest against the Reich’s lopsided action against the left. The centre-right now had to govern alone, but as far as Stresemann was concerned there was no choice. He had to act against the left in Saxony so as to preserve his grip on the situation in Bavaria, where an even more menacing threat had arisen on the far right. Following the end of the fighting against the Poles in Silesia in 1921, Bavaria had become the rallying place for German admirers of Mussolini.35 Since the spring of 1923 the youthful rabble-rouser Adolf Hitler had risen to prominence as one of the loudest advocates of a bloody struggle with the French.


pages: 928 words: 159,837

Florence & Tuscany by Lonely Planet

Bonfire of the Vanities, call centre, car-free, carbon footprint, centre right, European colonialism, haute couture, Kickstarter, period drama, Pier Paolo Pasolini, post-work, retail therapy, sensible shoes, Skype, trade route, urban planning

Understand Florence & Tuscany FLORENCE & TUSCANY TODAY HISTORY THE TUSCAN WAY OF LIFE THE TUSCAN TABLE TUSCANY ON PAGE & SCREEN ART & ARCHITECTURE Top of section Florence & Tuscany Today Famously Red Tuscany has been a stronghold of the Italian left ever since rapid industrialization post-WWII. And regional elections in 2010 proved no exception. Much-loved incumbent Regione Toscane president Claudio Martini (Click here) chose not to stand for a third term, only for fellow centre-left candidate Enrico Rossi (b 1958) to storm into office with an easy landslide victory over the centre-right. What made the red Tuscan politician’s victory so poignant was the fact that other like-minded, traditionally left regions (such as neighbouring Lazio) fell to Berlusconi’s governing centreright coalition (Click here). But famously red Tuscany stood firm. » Population: 3.73 million (2010) »Area: 22,994 sq km »GDP: €106 billion (6.7% of national GDP) »Annual inflation: 1.9% »Unemployment rate: 6.3% Tuscany 2.0 Tuscans rapidly warmed to their region’s new president, who tweets at @ rossipresidente and uses Facebook to chat with them, answer questions and communicate key developments in Tuscany – such as the region-wide switch to digital TV in November 2011; Pisa being hailed as one of Italy’s most wi-fi–connected cities; and the opening of the first leg of the controversial, Rome-bound toll motorway that will run from just south of Livorno to Civitavecchia, 206km further south, when complete in 2016.

With the disbanding of the Socialist party following the Tangentopoli (‘kickback city’) scandal, which broke in Milan in 1992, the door was left open in Tuscany’s political arena for the Partito Democratico della Sinistra (Democratic Party of the Left; PDS) – an equally socialist political party created in 1991 to replace the disbanded PCI – to dominate the decade: on a national level, the PDS was part of Romano Prodi’s winning centre-left coalition that defeated Berlusconi in 1996 (only for Berlusconi to sweep back into power with an unassailable majority at the head of a right-wing coalition known as Popolo della Libertà; PdL). Regional elections in April 2005 saw incumbent Tuscan president Claudio Martini of the left-wing Democratici di Sinistra (DS; Democrats of the Left), in power since 2000, win a second term in office with a landslide victory over Berlusconi’s centre-right PdL candidate, gaining 57.4% of votes. Utterly unique and innovative for an Italian politician, Tunis-born Claudio Martini (b 1951), who moved to Italy aged 10, worked tirelessly to revamp the healthcare system in Tuscany during his time in office. He rid the region of a serious health service deficit and strived to forge closer ties with the rest of Europe and Tuscans abroad.


pages: 874 words: 154,810

Lonely Planet Florence & Tuscany by Lonely Planet, Virginia Maxwell, Nicola Williams

Bonfire of the Vanities, call centre, car-free, carbon footprint, centre right, Costa Concordia, G4S, haute couture, Kickstarter, period drama, post-work, retail therapy, Skype, trade route

With much-loved incumbent Regione Toscane president Claudio Martini choosing not to stand for a third term, fellow centre-left candidate Enrico Rossi (b 1958) stormed into office with a landslide victory over the centre-right. What made the red Tuscan politician’s victory so poignant was the fact that other like-minded, traditionally left regions in Italy fell to Berlusconi’s governing centre-right coalition – while famously red Tuscany stood firm. Tuscans rapidly warmed to their new president, who tweets at @rossipresidente and uses Facebook to converse and communicate key developments in Tuscany – such as the region-wide switch to digital TV in 2011; Pisa being hailed as one of Italy’s most wi-fi–connected cities; and the opening of the first leg of the controversial, Rome-bound toll motorway that will run from just south of Livorno to Civitavecchia, 206km further south, once completed in 2016.


pages: 651 words: 161,270

Global Spin: The Corporate Assault on Environmentalism by Sharon Beder

American Legislative Exchange Council, battle of ideas, benefit corporation, Black Monday: stock market crash in 1987, business climate, centre right, clean water, corporate governance, Exxon Valdez, Gary Taubes, global village, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invisible hand, John Elkington, laissez-faire capitalism, military-industrial complex, oil shale / tar sands, Oklahoma City bombing, old-boy network, planned obsolescence, precautionary principle, price mechanism, profit maximization, Ralph Nader, RAND corporation, Ronald Reagan, scientific management, shareholder value, telemarketer, The Bell Curve by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, the market place, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, two and twenty, urban planning

The think tanks themselves are seldom investigated by the media.12 Most cited think-tanks in 1999, by media13 Think-Tank Political Orientation No. of Citations Brookings Institution centrist 2,883 Cato Institute conservative/libertarian 1,428 Heritage Foundation conservative 1,419 American Enterprise Institute conservative 1,263 Council on Foreign Relations centrist 1,231 Center for Strategic and International Studies conservative 1,205 RAND Corporation centre-right 950 The editor of the Heritage Foundation’s journal observed that by the end of the 1980s, editorial pages were dominated by conservatives. Media commentator and progressive columnist Norman Solomon also notes that the mainstream media in the 1990s tends to offer either experts who support the status quo or “populists of the right-wing variety”.

He points out that nowadays it is unusual for media forums to include “unabashedly progressive critiques of the negative effects of corporate power”.14 A study by Lawrence Soley in his book The News Shapers found that the evening news broadcasts by the three major television networks tended to have a centre-right bias—using ex-government officials, conservative think-tank experts and corporate consultants as analysts rather than left-wing activists or progressive think-tank experts. Economist Dean Baker says news stories on trade, for example, almost always rely on sources in government and business, without questioning the vested interests that these sources might have in the issues.


pages: 311 words: 168,705

The Rough Guide to Vienna by Humphreys, Rob

centre right, ghettoisation, Peace of Westphalia, strikebreaker, sustainable-tourism, trade route, urban sprawl

Newspapers and magazines Heavily subsidized by the state, the Austrian press is for the most part conservative and pretty uninspiring. Nearly half of newspaper readers read the populist Kronen Zeitung tabloid, commonly known as the Krone, while plenty of the rest read the slightly more centrist tabloid, Kurier. Of the qualities, Der Standard, printed on pink paper, is centre-left while the rather straight-laced Die Presse is centre-right. One peculiarly Austrian phenomenon is the bags of newspapers you’ll find hung from lampposts. Law-abiding citizens take one and put their money in the slot provided. Vienna boasts a good weekly listings tabloid, Falter (W www.falter.at), which is lively, politicized and critical, and comes out on Wednesday.

On this one night the majority of Jewish shops and institutions in the Third Reich – and all but one of the synagogues in Vienna – were destroyed by the Nazis. k.u.k. kaiserlich und königlich (Imperial and Royal) – a title used after 1867 to refer to ÖVP (Österreichische Volkspartei). Austrian People’s Party, the postwar descendant of the Christian Socials, and the principal postwar centre-right party. Pan-German This adjective covers a whole range of far-right political parties that advocated Anschluss with Germany, many of whom came together in the 1920s under the banner of the Greater German People’s Party (Grossdeutsche Volkspartei, GDVP). | Glossary Habsburg Royal dynasty whose power base was Vienna from 1273 to 1918.


pages: 530 words: 147,851

Small Men on the Wrong Side of History: The Decline, Fall and Unlikely Return of Conservatism by Ed West

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, anti-communist, assortative mating, battle of ideas, Beeching cuts, Berlin Wall, Black Lives Matter, Boris Johnson, Brexit referendum, British Empire, Broken windows theory, Bullingdon Club, centre right, clean water, cognitive dissonance, Corn Laws, David Attenborough, David Brooks, deindustrialization, delayed gratification, desegregation, different worldview, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, en.wikipedia.org, Etonian, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Ferguson, Missouri, future of work, gender pay gap, George Santayana, Herbert Marcuse, illegal immigration, Jeremy Corbyn, labor-force participation, laissez-faire capitalism, lump of labour, mass immigration, means of production, megacity, meta-analysis, moral hazard, moral panic, Neil Kinnock, Nelson Mandela, Norman Mailer, obamacare, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, Overton Window, pattern recognition, Ralph Nader, replication crisis, rising living standards, Ronald Reagan, Scientific racism, Social Justice Warrior, Stephen Fry, Steve Bannon, Steven Pinker, TED Talk, Thomas Malthus, Tragedy of the Commons, Turing test, twin studies, urban decay, War on Poverty, Winter of Discontent, zero-sum game

The bad news is that this second reformation is going to be long, painful and boring, and both sides are going to get more tedious and hysterical, just as divisions the last time around drove Catholics and Protestants into prolonged periods of insanity. Conservatism will see revivals but it will become increasingly dominated by the sort of identity politics the centre-Right once hated, a phenomenon already developing in continental Europe and Trump’s America. Conservatism has become increasingly concentrated in more provincial areas, a shrinking and often poorly educated community led by a small, reactionary aristocracy who still support the old faith. This has happened before, when England’s declining Catholic population hung on for over a century after the Reformation before dwindling almost altogether, a mixture of the rural, tradition-minded in the more remote west and north, and a conservative sub-section of the aristocracy.

But the Nazis were psychologically Right-wing in their attitude to art, sex, women and other social issues, and politics is not just about economics or the role of the state, but emotional responses and worldviews, our attitudes to social norms and threats. To call the Nazis Left-wing is tenuous. Belief in the free market is strongest in the centre and centre-Right. The standard model used to define politics is the economic axis going from left to right, with a liberal and conservative (or libertarian/authoritarian) axis on the vertical axis. So a communist will be in the very top-left corner in the authoritarian/economically left area while a Nazi will be at the very top slightly to the right, with social liberals in the bottom left and libertarians in the bottom right.


How to Be a Liberal: The Story of Liberalism and the Fight for Its Life by Ian Dunt

4chan, Alan Greenspan, Alfred Russel Wallace, bank run, battle of ideas, Bear Stearns, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Boris Johnson, bounce rate, Brexit referendum, British Empire, Brixton riot, Cambridge Analytica, Carmen Reinhart, centre right, classic study, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, disinformation, Dominic Cummings, Donald Trump, eurozone crisis, experimental subject, fake news, feminist movement, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, full employment, Glass-Steagall Act, Growth in a Time of Debt, illegal immigration, invisible hand, John Bercow, Kenneth Rogoff, liberal world order, low interest rates, Mark Zuckerberg, mass immigration, means of production, Mohammed Bouazizi, Northern Rock, old-boy network, Paul Samuelson, Peter Thiel, Phillips curve, price mechanism, profit motive, quantitative easing, recommendation engine, road to serfdom, Ronald Reagan, Saturday Night Live, Scientific racism, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley billionaire, Steve Bannon, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, too big to fail, upwardly mobile, Winter of Discontent, working poor, zero-sum game

This was thought to offer considerable advantages to the official Vote Leave campaign. The UKIP leader would bring in roughly the quarter of the population who held very right-wing anti-immigrant views. Cummings could then keep the hands of Vote Leave clean and offer a more professional mainstream proposition, fronted by Johnson and Gove, for voters in the centre and centre-right. Farage played his part as expected. On 16th June 2016, just days from polling day, he unveiled a poster that plastered the phrase ‘Breaking Point’ over an image of hundreds of dark-skinned refugees. The one white face in the crowd was covered up by a block of text. The message was clear: although free movement only applied within the EU and had nothing to do with asylum policy, a vote for staying in the EU would introduce an army of dark-skinned refugees into the country.

The Cabinet was selected exclusively on the basis of its commitment for Brexit and its loyalty to the Johnson-Cummings partnership. The Tory party was purged of any remaining moderate figures – those who could not bring themselves to support no-deal. Almost overnight, some of the most respected and experienced politicians on the British centre-right were removed from the parliamentary party. One of the Vote Leave government’s first moves was to suspend parliament. On the morning of 28th August 2019, with just two months to go until the Article 50 deadline, the prime minister initiated a prorogation. The Speaker of the Commons, John Bercow, branded the move a ‘constitutional outrage,’ but he was powerless to stop it.


Lonely Planet Southern Italy by Lonely Planet

Airbnb, car-free, carbon footprint, centre right, clean water, Google Earth, Kickstarter, Kinder Surprise, land reform, low cost airline, mass immigration, Murano, Venice glass, Pier Paolo Pasolini, place-making, post-work, Skype, starchitect, urban decay, urban sprawl, women in the workforce

Determined to improve the city’s liveability, de Magistris has pushed through a number of initiatives, including the transformation of the Lungomare from a traffic-clogged thoroughfare into a pedestrian and bike-friendly waterfront strip. While De Magistris is not without his critics, his progressive, anticorruption agenda has hit the right note with many Neapolitans. In 2016, the Gen-X independent was re-elected city mayor, beating rival Gianni Lettieri of the centre-right Forza Italia party with 66.8% of the total vote. 1 Sights 1Centro Storico oComplesso Monumentale di Santa ChiaraBASILICA (map Google map; %081 551 66 73; www.monasterodisantachiara.it; Via Santa Chiara 49c; basilica free, Complesso Monumentale adult/reduced €6/4.50; hbasilica 7.30am-1pm & 4.30-8pm, Complesso Monumentale 9.30am-5.30pm Mon-Sat, 10am-2.30pm Sun; mDante) Vast, Gothic and cleverly deceptive, the mighty Basilica di Santa Chiara stands at the heart of this tranquil monastery complex.

Although it was largely focused on the industrial north, the repercussions of the widespread investigation into graft (known as Mani pulite, or Clean Hands) were inevitably felt in southern regions like Sicily and Campania, where politics, business and organised crime were longtime bedfellows. The scandal eventually brought about the demise of the Democrazia Cristiana (DC; Christian Democrats), a centre-right Catholic party that appealed to southern Italy’s traditional conservatism. Allied closely with the Church, the DC promised wide-ranging reforms while at the same time demanding vigilance against godless communism. It was greatly aided in its efforts by the Mafia, which ensured that the local DC mayor would always top the poll.


pages: 223 words: 58,732

The Retreat of Western Liberalism by Edward Luce

"World Economic Forum" Davos, 3D printing, affirmative action, Airbnb, Alan Greenspan, basic income, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Boris Johnson, Branko Milanovic, bread and circuses, Bretton Woods, Brexit referendum, business cycle, call centre, carried interest, centre right, Charles Lindbergh, cognitive dissonance, colonial exploitation, colonial rule, computer age, corporate raider, cuban missile crisis, currency manipulation / currency intervention, disinformation, Dissolution of the Soviet Union, Doha Development Round, Donald Trump, double entry bookkeeping, driverless car, Erik Brynjolfsson, European colonialism, everywhere but in the productivity statistics, Evgeny Morozov, fake news, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, future of work, gentrification, George Santayana, gig economy, Gini coefficient, global pandemic, global supply chain, Great Leap Forward, illegal immigration, imperial preference, income inequality, independent contractor, informal economy, Internet of things, Jaron Lanier, knowledge economy, lateral thinking, Les Trente Glorieuses, liberal capitalism, Marc Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg, Martin Wolf, mass immigration, means of production, meritocracy, microaggression, Monroe Doctrine, moral panic, more computing power than Apollo, mutually assured destruction, new economy, New Urbanism, Norman Mailer, offshore financial centre, one-China policy, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, Peace of Westphalia, Peter Thiel, plutocrats, precariat, purchasing power parity, reserve currency, reshoring, Richard Florida, Robert Gordon, Robert Solow, Ronald Reagan, Second Machine Age, self-driving car, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley billionaire, Skype, Snapchat, software is eating the world, South China Sea, Steve Bannon, Steve Jobs, superstar cities, telepresence, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas L Friedman, Tyler Cowen, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, universal basic income, unpaid internship, Washington Consensus, We are the 99%, We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters, white flight, World Values Survey, Yogi Berra

That did not deter a significant slice of the non-white electorate – particularly British Asians – from voting to leave Europe. Many of them, too, complained of having been squeezed out by the newcomers. The populist right only began to do really well at the ballot box after they began to steal the left’s clothes. In each case, including Donald Trump, populists broke with centre-right orthodoxy to argue in favour of a government safety net. This is what the old left used to promise and largely delivered (you might say over-delivered). It was the implicit bargain of modern Western democracy. In most countries, including the US, it took the form of social insurance. The link between the duties of citizenship and the right to draw benefits was a form of social contract.


pages: 226 words: 58,341

The New Snobbery by David Skelton

assortative mating, banking crisis, Black Lives Matter, Boris Johnson, Brexit referendum, British Empire, call centre, centre right, collective bargaining, coronavirus, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, COVID-19, critical race theory, David Brooks, defund the police, deindustrialization, Etonian, Extinction Rebellion, financial deregulation, gender pay gap, glass ceiling, housing crisis, income inequality, Jeremy Corbyn, job automation, knowledge economy, lockdown, low skilled workers, market fundamentalism, meritocracy, microaggression, new economy, Northern Rock, open borders, postindustrial economy, race to the bottom, rent-seeking, Richard Florida, Right to Buy, rising living standards, shareholder value, social distancing, Social Justice Warrior, TED Talk, TikTok, wealth creators, women in the workforce

Prominent academics dredged up the prospect of ‘mob rule’ and argued there was a crisis of democracy (which seemed code for democracy producing the wrong results), with voters lacking sufficient education to make informed decisions. The rhetoric recalled the oligarchic arguments against suffrage extension in the nineteenth century. A leading centre-right columnist said it was clear that bigotry was the driving force behind the vote, whilst another described London’s relationship to provincial towns as like ‘being shackled to a corpse’.8 The concept of an ‘elite uprising’ against the ‘ignorant masses’ was soberly discussed by a learned magazine, and one economist suggested restricting the franchise to those able to pass a ‘minimum standards’ intelligence test.9 Jason Brennan, an American academic, was bold enough in 2016 to make a case ‘against democracy’, arguing that democracy represents rule by the ‘ignorant and the irrational’ and should be replaced with a modern version of Plato’s epistocracy or ‘noocracy’, where experts rule in an ‘aristocracy of the wise’.


pages: 210 words: 63,879

Cold Hands by John J. Niven

centre right, Firefox, gentrification, hiring and firing, Mason jar, Maui Hawaii

‘OK, see you boys tonight,’ Sammy said, straightening up. ‘Remember, we need that review by lunchtime.’ ‘Yes, boss.’ She leaned in to peck me on the cheek and whispered close to my ear, ‘Check all the outbuildings and call the neighbours again, huh?’ I nodded and clapped my hands, turning to Walt. ‘Come on then, trooper. Front and centre right now or we’re gonna miss your bus.’ Looking back now, the sheer normality of that weekday morning – the three of us in the kitchen with our goodbyes, our last-minute instructions and half-eaten toast – seems utterly blissful. 2 WALT AND I waved to Sammy’s anthracite Range Rover as it vanished around the grove of pine trees at the bottom of the drive before we turned and took the path that ran along the woods bordering the Franklin place; the short cut we always used to get down to the bus stop on Tamora.


pages: 241 words: 63,981

Dirty Secrets How Tax Havens Destroy the Economy by Richard Murphy

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", banking crisis, barriers to entry, Bernie Sanders, centre right, corporate governance, Donald Trump, Double Irish / Dutch Sandwich, en.wikipedia.org, Glass-Steagall Act, Global Witness, high net worth, income inequality, intangible asset, Leo Hollis, light touch regulation, moral hazard, Occupy movement, offshore financial centre, race to the bottom, Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits, Suez canal 1869, Suez crisis 1956, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, transfer pricing, Washington Consensus

That elite is widely believed to populate all the mainstream parties of the countries where these movements have arisen. There is good reason for people to think that: the only difference between the once opposing parties is in many cases one of emphasis. At their core, many of the so-called left-of-centre parties in many countries look like the centre-right parties of three or four decades ago. This explains why so many of those parties, like the UK’s Labour Party, when it held power between 1997 and 2010, took so little action on tax havens. They bought into the same doctrine as the economists who promoted the notion that tolerating tax havens was useful so long as they provided the excuse for shrinking the role of the state, as demanded by the Washington Consensus.


pages: 317 words: 71,776

Inequality and the 1% by Danny Dorling

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, banking crisis, battle of ideas, Bear Stearns, Bernie Madoff, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Boris Johnson, Branko Milanovic, buy and hold, call centre, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, centre right, collective bargaining, conceptual framework, corporate governance, credit crunch, David Attenborough, David Graeber, delayed gratification, Dominic Cummings, double helix, Downton Abbey, en.wikipedia.org, Etonian, family office, financial deregulation, full employment, gentrification, Gini coefficient, high net worth, housing crisis, income inequality, land value tax, Leo Hollis, Londongrad, longitudinal study, low skilled workers, lump of labour, mega-rich, Monkeys Reject Unequal Pay, Mont Pelerin Society, mortgage debt, negative equity, Neil Kinnock, Occupy movement, offshore financial centre, plutocrats, precariat, quantitative easing, race to the bottom, Robert Shiller, Russell Brand, TaskRabbit, TED Talk, The Spirit Level, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, trickle-down economics, unpaid internship, very high income, We are the 99%, wealth creators, working poor

As a result, their assets ballooned in value while most people’s share of wealth began a gradual decline. In the 1970s the average politician represented the interests of the median voter. Researchers have shown that political representation has moved from representing the median voter to representing mainly the views of the 1 per cent. Centre-right parties perform this task, while other parties promote policies that serve the interests of those not that far below the elite. The researchers conclude: ‘in spite of these correlations, we are not able to explain the circumstances that brought developed societies to the low democratic standards that they are suffering.’86 Others are less circumspect.


pages: 210 words: 65,833

This Is Not Normal: The Collapse of Liberal Britain by William Davies

Airbnb, basic income, Bernie Sanders, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Black Lives Matter, Boris Johnson, Cambridge Analytica, central bank independence, centre right, Chelsea Manning, coronavirus, corporate governance, COVID-19, credit crunch, data science, deindustrialization, disinformation, Dominic Cummings, Donald Trump, double entry bookkeeping, Edward Snowden, fake news, family office, Filter Bubble, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, ghettoisation, gig economy, global pandemic, global village, illegal immigration, Internet of things, Jeremy Corbyn, late capitalism, Leo Hollis, liberal capitalism, loadsamoney, London Interbank Offered Rate, mass immigration, moral hazard, Neil Kinnock, Northern Rock, old-boy network, post-truth, postnationalism / post nation state, precariat, prediction markets, quantitative easing, recommendation engine, Robert Mercer, Ronald Reagan, sentiment analysis, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Slavoj Žižek, statistical model, Steve Bannon, Steven Pinker, surveillance capitalism, technoutopianism, The Chicago School, Thorstein Veblen, transaction costs, universal basic income, W. E. B. Du Bois, web of trust, WikiLeaks, Yochai Benkler

‘Get Brexit Done’, like Donald Trump’s ‘build a wall’, was not a policy pledge so much as a mantra to identify with, for those who think the establishment is a stitch-up. Two other ingredients were necessary. First, a right-wing ‘big tent’ needed constructing, one that spreads all the way from Matt Hancock in the centre-right out to Tommy Robinson on the far right. Johnson repeatedly did just enough to communicate to former Brexit Party voters that he was on their side. For the desperate men and women (but mostly men) living in the abandoned economic regions of the Midlands and the North, for whom only a Trump figure would be enough to draw them to the polls, Johnson performed that role adequately.


Lonely Planet Iceland (Travel Guide) by Lonely Planet, Carolyn Bain, Alexis Averbuck

Airbnb, banking crisis, car-free, carbon footprint, cashless society, centre right, DeepMind, European colonialism, Eyjafjallajökull, food miles, Kickstarter, low cost airline, megaproject, Mikhail Gorbachev, New Urbanism, post-work, presumed consent, ride hailing / ride sharing, Ronald Reagan, undersea cable

The country has become the fastest-growing travel destination in Europe, with all the benefits (economic growth, employment) and headaches (infrastructure issues, environmental impact) that entails. Icelanders went to the polls in April 2013 with the national economy on the path to recovery, but with the population smarting from the government’s tough austerity measures (higher taxes, spending cuts). The results showed a backlash against the ruling Social Democrats; the centre-right camp (comprising the Progressive Party and the Independence Party) successfully campaigned on promises of debt relief and a cut in taxes, as well as opposition to Iceland’s application to join the EU. The two parties formed a coalition government. In early 2014 the government halted all negotiations with the EU – despite promising a referendum on whether or not to proceed with membership negotiations.

Formal accession talks begin in 2010 but are suspended in 2013, and the application is withdrawn by a new government in 2014. 2010 The volcano under Eyjafjallajökull glacier begins erupting in March. In April its 9km-high ash plume brings European flights to a standstill for six days. The eruption is declared over in October. 2013 In parliamentary elections, voters deliver a backlash against the Social Democrats' austerity measures in the wake of the financial crisis. A new coalition of centre-right parties forms government. 2013 The number of international visitors to Iceland numbers 807,000 (up from 320,000 in 2003). A year later, that number hovers around 1 million. 2014 In mid-August, sensors begin picking up increased seismic activity around Bárðarbunga, a large volcano system under the Vatnajökull ice cap.


Sweden Travel Guide by Lonely Planet

car-free, carbon footprint, centre right, clean water, G4S, Julian Assange, Kickstarter, low cost airline, mass immigration, retail therapy, ride hailing / ride sharing, Suez crisis 1956, trade route, urban planning, walkable city, white picket fence, WikiLeaks

Political Shake-up The Social Democrats, who held a majority of the government (and therefore shaped national policy, most notably the famous 'cradle to grave' welfare state) for most of the past 85 years, have begun to see their influence wane. The first big blow came in 2006, when the long-entrenched party lost its leadership position in the Swedish parliament. The centre-right Alliance Party (made up of four centre-right parties – the Moderates, the Liberals, the Christian Democrats and the Centre Party) won the election, with Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt campaigning on a ‘work first’ platform. Reinfeldt's government lowered tax rates and trimmed certain benefits, hoping to jump-start the economy and reduce unemployment.


pages: 245 words: 72,893

How Democracy Ends by David Runciman

barriers to entry, basic income, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, bitcoin, blockchain, Brexit referendum, Cambridge Analytica, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, centre right, crowdsourcing, cuban missile crisis, disinformation, Dominic Cummings, Donald Trump, Dr. Strangelove, Edward Snowden, fake news, first-past-the-post, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, full employment, Internet of things, Jeremy Corbyn, Jon Ronson, Joseph Schumpeter, Kickstarter, Large Hadron Collider, loss aversion, Mahatma Gandhi, Mark Zuckerberg, money: store of value / unit of account / medium of exchange, mutually assured destruction, Network effects, Nick Bostrom, Norman Mailer, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, Panopticon Jeremy Bentham, Paris climate accords, Peter Thiel, post-truth, power law, precautionary principle, quantitative easing, Russell Brand, self-driving car, Sheryl Sandberg, Silicon Valley, Steve Bannon, Steven Pinker, the long tail, The Wisdom of Crowds, Travis Kalanick, universal basic income, Yogi Berra

The Greek crisis has been kicked down the road so many times that we have to conclude the road is a lot longer than seemed possible. Who knows where it ends? As I write, the Greek economy is slowly starting to grow again for the first time in more than eight years. The debt burden is higher than ever. Prime Minister Tsipras is more unpopular than at any other point in his premiership. The party of the Greek centre right that presided over the first phase of the never-ending crisis may be on the brink of a return to power. Varoufakis has another book out. Greece and Japan are very different places to live but they have some features in common. They are two of the oldest societies on the face of the earth: Japan is one of the very few countries with a higher proportion of elderly people in it than Greece.


Lonely Planet London by Lonely Planet

Boris Johnson, British Empire, car-free, carbon footprint, centre right, Charles Babbage, congestion charging, Crossrail, death from overwork, discovery of the americas, Dr. Strangelove, East Village, Easter island, Edward Jenner, Etonian, financial independence, gentrification, haute couture, haute cuisine, Isaac Newton, John Snow's cholera map, low cost airline, Mahatma Gandhi, market design, place-making, post-work, Russell Brand, Skype, trade route, transatlantic slave trade, urban renewal, Winter of Discontent

There are two broad categories of newspapers, most commonly distinguished as broadsheets (or ‘qualities’) and tabloids (the distinction is more about content than physical size). New Media Websites Londonist (www.londonist.com) London-centric blog. Urban 75 (www.urban75.com) Outstanding and original. Indymedia (www.uk.indymedia.org) Global network of alternative news. Daily Papers The main London newspaper is the centre-right Evening Standard, a free tabloid published between Monday and Friday and handed out around mainline train stations, tube stations, retailers and stands. Metro (published Monday to Friday) is another skimpy morning paper designed to be read in 20 minutes, littering tube stations and seats, giving you an extra excuse to ignore your fellow passengers.

For sex and scandal over your bacon and eggs, turn to the Mirror , a working class and Old Labour paper; the Sun , the UK's bestseller, a gossip-hungry Tory-leaning tabloid legendary for its sassy headlines; or the lowbrow Daily Star . Other tabloid reads include the midlevel Daily Express and the centre-right Daily Mail . Sunday Papers Most dailies have Sunday stablemates, and (predictably) the tabloids have bumper editions of trashy gossip, star-struck adulation, fashion extras and mean-spirited diatribes. The Observer, established in 1791, is the oldest Sunday paper and sister of the Guardian .


pages: 307 words: 82,680

A Pelican Introduction: Basic Income by Guy Standing

"World Economic Forum" Davos, anti-fragile, bank run, basic income, behavioural economics, Bernie Sanders, Bertrand Russell: In Praise of Idleness, Black Lives Matter, Black Swan, Boris Johnson, British Empire, carbon tax, centre right, collective bargaining, cryptocurrency, David Graeber, declining real wages, degrowth, deindustrialization, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Fellow of the Royal Society, financial intermediation, full employment, future of work, gig economy, Gunnar Myrdal, housing crisis, hydraulic fracturing, income inequality, independent contractor, intangible asset, Jeremy Corbyn, job automation, job satisfaction, Joi Ito, labour market flexibility, land value tax, libertarian paternalism, low skilled workers, lump of labour, Marc Benioff, Mark Zuckerberg, Martin Wolf, mass immigration, mass incarceration, moral hazard, Nelson Mandela, nudge theory, offshore financial centre, open economy, Panopticon Jeremy Bentham, Paul Samuelson, plutocrats, precariat, quantitative easing, randomized controlled trial, rent control, rent-seeking, Salesforce, Sam Altman, self-driving car, shareholder value, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, sovereign wealth fund, Stephen Hawking, The Future of Employment, universal basic income, Wolfgang Streeck, women in the workforce, working poor, Y Combinator, Zipcar

By way of introduction, it can be argued that in the twentieth century the political left gave too little attention to the enhancement of individual freedom, while the political right gave freedom a libertarian slant that went against a very important historical tradition, that of ‘republican’ freedom. The standard liberal and libertarian version is that liberty involves freedom from constraint (negative liberty) and freedom to act (positive liberty). This view is often linked to the political philosophy of utilitarianism, a perspective that has dominated recent political strategies of the centre right and left. Utilitarianism aims to promote the happiness of the majority (often summed up as ‘the greatest happiness of the greatest number’), which has the obvious danger of allowing politicians to care too little about making the minority miserable.1 Classic liberals, exemplified by T. H. Green opposite, as well as libertarians, have long been united in their opposition to paternalism of all sorts, and above all to what is best described as state paternalism, except regarding children and the mentally frail.


pages: 318 words: 85,824

A Brief History of Neoliberalism by David Harvey

"World Economic Forum" Davos, affirmative action, air traffic controllers' union, Asian financial crisis, Berlin Wall, Bretton Woods, business climate, business cycle, California energy crisis, capital controls, centre right, collective bargaining, creative destruction, crony capitalism, debt deflation, declining real wages, deglobalization, deindustrialization, Deng Xiaoping, Fall of the Berlin Wall, financial deregulation, financial intermediation, financial repression, full employment, gentrification, George Gilder, Gini coefficient, global reserve currency, Great Leap Forward, illegal immigration, income inequality, informal economy, labour market flexibility, land tenure, late capitalism, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, low-wage service sector, manufacturing employment, market fundamentalism, mass immigration, means of production, megaproject, Mexican peso crisis / tequila crisis, military-industrial complex, Mont Pelerin Society, mortgage tax deduction, neoliberal agenda, new economy, Pearl River Delta, phenotype, Ponzi scheme, price mechanism, race to the bottom, rent-seeking, reserve currency, Ronald Reagan, Savings and loan crisis, Silicon Valley, special economic zone, structural adjustment programs, Suez crisis 1956, the built environment, The Chicago School, Tragedy of the Commons, transaction costs, union organizing, urban renewal, urban sprawl, Washington Consensus, We are all Keynesians now, Winter of Discontent

And it responded accordingly.36 From the mid-1970s onwards, the Swedish Employers’ Federation (doubtless emulating its counterpart in the US) increased its membership, mobilized a massive war-chest, and launched a propaganda campaign against excessive regulation and for the increasing liberalization of the economy, the reduction of the tax burden, and the rolling back of excessive welfare state commitments which, in its view, caused economic stagnation. But when a centre-right Conservative Party came to power in 1976, replacing the Social Democrats for the first time since the 1930s, it failed to act on the employers’ proposals. The labour unions were too strong and the public was not persuaded. When it became clear that direct confrontation with the labour unions through lock-outs and non-collaboration in wage negotiations did not work either, the employers moved more towards undermining rather than confronting the institutional arrangements of the corporatist state.


pages: 265 words: 80,510

The Enablers: How the West Supports Kleptocrats and Corruption - Endangering Our Democracy by Frank Vogl

"World Economic Forum" Davos, active measures, Alan Greenspan, Asian financial crisis, bank run, Bear Stearns, Bernie Sanders, blood diamond, Brexit referendum, Carmen Reinhart, centre right, corporate governance, COVID-19, crony capitalism, cryptocurrency, Donald Trump, F. W. de Klerk, failed state, Global Witness, Greensill Capital, income inequality, information security, joint-stock company, London Interbank Offered Rate, Londongrad, low interest rates, market clearing, military-industrial complex, moral hazard, Nelson Mandela, offshore financial centre, oil shale / tar sands, profit maximization, quantitative easing, Renaissance Technologies, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, stock buybacks, too big to fail, WikiLeaks

The article noted: “Successive Greek governments have managed to hoodwink the European Union over the size of the country’s budget deficit and its public debt by blaming their predecessors and then promising to do better. No longer. The European Commission’s fury over a leap in the projected deficit for 2009 from 6.7% of GDP (the figure from the old centre-right New Democracy-led lot) to 12.7% (the figure produced by the new centre-left Pasok government) helped to trigger a collapse in the Greek bond markets and even provoke dire warnings that the country might go bust.” 21. The archives of the IIF contain extensive information on the negotiations, including the press releases and press statements that I drafted in 2011 and 2012.


Lonely Planet London City Guide by Tom Masters, Steve Fallon, Vesna Maric

Boris Johnson, British Empire, centre right, Charles Babbage, Clapham omnibus, congestion charging, Crossrail, dark matter, death from overwork, discovery of the americas, double helix, East Village, Edward Jenner, financial independence, first-past-the-post, Ford Model T, gentrification, ghettoisation, haute cuisine, Isaac Newton, James Bridle, John Snow's cholera map, Mahatma Gandhi, market design, Nelson Mandela, place-making, Russell Brand, South of Market, San Francisco, Stephen Fry, Stephen Hawking, transatlantic slave trade, urban planning, urban renewal, Winter of Discontent, young professional

In the second stage of Lords reform (for which there is no time frame and on which there has been not insignificant heel dragging on the part of the government in recent years), elected members will enter the upper house for the first time and hereditary peers will be swept away altogether. Return to beginning of chapter MEDIA London is in the eye of the British media, an industry comprising some of the best and worst of the world’s TV, radio and print media. Return to beginning of chapter NEWSPAPERS The main London newspaper is the centre-right Evening Standard, a tabloid that comes out in early and late editions throughout the day. After fighting a long battle with former mayor Ken Livingstone and becoming something of a joke to Londoners for its love of dramatic headlines for the most banal stories, it was bought in 2009 by Russian tycoon Alexander Lebedev, who promised to rebrand the paper, and began with a large advertising campaign in which the paper apologised to its readers for its past mistakes.

Return to beginning of chapter NEWSPAPERS & MAGAZINES Newspapers For a good selection of foreign-language newspapers, try the newsstands in the Victoria Pl shopping centre at Victoria train station, along Charing Cross Rd, in Old Compton St and along Queensway. Click here for details of gay and lesbian publications. DAILY PAPERS Daily Express Midlevel tabloid. Daily Mail This is often called the voice of middle England, and is a centre-right publication well known for its stance on immigrants and its obsession with house prices. Daily Star Very low-brow tabloid with wacky tales that often beggar belief. Daily Telegraph Dubbed the ‘Torygraph’, this is the unofficial Conservative party paper, whose reputation has grown enormously in the wake of its disclosure and scrutiny of MPs’ expenses in 2009.


Lonely Planet Iceland by Lonely Planet

Airbnb, banking crisis, capital controls, car-free, carbon footprint, cashless society, centre right, DeepMind, European colonialism, Eyjafjallajökull, food miles, Kickstarter, low cost airline, Lyft, megaproject, Mikhail Gorbachev, New Urbanism, presumed consent, ride hailing / ride sharing, Ronald Reagan, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft

On a wave of ensuing anti-establishment sentiment, in June 2016 Iceland elected its first new president in 20 years: historian and author Guðni Thorlacius Jóhannesson, a political outsider. In the same year, capital controls put in place during the economic meltdown began to be eased (made possible partially by the tourism boom). Early parliamentary elections were held in October 2016, with the centre-right Independence Party (which shared power with the Progressive Party in the outgoing government) winning 29% of the vote, the Left-Green Movement 15.9% and the Pirate Party 14.5%. The Progressive Party fell to only 11.5%. At the time of research, talks were still underway to see if a coalition government could be formed.

The country has become the fastest-growing travel destination in Europe, with all the benefits (economic growth and employment) and headaches (infrastructure issues and environmental impact) that such status entails. Icelanders went to the polls in April 2013 with the national economy on the path to recovery, but with the population smarting from the government’s tough austerity measures (higher taxes, spending cuts). The results showed a backlash against the ruling Social Democrats; the centre-right camp (comprising the Progressive Party and the Independence Party) successfully campaigned on promises of debt relief and a cut in taxes, as well as opposition to Iceland’s application to join the EU. The two parties formed a coalition government. In early 2014 the government halted all negotiations with the EU – despite promising a referendum on whether or not to proceed with membership negotiations.


The Rough Guide to Norway by Phil Lee

banking crisis, bike sharing, car-free, centre right, company town, Easter island, glass ceiling, Nelson Mandela, North Sea oil, out of africa, place-making, sensible shoes, sustainable-tourism, three-masted sailing ship, trade route, walkable city, white picket fence

More surprising was the success of the extremist parties on both political wings – the anti-NATO, leftist Socialist Party and the right-wing, anti-immigrant Progress Party both scored spectacular results, winning almost a quarter of the votes cast, and increasing their representation in the Storting many times over. This deprived the Conservative Party (one of whose leaders, bizarrely, was Gro Harlem Brundtland’s husband) of the majority it might have expected, the result being yet another shaky minority administration – this time a centre-right coalition between the Conservatives, the Centre Party and the Christian Democrats, led by Jan Syse. The new government immediately faced problems familiar to the last Labour administration. In particular, there was continuing conflict over joining the European Community (as the European Union was then known), a policy still supported by many in the Norwegian establishment but flatly rejected by the Centre Party.

In the spring of 2000, the government resigned and the Labour Party resumed command. The 2000s to the present day The Labour Party administration that took over the reins of government in 2000 didn’t last long: in elections the following year, they took a drubbing and the right prospered, paving the way for another ungainly centre-right coalition. This coalition battled on until late 2005 when the Labour Party, along with its allies the Socialist Left Party and the Centre Party, won a general election, with the politically experienced Jens Stoltenberg becoming Prime Minister – as he remains at time of writing.


pages: 357 words: 95,986

Inventing the Future: Postcapitalism and a World Without Work by Nick Srnicek, Alex Williams

3D printing, additive manufacturing, air freight, algorithmic trading, anti-work, antiwork, back-to-the-land, banking crisis, basic income, battle of ideas, blockchain, Boris Johnson, Bretton Woods, business cycle, call centre, capital controls, capitalist realism, carbon footprint, carbon tax, Cass Sunstein, centre right, collective bargaining, crowdsourcing, cryptocurrency, David Graeber, decarbonisation, deep learning, deindustrialization, deskilling, Doha Development Round, Elon Musk, Erik Brynjolfsson, Evgeny Morozov, Ferguson, Missouri, financial independence, food miles, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, full employment, future of work, gender pay gap, general purpose technology, housing crisis, housing justice, income inequality, industrial robot, informal economy, intermodal, Internet Archive, job automation, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, Kickstarter, Kiva Systems, late capitalism, liberation theology, Live Aid, low skilled workers, manufacturing employment, market design, Martin Wolf, mass immigration, mass incarceration, means of production, megaproject, minimum wage unemployment, Modern Monetary Theory, Mont Pelerin Society, Murray Bookchin, neoliberal agenda, New Urbanism, Occupy movement, oil shale / tar sands, oil shock, Overton Window, patent troll, pattern recognition, Paul Samuelson, Philip Mirowski, post scarcity, post-Fordism, post-work, postnationalism / post nation state, precariat, precautionary principle, price stability, profit motive, public intellectual, quantitative easing, reshoring, Richard Florida, rising living standards, road to serfdom, Robert Gordon, Ronald Reagan, Second Machine Age, secular stagnation, self-driving car, Slavoj Žižek, social web, stakhanovite, Steve Jobs, surplus humans, synthetic biology, tacit knowledge, technological determinism, the built environment, The Chicago School, The Future of Employment, the long tail, Tyler Cowen, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, universal basic income, wages for housework, warehouse automation, We are all Keynesians now, We are the 99%, women in the workforce, working poor, working-age population

Shared between all of these is a belief that the abstraction and sheer scale of the modern world is at the root of our present political, ecological and economic problems, and that the solution therefore lies in adopting a ‘small is beautiful’ approach to the world.69 Small-scale actions, local economies, immediate communities, face-to-face interaction – all of these responses characterise the localist worldview. In a time when most of the political strategies and tactics developed in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries appear blunted and ineffectual, localism has a seductive logic to it. In all its diverse variants, from centre-right communitarianism70 to ethical consumerism,71 developmental microloans, and contemporary anarchist practice,72 the promise it offers to do something concrete, enabling political action with immediately noticeable effects, is empowering on an individual level. But this sense of empowerment can be misleading.


pages: 279 words: 90,888

The Lost Decade: 2010–2020, and What Lies Ahead for Britain by Polly Toynbee, David Walker

banking crisis, battle of ideas, bike sharing, Boris Johnson, Brexit referendum, Bullingdon Club, call centre, car-free, centre right, collective bargaining, congestion charging, corporate governance, crony capitalism, Crossrail, David Attenborough, Dominic Cummings, Donald Trump, Downton Abbey, energy transition, Etonian, financial engineering, first-past-the-post, G4S, gender pay gap, gig economy, Gini coefficient, global village, green new deal, Greta Thunberg, high net worth, housing crisis, income inequality, industrial robot, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), James Dyson, Jeremy Corbyn, Large Hadron Collider, low interest rates, manufacturing employment, mass immigration, moral panic, mortgage debt, North Sea oil, offshore financial centre, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, payday loans, pension reform, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, quantitative easing, Right to Buy, Saturday Night Live, selection bias, smart meter, Uber for X, ultra-processed food, urban renewal, working-age population

Opposing Jean-Claude Juncker’s election to the presidency of the European Commission was a blunder, but one consistent with successive UK prime ministers’ unwillingness to learn how European governance worked. Either their civil servants were similarly unaware, or they just weren’t listened to. Cameron had tried to buy off his anti-EU fanatics by withdrawing Tory members of the European Parliament from the mainstream centre-right grouping, weakening their influence as he aligned them instead with the nationalist far right. He apparently thought his referendum promise was a cheque that would never be cashed because the coalition with the Liberal Democrats would endure. After winning the 2015 election, he made successive errors of judgement over the timing, wording and conduct of the campaign and vote.


We Need New Stories: Challenging the Toxic Myths Behind Our Age of Discontent by Nesrine Malik

"World Economic Forum" Davos, affirmative action, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, barriers to entry, Bernie Sanders, Black Lives Matter, Boris Johnson, Brexit referendum, British Empire, centre right, cognitive dissonance, continuation of politics by other means, currency peg, disinformation, Donald Trump, fake news, feminist movement, financial independence, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, gender pay gap, gentrification, ghettoisation, glass ceiling, illegal immigration, invisible hand, Jeremy Corbyn, mass immigration, moral panic, Nate Silver, obamacare, old-boy network, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, Overton Window, payday loans, planetary scale, Ponzi scheme, public intellectual, race to the bottom, Ronald Reagan, Saturday Night Live, sexual politics, Steve Bannon, Steven Pinker, The Bell Curve by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, Thomas L Friedman, transatlantic slave trade

The stories need storytellers. They cannot be replaced, new stories cannot be written, if the bench of voices that we continue to appoint, that we continue to vest with authority, is not questioned at least – and retired at most. The main problem is homogeneity. Politically, the opinion-making class is overwhelmingly centre, right of centre or right-wing. Demographically, it is overwhelmingly white, male and upper or middle class. This results in a world view that is ideologically establishmentarian, unlikely to question the status quo and overly respectful of the offices of power. Received wisdom runs the show. On such received wisdom, and before a UK general election in 2017, where the Conservative Party was expected to win comfortably, the Guardian columnist Gary Younge wrote: ‘The political class imparted as much to the media class, and the media class duly printed and broadcast it.


pages: 927 words: 236,812

The Taste of War: World War Two and the Battle for Food by Lizzie Collingham

agricultural Revolution, air gap, American ideology, Bletchley Park, British Empire, centre right, clean water, colonial exploitation, distributed generation, European colonialism, fixed income, full employment, global village, guns versus butter model, indoor plumbing, labour mobility, land reform, mass immigration, means of production, profit motive, rising living standards, trade route, V2 rocket, women in the workforce

He argued that it was imperative that Germany should become less dependent on this hostile world market.43 In conservative circles, which favoured this alternative course of action, food preferences were transformed into a political statement. German housewives’ associations, with strong links to centre-right political parties, campaigned for patriotic consumption choices.44 Germans preferred to eat crusty white rolls but two-thirds of the wheat to make them had to be imported. ‘Good’ German women were encouraged to support the German farmer and preserve the traditional social hierarchy and lifestyle, by purchasing rye bread made from home-grown grain.

., p. 50; Howard, ‘The social and political consequences’, pp. 163, 166, 172. 37 Offer, The First World War, pp. 74–8. 38 Kershaw, Hitler, pp. 97, 109. 39 Offer, The First World War, p. 400. 40 Kutz, ‘Kriegserfahrung und Kriegsvorbereitung’, p. 73. 41 Corni, Hitler and the Peasants, pp. xv, 5–7; Farquharson, ‘The agrarian policy’, p. 235. 42 Trentmann, ‘Coping with shortage’, p. 26; Staples, The Birth of Development, p. 72. 43 Kutz, ‘Kriegserfahrung und Kriegsvorbereitung’, pp. 73–4. 44 They were linked to the conservative Catholic Centre Party (Zentrum), the right-wing German National People’s Party (Deutschnationale Volkspartei) and the centre-right German People’s Party (Deutsche Volkspartei). 45 Reagin, Sweeping the German Nation, pp. 93–9; Spiekermann, ‘Brown bread’, p. 148. 46 Kutz, ‘Kriegserfahrung und Kriegsvorbereitung’, pp. 73–4. 47 Ibid., p. 76; Lehman, ‘Agrarpolitik und Landwirtschaft’, p. 29. 48 Wehler, Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte, pp. 700–702; Lovin, ‘Agricultural reorganization’, p. 457. 49 Ibid., p. 461. 50 Farquharson, ‘The agrarian policy’, p. 234. 51 Huegel, Kriegsernährungswirtschaft Deutschlands, p. 22; Lovin, ‘Blut und Boden’, pp. 282; Corni, Hitler and the Peasants, p. 23. 52 Bramwell, Blood and Soil, p. 108. 53 Corni, Hitler and the Peasants, pp. xv–xvi; Farquharson, ‘The agrarian policy’, p. 233. 54 Huegel, Kriegsernährungswirtschaft Deutschlands, pp. 279–80; Wehler, Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte, p. 705. 55 Kay, Exploitation, p. 14. 56 Farquharson, ‘The agrarian policy’, pp. 244–5. 57 Corni, Hitler and the Peasants, p. 249; Huegel, Kriegsernährungswirtschaft Deutschlands, p. 286. 58 Müller, ‘Die Mobilisierung der deutschen Wirtschaft’, p. 397. 59 Tooze, The Wages of Destruction, p. 658. 60 Ibid., p. 197. 61 Corni and Gies, Brot, Butter, Kanonen, p. 19. 62 Schleiermacher, ‘Begleitende Forschung zum “Generalplan Ost” ’, p. 339. 63 Corni, Hitler and the Peasants, pp. 27–8. 64 Picker, Hitlers Tischgespräche, p. 495.


pages: 302 words: 97,076

The Trigger: Hunting the Assassin Who Brought the World to War by Tim Butcher

Bletchley Park, centre right, colonial rule, Kickstarter, land reform, mass immigration, Nelson Mandela, Scramble for Africa, trade route, urban sprawl, éminence grise

The whole tone of Jevdjević’s testimony was very negative regarding Princip, and when the statement had been read out the defendant objected fiercely that many of Jevdjević’s assertions were wrong. ‘It is true that I had a conflict with him,’ Princip announced to the court. A key event took place in 1908, a year after Princip started school: a political and diplomatic crisis that was centred right there in Sarajevo, but soon spread far beyond Bosnia. It would change fundamentally the character of Bosnian youth politics, launching quiet students like Princip on a much more radical path. It would also give final proof that the country’s remote geographical location did not stop it from playing a role in high European diplomacy.


Stasiland: Stories From Behind the Berlin Wall by Anna Funder

Berlin Wall, centre right, disinformation, Fall of the Berlin Wall, index card, Kickstarter, Mikhail Gorbachev, Prenzlauer Berg, telemarketer, the built environment

In October of that year, the first ‘free democratic’ elections were held in East Germany. In fact, throughout the life of East Germany, elections were regularly held. On the ballot paper there were representatives of all the major parties: mirror-image replicas of the parties that existed in West Germany. There were centre-right Christian Democrats (CDU), Liberal Democrats (later the FDP), and Communists (SED). Election after election for forty years, the results would be broadcast on television: and always, overwhelmingly, the Communists were voted in. The majorities stretched credibility: 98.1 per cent; 95.4 per cent; 97.6 per cent.


pages: 365 words: 102,306

Legacy: Gangsters, Corruption and the London Olympics by Michael Gillard

Boris Johnson, business intelligence, centre right, Crossrail, forensic accounting, Jeremy Corbyn, offshore financial centre, One Laptop per Child (OLPC), upwardly mobile, working-age population, young professional

In June 2013, Rokhsana Fiaz and four other left-wing Labour activists met in Newham to discuss overthrowing their despised Blairite leader.1 The Fiaz five were doing the reverse of a famous power-sharing pact almost twenty years earlier that Tony Blair, Sir Robin’s mentor, had struck with Gordon Brown at an Islington restaurant to take control away from the left and reposition New Labour on the centre right. Fiaz and the other plotters represented a growing membership of the Newham Labour party who, by 2013, were tired of what they saw as Sir Robin’s anti-democratic style of leadership. ‘What Robin did over the years was decimate, in its totality, the ability of open scrutiny of the decision making of the mayor,’ Fiaz explained to me.


pages: 352 words: 98,424

Cathedrals of Steam: How London’s Great Stations Were Built – and How They Transformed the City by Christian Wolmar

Ascot racecourse, British Empire, centre right, coronavirus, COVID-19, creative destruction, Crossrail, driverless car, high-speed rail, James Watt: steam engine, lockdown, mass immigration, megacity, megaproject, pneumatic tube, railway mania

Numerous other buildings including a potato warehouse – testimony to another example of the entrepreneurial skill of the Great Northern, as it was the first railway company to bring enormous quantities of potatoes to the capital – coal and fish offices and several goods sheds, most of which were used by companies such as freight forwarders and storage companies, were constructed over the next decades, further increasing the hustle and bustle of what was a huge tract of land along the canal. The canals largely lost their freight traffic by the end of the nineteenth century but the area continued to be a major railway centre right until after the Second World War when the decline of railfreight and other changes in the railways led to the abandonment of what became known as the Railway Lands and was subject to a massive redevelopment in the early twenty-first century (covered in Chapter 12). The railways in the North and West had the advantage of serving large parts of the country, and consequently could base their business models on attracting long-distance passengers and considerable quantities of freight.


France (Lonely Planet, 8th Edition) by Nicola Williams

active transport: walking or cycling, back-to-the-land, bike sharing, British Empire, car-free, carbon footprint, centre right, Charles Lindbergh, Columbine, company town, double helix, flag carrier, gentrification, Guggenheim Bilbao, haute couture, haute cuisine, Henri Poincaré, Herbert Marcuse, high-speed rail, Honoré de Balzac, illegal immigration, industrial robot, information trail, Jacquard loom, Joseph-Marie Jacquard, Kickstarter, Louis Blériot, Louis Pasteur, low cost airline, Mahatma Gandhi, means of production, Murano, Venice glass, pension reform, post-work, QWERTY keyboard, ride hailing / ride sharing, Saturday Night Live, Silicon Valley, Skype, Sloane Ranger, Suez canal 1869, supervolcano, three-masted sailing ship, trade route, urban renewal, urban sprawl, V2 rocket

The constitutional reform also gave the green light to local referenda – to better hear what the people on the street were saying (though the first referendum subsequently held – in Corsica – threw up a ‘No’ vote, putting Paris back at square one; for details Click here). Spring 2003 ushered in yet more national strikes, this time over the government’s proposed pension reform, which was pushed through parliament in July. ‘We are not going to be intimidated by protestors’ was the tough response of centre-right Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, in office since May 2002. An extreme heatwave that summer, sending temperatures in the capital soaring above 40° and claiming 11,000 predominantly elderly lives, did little to cool rising temperatures. * * * SUITE FRANÇAISE The story behind literary stunner Suite Française is as incredible as the novel itself.

Once wrapped around the curvaceous buttocks of 1950s sex-bomb Brigitte Bardot on St-Tropez’ Plage de Pampelonne, there was no looking back. The bikini was born. * * * More cracks appeared in France’s assured countenance and silky-smooth veneer during 2004. Regional elections saw Chirac’s centre-right UMP party sent to the slaughterhouse by the socialists; European elections two months later were equally disastrous. Strikes against various pension, labour and welfare reforms proposed by the government continued and in May 2005 the voice of protest was injected with a new lease of life thanks to French voters’ shock rejection of the proposed EU constitution in a referendum.

Discredited French president Le Grand Jacques, now in his 70s and with a twinset of terms under his presidential belt, did not stand again. Then there was ‘Sarko’, as the French press quickly dubbed the dynamic, high-profile and highly ambitious Nicolas Sarkozy (b 1955) of Chirac’s UMP party. Interior minister and ruling party chairman, the centre-right candidate Sarkozy spoke – extremely smoothly and an awful lot – about job creation, lowering taxes, crime crackdown and helping the country’s substantial immigrant population, which, given he himself was the son of a Hungarian immigrant, had instant appeal. On polling day, punters even appeared to forgive him for his hardline comments slamming ethnic minorities in the Parisian suburbs as ‘scum’ during the 2005 riots and for his role (albeit that of innocent victim) in the Clearstream scandal.


Spain by Lonely Planet Publications, Damien Simonis

Atahualpa, business process, call centre, centre right, Colonization of Mars, discovery of the americas, Francisco Pizarro, Frank Gehry, G4S, gentrification, glass ceiling, Guggenheim Bilbao, haute couture, haute cuisine, high-speed rail, illegal immigration, intermodal, Islamic Golden Age, land reform, large denomination, low cost airline, megaproject, place-making, Skype, trade route, upwardly mobile, urban planning, urban renewal, urban sprawl, Winter of Discontent, young professional

Most damaging was the affair of the Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación (GAL), death squads that had murdered 28 suspected ETA terrorists (several of whom were innocent) in France in the mid-80s. A stream of GAL allegations contributed to the PSOE’s election defeat in 1996. In 1998 a dozen senior police and PSOE men were jailed in the affair. José María in Charge The 1996 general election was won by the centre-right Partido Popular (PP; People’s Party), led by José María Aznar, a former tax inspector from Castilla y León. The party had been founded by a former Franco minister, Manuel Fraga, something its opponents never let it forget. Aznar promised to make politics dull, and he did, but he presided over eight years of solid economic progress, winning the 2000 election as well, with an absolute parliamentary majority.

Along with its membership of NATO since 1982, this is a turning point in the country’s reacceptance around the world since the Franco years. 1992 Barcelona holds the Olympic Games, putting Spain firmly in the international spotlight and highlighting the country’s progress since 1975. In the same year, Madrid is European Capital of Culture and Seville hosts a Universal Expo. 1996–2004 Disaffection with PSOE sleaze gives the centre-right Partido Popular (PP), led by José María Aznar, a general election victory. His government presides over eight years of economic progress but support for the Iraq War is deeply ­divisive. 2004 (11 March) Four commuter trains in Madrid are bombed during the morning rush hour by Islamic terrorists.

A great place to sample the local atmosphere and food is Casa Tataguyo (985 56 48 15; www.tataguyo.com; Plaza de Carbayedo 6; meals €40-45), in business since 1845. Seafood lovers should make for neighbouring Salinas, a coastal suburb, and the century-old Real Balneario de Salinas (985 51 86 13; www.restaurantebalneario.com; Avenida de San Juan Sitges 3; meals €35-40; lunch & dinner Tue-Sat, lunch Sun). Opened as a bathing and social centre right on the beach by King Alfonso XIII in 1916, it’s a top seafood restaurant today. Ask for the day’s catch and salivate! ALSA buses run every half hour to/from Gijón (€1.95, 30 minutes). There are plenty for Oviedo (€2.06, 45 to 60 minutes) too. FEVE trains also connect with Gijón and Oviedo. Cudillero pop 1710 Cudillero is the most picturesque fishing village on the Asturian coast, and it knows it.


pages: 383 words: 105,387

The Power of Geography: Ten Maps That Reveal the Future of Our World by Tim Marshall

Apollo 11, Ayatollah Khomeini, Boris Johnson, Brexit referendum, British Empire, carbon footprint, centre right, clean water, coronavirus, COVID-19, David Sedaris, disinformation, Donald Trump, drone strike, Elon Musk, European colonialism, failed state, glass ceiling, global pandemic, Great Leap Forward, Jeff Bezos, Johannes Kepler, low earth orbit, Malacca Straits, means of production, megaproject, Mikhail Gorbachev, mutually assured destruction, Neil Armstrong, new economy, New Urbanism, Ronald Reagan, Silicon Valley, South China Sea, sovereign wealth fund, space junk, Strategic Defense Initiative, Suez canal 1869, Suez crisis 1956, trade route, uranium enrichment, urban planning, women in the workforce

On a turnout of 77.7 per cent of voters, 97.4 per cent supported proposed reforms for Spain to become a parliamentary monarchy, with all political parties legalized including the communists, who were most feared by the Francoist remnants. The next year Spain held its first democratic election since 1936. Of 350 seats, the centre-right party won 165 and formed the government. The social democrats came second with 118 seats, and the Communist Party third with twenty. As important as the winner was the loser. The AP party, founded by former Franco loyalists, won just sixteen seats. One, Manuel Fraga, managed to hold the right wing together as a political force but might be best remembered for accidentally shooting Franco’s daughter in the buttocks while on a hunting trip.


pages: 388 words: 111,099

Democracy for Sale: Dark Money and Dirty Politics by Peter Geoghegan

4chan, Adam Curtis, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, American Legislative Exchange Council, anti-globalists, basic income, Berlin Wall, Big Tech, Black Lives Matter, Boris Johnson, Brexit referendum, British Empire, Cambridge Analytica, centre right, corporate raider, crony capitalism, data science, deepfake, deindustrialization, demographic winter, disinformation, Dominic Cummings, Donald Trump, East Village, Etonian, F. W. de Klerk, fake news, first-past-the-post, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, Frank Gehry, Greta Thunberg, invisible hand, James Dyson, Jeremy Corbyn, John Bercow, Mark Zuckerberg, market fundamentalism, military-industrial complex, moral panic, Naomi Klein, Nelson Mandela, obamacare, offshore financial centre, open borders, Overton Window, Paris climate accords, plutocrats, post-truth, post-war consensus, pre–internet, private military company, Renaissance Technologies, Robert Mercer, Ronald Reagan, Silicon Valley, Snapchat, special economic zone, Steve Bannon, surveillance capitalism, tech billionaire, technoutopianism, Torches of Freedom, universal basic income, WikiLeaks, Yochai Benkler, éminence grise

In two decades, the idea that Britain should leave the European Union, deregulate and form a new trading relationship with predominantly white English-speaking nations went from a fringe concern to a widely held political aspiration. As we shall see later, the Anglosphere’s success was the product of dedicated transatlantic networks of think tanks, politicians and media. “Brexit is a big example of centre-right think tank success,” a former staffer at a British libertarian think tank told me. “When people like Dan Hannan were the only ones seriously talking about leaving the EU, and the Anglosphere, the think tanks were behind it, too.” Of course, ideas have always come and gone in politics, aided by a combination of money, good timing and clever communications strategies.


The Rough Guide to Chile by Melissa Graham, Andrew Benson

Atahualpa, California gold rush, call centre, centre right, company town, cuban missile crisis, Easter island, feminist movement, Francisco Pizarro, it's over 9,000, Murano, Venice glass, sensible shoes, sustainable-tourism, three-masted sailing ship, trade route, union organizing, women in the workforce

Military interference in government affairs was now at an end (for a few decades, at least), and the country settled down to a period of orderly political evolution, no longer held back by a weak executive. What emerged was a highly diverse multi-party system embracing a wide spectrum of political persuasions. After 1938, the government was dominated by the Radical Party, a centre-right group principally representing the middle classes. Radical presidents such as Pedro Aguirre Cerda, Juan Antonio Ríos and Gabriel González Videla took an active role in regenerating Chile’s economy, investing in state-sponsored steelworks, copper refineries, fisheries and power supplies. In the 1950s, left-wing groups gained considerable ground as the voting franchise widened, but old-guard landowners were able to counter this by controlling the votes of the thousands of peasants who depended on them for their survival, thus ensuring a firm swing back to the right.

And Argentina’s decision to prioritize its domestic gas demand, at the risk of cutting supplies to Chile, increased trans-Andean tensions. To the present day 510 Since March 2006, Chile has had a woman president, socialist Michelle Bachelet, elected by a comfortable margin in the second-round run-off on January 15 of that year. She had stood against charismatic businessman Sebastián Piñera, of the centre-right National Renewal Party, in the balotaje (decisive second round). Piñera, who is the billionaire owner of the TV channel Chilevisión, and president of LAN, the national airline, has been likened to Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi – not least by Lavín supporters, furious at Piñera’s decision to run and split the right-wing vote.


Scandinavia by Andy Symington

call centre, carbon footprint, centre right, clean water, connected car, edge city, Eyjafjallajökull, full employment, glass ceiling, Kickstarter, low cost airline, mass immigration, New Urbanism, North Sea oil, out of africa, period drama, retail therapy, Skype, the built environment, three-masted sailing ship, trade route, urban sprawl, walkable city, work culture , young professional

Sleeping Skagen Hotel HOTEL €€ ( 75 51 91 00; www.skagen-hotel.no; Nyholmsgata 11; s/d from Nkr725/925; ) Rooms here are attractively decorated and a continent away from chain-hotel clones. There’s a bar and free afternoon waffles and coffee. Staff can also give advice on a whole raft of vigorous outdoor activities. Clarion Collection Hotel Grand HOTEL €€ ( 75 54 61 00; www.choice.no; Storgata 3; s/d from Nkr795/980; ) With the resources of the Glasshuset shopping centre right beside it and the shortest of strolls from the quayside, the Grand is well positioned. All rooms were radically overhauled in 2009 and have parquet flooring, new bedlinen and duvets and freshly tiled bathrooms with large sinks. Bodøsjøen Camping CAMPING GROUND € ( 75 56 36 80; www.bodocamp.no, in Norwegian; Kvernhusveien 1; tent/caravan site Nkr150/200 plus per person Nkr30, cabin Nkr690-840, without bathroom Nkr250-430) At this waterside camping ground, 3km from the centre, cabins are particularly well equipped.

Since then, Sweden’s welfare state has undergone tough reforms and the economy has improved considerably, with falling unemployment and inflation. The country has remained outside the single European currency; a 2003 referendum on whether Sweden should adopt the euro resulted in a ‘no’ vote. In October 2006, the long-entrenched Social Democrats lost their leadership position in parliament. The centre-right Alliance Party won the election, with new Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt campaigning on a ‘work first’ platform. The global economic crisis again affected Sweden towards the end of 2008; that year the Swedish krona dropped to its weakest level since 2002. As ever, economic tensions fed social anxieties.


pages: 387 words: 120,155

Inside the Nudge Unit: How Small Changes Can Make a Big Difference by David Halpern

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, availability heuristic, behavioural economics, carbon footprint, Cass Sunstein, centre right, choice architecture, cognitive dissonance, cognitive load, collaborative consumption, correlation does not imply causation, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, data science, different worldview, endowment effect, gamification, happiness index / gross national happiness, hedonic treadmill, hindsight bias, IKEA effect, illegal immigration, job satisfaction, Kickstarter, language acquisition, libertarian paternalism, light touch regulation, longitudinal study, machine readable, market design, meta-analysis, Milgram experiment, nudge unit, peer-to-peer lending, pension reform, precautionary principle, presumed consent, QR code, quantitative easing, randomized controlled trial, Richard Thaler, Right to Buy, Ronald Reagan, Rory Sutherland, Simon Kuznets, skunkworks, supply chain finance, the built environment, theory of mind, traffic fines, twin studies, World Values Survey

The 2010 government launches the Nudge Unit Squeezed between Steve Hilton and Rohan Silva, the new Prime Minister’s political advisers, in the back of a Paris taxi was not somewhere I thought I’d find myself in the early summer of 2010. It was still the very early days of the new Coalition Government, and we had come to Paris to see if the centre-right administration of Nicolas Sarkozy shared the interest in approaches to government of the new Cameron–Clegg government in the UK, including nudging, Big Society and well-being. It turned out that they didn’t. Richard Thaler was with us, over from Chicago for a few days while we sought to put into action the plan to create the world’s first nudge unit.


Discover Great Britain by Lonely Planet

British Empire, carbon footprint, centre right, colonial rule, Columbine, congestion charging, G4S, gentrification, global village, Haight Ashbury, Isaac Newton, James Watt: steam engine, New Urbanism, Stephen Hawking

The year 2010 was especially pivotal, thanks to two major events (and yes, they are listed in order of importance): a World Cup tournament where the England football squad floundered, while Wales and Scotland didn’t even make it through the qualifying rounds; and a general election that saw the end of 13 years of Labour government. The Odd Couple The Labour government was replaced by a seminal coalition between the centre-right Conservatives and the centre-left Liberal-Democrats – a result that very few political pundits would have ever predicted. Unexpected or not, the new government got straight down to work and, despite coming from opposite sides of the centre ground, impressed most observers with laudable displays of collaboration.


pages: 347 words: 115,173

Chasing the Devil: On Foot Through Africa's Killing Fields by Tim Butcher

barriers to entry, blood diamond, centre right, clean water, colonial rule, Etonian, Google Earth, Kickstarter, Nelson Mandela, pre–internet, Scramble for Africa, trade route, upwardly mobile

Before I met him he had no job and after I left Liberia he had no job. Through greed and incompetence, the authorities in Liberia were not keeping their part of the social contract. Instead of providing a stable economy, earning opportunities and even the rule of law, they provided nothing. In the city centre, right next to the government headquarters, I saw a crude poster depicting street lights illuminating a tarred road with white lines painted down the middle. In large letters, the poster declared ‘Your Taxes at Work – The Process is On’. It was fiction. I knew from my slow slog through the backwoods of Liberia, past unlit towns, along roads maintained only by UN peacekeepers, past schools funded by foreign aid groups, that the impact of Liberia’s central government is almost non-existent.


pages: 356 words: 112,271

Brexit and Ireland: The Dangers, the Opportunities, and the Inside Story of the Irish Response by Tony Connelly

"World Economic Forum" Davos, air freight, Berlin Wall, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Big Tech, Boris Johnson, Brexit referendum, call centre, centre right, Double Irish / Dutch Sandwich, electricity market, eurozone crisis, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Jeremy Corbyn, Ken Thompson, knowledge economy, land bank, LNG terminal, low skilled workers, non-tariff barriers, open borders, personalized medicine, race to the bottom, regulatory arbitrage, tech worker, éminence grise

David Cameron, the British Prime Minister, had first raised the prospect of a referendum on EU membership in 2010, when he declared that voters had been ‘cheated’ out of a vote on the Lisbon Treaty. In the May general election that year, 148 new Tory MPs were elected, many of them eurosceptics. The UK Independence Party (UKIP) had been growing in popularity, and Cameron was desperate to head off the threat. He pulled Conservative MEPs out of the European People’s Party, the centre-right grouping in the European Parliament. He promised a referendum if any new powers were transferred to Brussels. He vetoed the EU Fiscal Compact (the rest of the EU simply converted it to an intergovernmental treaty sitting just outside the EU’s formal structures). He opted out of huge swathes of EU laws governing cooperation in the police and criminal justice spheres.


On the Road: Adventures From Nixon to Trump by James Naughtie

"Hurricane Katrina" Superdome, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Alistair Cooke, anti-communist, Ayatollah Khomeini, Bear Stearns, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Black Lives Matter, centre right, collapse of Lehman Brothers, Donald Trump, fake news, Ferguson, Missouri, gentrification, Haight Ashbury, illegal immigration, immigration reform, Julian Assange, Mikhail Gorbachev, Norman Mailer, obamacare, Oklahoma City bombing, plutocrats, post-work, Ronald Reagan, Ronald Reagan: Tear down this wall, Seymour Hersh, South China Sea, Steve Bannon, trickle-down economics, white flight, WikiLeaks, Yom Kippur War, young professional, zero-sum game

When he arrived in office conservatives still saw themselves trapped in a struggle with mainstream Republicans who wanted to keep them in their place; by the end of his second term they had confidence, as well as money and organisation, that would change America. Outsiders often find ‘conservative’ a confusing label in America, because there it indicates that someone is outside the centre-right mainstream, whereas in Europe it is the other way round. When Barry Goldwater stormed the Republican convention in 1964 – before losing to Lyndon Johnson under a mighty landslide – his credo was laid out in his book The Conscience of a Conservative, which rejected the kind of mild conservatism espoused by the Republican establishment and argued for fiercely limited government, unswerving faith in free markets and a war on any attempt to offer a collectivist solution to any problem.


Cards of Identity by Nigel Dennis

anti-communist, centre right, the market place

Don’t please be offended by the bit which says that eventually ‘the Abbot will wither away’. I only meant it as a little joke. Abbots like you will never wither away as long as there are brothers like me. * Silence is golden before and during a recital, but it is not a thing the performer wants to hear at the end of one. So Father Orfe was well pleased to stand bowing left, centre, right, front, back as the shouts and claps resounded through the room: he did this with the dignity that is proper to a male pianist – that is to say, he blew no kisses to the clappers, caught no huge bunches of flowers; he merely acknowledged the din by awarding it severe torsal inclinations and permitting his eyelids to become half-hooded.


The Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art by David Lewis-Williams

Alfred Russel Wallace, behavioural economics, centre right, conceptual framework, intentional community, Isaac Newton, language acquisition, Menlo Park, out of africa, Plato's cave, social intelligence, theory of mind

As one, probably apocryphal, Victorian lady remarked, ‘Let us hope it is not true, but if it is, let us pray that it will not become generally known.’ 20 Her prayer went unanswered, and further discoveries continued to be made. 6 Portable Upper Palaeolithic art. A spearthrower carved in the shape of a gracefully leaping horse; Magdalenian. From Bruniquel, Tarn-etGaronne. (Centre left) A spear-thrower carved in the form of an ibex looking back over its shoulder; Magdalenian. From Mas d’ Azil, Ariège. (Approximately 30 cm). (Centre right) A mammoth ivory carving of a bison apparently licking its flank; Magdalenian. From La Madeleine, Dordogne. (Below) A carved bone baton; images are shown ‘unrolled’; Magdalenian. From Lortet, Hautes-Pyrénées. The dispute over portable art was, however, as nothing to that which preceded the acceptance of parietal art – images painted or engraved on the walls and ceilings of caves.


pages: 385 words: 121,550

Three Years in Hell: The Brexit Chronicles by Fintan O'Toole

airport security, banking crisis, Berlin Wall, blockchain, Bob Geldof, Boris Johnson, Brexit referendum, British Empire, Bullingdon Club, Cambridge Analytica, centre right, classic study, cognitive dissonance, congestion charging, deindustrialization, deliberate practice, Dominic Cummings, Donald Trump, Double Irish / Dutch Sandwich, Downton Abbey, Etonian, eurozone crisis, facts on the ground, fake news, Fall of the Berlin Wall, first-past-the-post, full employment, income inequality, Jeremy Corbyn, l'esprit de l'escalier, labour mobility, late capitalism, open borders, rewilding, Slavoj Žižek, South China Sea, technoutopianism, zero-sum game

To put it bluntly, Ireland has evolved a complex and fluid sense of what it means to have a national identity while England has reverted to a simplistic and static one. This fault line opens a crack into which the whole Brexit project may stumble. The simplest way to understand how radically Irish identity has changed is to consider the country’s new prime minister, Leo Varadkar. He is thirty-eight and in many ways a typical politician of the European centre-right. He is also part Indian – his father Ashok is originally from Mumbai. And he is gay. When Varadkar was born in 1979, over 93 per cent of the population of the Republic of Ireland was born there and most of the rest were born in Northern Ireland or in Britain (often as children of Irish emigrants).


Checkmate in Berlin: The Cold War Showdown That Shaped the Modern World by Giles Milton

Alistair Cooke, anti-communist, Berlin Wall, British Empire, centre right, clean water, operation paperclip, post-war consensus, V2 rocket, wikimedia commons, éminence grise

She provided solutions to problems, translated documents from German into English and was the first to read the finished manuscript. Vielen dank! Merci beaucoup! Thank you! Magny, Burgundy, February 2021 Picture Credits akg-images: 2 above, 4 below/Voller Ernst/Chaldej, 5 above, 10 below, 11 above, 12 centre right/SNA, 13 above/Bildarchiv Pisarek, 14 below left/dpa picture alliance, 15 above, 16 above. Alamy Stock Photo: 1 above/Science History Images, 4 centre/Granger Historical Picture Archive, 5 centre/Pump Park Vintage Photography, 5 below/World History Archive, 8 above/ITAR-TASS News Agency, 8 below left and 11 below/Everett Collection Historical, 9 above/Photo 12, 9 below/Image Broker, 10 above/Pictorial Press Ltd, 12 above left/Classic Picture Library, 15 below/mccool, 16 below/PA Images.


Lonely Planet Cyprus by Lonely Planet, Jessica Lee, Joe Bindloss, Josephine Quintero

Airbnb, Berlin Wall, carbon footprint, centre right, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Kickstarter, urban decay

Talks stall and no agreement is reached. 2003 The North’s leader, Rauf Denktaş, announces a surprise decision to allow Cypriots from both sides to visit the opposing parts of the island. The first crossings in 29 years are peaceful. 2004 The Greek Cypriot 'no' vote in the April referendum on the Annan Plan scuppers reunification hopes. One week later, in May, the Republic of Cyprus joins the EU. 2013 Veteran centre-right politician Nicos Anastasiades is elected president in the Republic. In March the Republic's financial crash causes banks to close for 12 days while a €10-billion bailout deal is struck. 2015–17 Mustafa Akinci wins Northern Cyprus' elections in April 2015, kick-starting the latest round of talks to reunify the island.


pages: 371 words: 122,273

Tenants: The People on the Frontline of Britain's Housing Emergency by Vicky Spratt

Airbnb, Albert Einstein, basic income, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Black Lives Matter, Boris Johnson, British Empire, Buy land – they’re not making it any more, call centre, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, centre right, clean water, coronavirus, COVID-19, credit crunch, cryptocurrency, edge city, en.wikipedia.org, full employment, garden city movement, gender pay gap, gentrification, gig economy, global pandemic, housing crisis, Housing First, illegal immigration, income inequality, Induced demand, Jane Jacobs, Jeremy Corbyn, land bank, land reform, land value tax, lockdown, longitudinal study, low interest rates, mass immigration, mega-rich, meta-analysis, negative equity, Overton Window, Own Your Own Home, plutocrats, quantitative easing, rent control, Right to Buy, Rishi Sunak, Rutger Bregman, side hustle, social distancing, stop buying avocado toast, the built environment, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, The Spirit Level, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, trickle-down economics, universal basic income, urban planning, urban renewal, working-age population, young professional, zero-sum game

We know that change occurs when there is political will. Coronavirus has shown us that. The Overton Window shifts, the needle moves. We may yet find the ‘radical’ ideas of the former leader of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn – a four-day working week, nationalised universal broadband – adopted by the centre right. Stranger things have happened. We have already seen an iteration of Universal Basic Income – it was called the furlough scheme. Under crisis, the politically impossible can very quickly become possible. The progressive can be conservative when it is necessary and politically expedient. A More Compassionate Politics Is a loving and compassionate approach to housing policy anything other than common sense?


pages: 920 words: 233,102

Unelected Power: The Quest for Legitimacy in Central Banking and the Regulatory State by Paul Tucker

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", Alan Greenspan, Andrei Shleifer, bank run, banking crisis, barriers to entry, Basel III, battle of ideas, Bear Stearns, Ben Bernanke: helicopter money, Berlin Wall, Bretton Woods, Brexit referendum, business cycle, capital controls, Carmen Reinhart, Cass Sunstein, central bank independence, centre right, conceptual framework, corporate governance, diversified portfolio, electricity market, Fall of the Berlin Wall, financial innovation, financial intermediation, financial repression, first-past-the-post, floating exchange rates, forensic accounting, forward guidance, Fractional reserve banking, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, full employment, George Akerlof, Greenspan put, incomplete markets, inflation targeting, information asymmetry, invisible hand, iterative process, Jean Tirole, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Arrow, Kenneth Rogoff, liberal capitalism, light touch regulation, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, means of production, Money creation, money market fund, Mont Pelerin Society, moral hazard, Northern Rock, operational security, Pareto efficiency, Paul Samuelson, price mechanism, price stability, principal–agent problem, profit maximization, public intellectual, quantitative easing, regulatory arbitrage, reserve currency, risk free rate, risk tolerance, risk-adjusted returns, road to serfdom, Robert Bork, Ronald Coase, seigniorage, short selling, Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits, stochastic process, subprime mortgage crisis, tail risk, The Chicago School, The Great Moderation, The Market for Lemons, the payments system, too big to fail, transaction costs, Vilfredo Pareto, Washington Consensus, yield curve, zero-coupon bond, zero-sum game

Public Debate: Realism This all begs the question of whether it is realistic to expect public debates of this kind. In the middle of the twentieth century, two of America’s leading public intellectuals locked horns on just that. Center-Left liberal John Dewey, whom we have already met, argued that public reason and participation were integral to democracy. Centre-Right liberal Walter Lippmann, a central figure at the 1938 Paris Colloque Lippmann, a forerunner of the neoliberal Mont Pelerin Society, argued that looking for rich public debate was utterly unrealistic and naïve: most people would choose an evening watching television or a sporting event over debating public affairs.25 Both seem wrong.

As Germany’s Chancellor Merkel has often commented, Europe operates by consensus within the constraints of the law. This is reinforced by the character of the Parliament (EP), whose members are determined via separate elections in each member state, largely via party-list proportional representation. There are no EU-wide political parties but instead various groupings of center Right, center Left national-party representatives. As overt coalitions, these groupings generate a further layer of compromise. The Parliament is large (over 700 members), with its committees similarly large: as of late 2016, the ECON committee that oversees the ECB and financial regulation had sixty-one members.

If, on the other hand, ministries are not really in control, with de facto autonomy outstripping de jure insulation, the effect might be to improve welfare in some areas (competition policy is a possibility) but to violate deep values in others. It is important here to distinguish two possibilities. One is that ministries sometimes neglect their responsibilities and, in consequence, agencies are let off an intended leash. The other, quite different, is that an embedded attachment, on the center Left as well as the center Right, to the tenets of ordo-liberalism acts to constrain the agencies, and that this is understood by the ministries. Put another way, have the facts of administrative life outstripped the law? If so, was that driven by society’s expectations and values evolving beyond the terms of the law, but with facts and informal soft norms remaining aligned; or was it a matter of the facts slipping the leash of society’s norms (informal and formal)?


Adam Smith: Father of Economics by Jesse Norman

active measures, Alan Greenspan, Andrei Shleifer, balance sheet recession, bank run, banking crisis, Basel III, Bear Stearns, behavioural economics, Berlin Wall, Black Swan, Branko Milanovic, Bretton Woods, British Empire, Broken windows theory, business cycle, business process, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, Carmen Reinhart, centre right, cognitive dissonance, collateralized debt obligation, colonial exploitation, Corn Laws, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Credit Default Swap, credit default swaps / collateralized debt obligations, crony capitalism, David Brooks, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, deindustrialization, electricity market, Eugene Fama: efficient market hypothesis, experimental economics, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Fellow of the Royal Society, financial engineering, financial intermediation, frictionless, frictionless market, future of work, George Akerlof, Glass-Steagall Act, Hyman Minsky, income inequality, incomplete markets, information asymmetry, intangible asset, invention of the telescope, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, Jean Tirole, John Nash: game theory, joint-stock company, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Arrow, Kenneth Rogoff, lateral thinking, loss aversion, low interest rates, market bubble, market fundamentalism, Martin Wolf, means of production, mirror neurons, money market fund, Mont Pelerin Society, moral hazard, moral panic, Naomi Klein, negative equity, Network effects, new economy, non-tariff barriers, Northern Rock, Pareto efficiency, Paul Samuelson, Peter Thiel, Philip Mirowski, price mechanism, principal–agent problem, profit maximization, public intellectual, purchasing power parity, random walk, rent-seeking, Richard Thaler, Robert Shiller, Robert Solow, Ronald Coase, scientific worldview, seigniorage, Socratic dialogue, South Sea Bubble, special economic zone, speech recognition, Steven Pinker, The Chicago School, The Myth of the Rational Market, The Nature of the Firm, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, The Wisdom of Crowds, theory of mind, Thomas Malthus, Thorstein Veblen, time value of money, transaction costs, transfer pricing, Veblen good, Vilfredo Pareto, Washington Consensus, working poor, zero-sum game

And that anger and frustration have come amid times of economic growth and booming markets; think what they might be in a serious recession. To make matters still worse, after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 there was remarkable complacency across the political spectrum about the status of capitalism, especially in the UK and USA. History had supposedly ended. Since then, the centre-right has not found it necessary to make the case for the market economy in any serious way, let alone to develop the kind of systematic account of its strengths and weaknesses that might enable it to combat the spread of crony capitalism. Until recently, the centre-left has neglected to offer any serious critique either, let alone to prepare for or address the negative effects of globalization.


pages: 502 words: 128,126

Rule Britannia: Brexit and the End of Empire by Danny Dorling, Sally Tomlinson

3D printing, Ada Lovelace, Alfred Russel Wallace, anti-communist, anti-globalists, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Boris Johnson, Brexit referendum, British Empire, Bullingdon Club, Cambridge Analytica, centre right, colonial rule, Corn Laws, correlation does not imply causation, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, deindustrialization, disinformation, Dominic Cummings, Donald Trump, Edward Snowden, electricity market, en.wikipedia.org, epigenetics, Etonian, falling living standards, Flynn Effect, gentrification, housing crisis, illegal immigration, imperial preference, income inequality, inflation targeting, invisible hand, Jeremy Corbyn, knowledge economy, market fundamentalism, mass immigration, megacity, New Urbanism, Nick Leeson, North Sea oil, offshore financial centre, out of africa, Right to Buy, Ronald Reagan, Silicon Valley, South China Sea, sovereign wealth fund, spinning jenny, Steven Pinker, Suez canal 1869, Suez crisis 1956, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, University of East Anglia, Wayback Machine, We are the 99%, wealth creators

In 2009, the British Conservative Party was moving towards the European far-right, but UKIP, the BNP and English Democrats still secured 23.8 per cent – almost a quarter of all the votes in the European elections of that year. If we then add half the Tory 2009 vote to that (as no one knew where the Tories really stood in 2009), far-right parties gained 37.6 per cent of the EU parliamentary vote in 2009. The Conservatives had stopped being a centre-right party in Europe in 2009 and were moving to become a far-right party in the run-up to the EU referendum. Adding half their vote to the far-right bloc may be underestimating just how far to the right the party had moved. A normal European Conservative Party would never support, let alone introduce, a referendum on EU membership.


Ukraine by Lonely Planet

Anton Chekhov, Burning Man, call centre, carbon footprint, centre right, gentrification, high-speed rail, Honoré de Balzac, low cost airline, megacity, Skype, stakhanovite, Suez canal 1869, trade route

Brave Schwejk Beer Restaurant $$ (vul Lesi Ukrainky 56; mains 25-100uah; 9am-11pm) Named for the famous fictional Czech soldier Švejk (or Schweik in German) in Good Soldier Schweik by Jaroslav Hašek, this place harks back to the novel’s Austro-Hungarian era with its mix of sausages, goulash, pigs’ knuckles, milk veal and similar specialities. The atmosphere is that of a small beer hall, where you’ll find the likes of Paulaner and Warsteiner beer from Germany alongside Staropramen and Krušovice from the Czech Republic. The 48uah business lunch is a filling deal. Getting There & Around The bus station is 2km northeast of the centre, right next to a market (зал рунок); trolleybuses 5, 8 and 9, plus numerous marshrutky, link it to central maydan Teatralny (look for signs like центр or цум). There are buses to and from Lviv (from 44uah, three hours, twice hourly), including two more comfortable Autolux (www.autolux.ua) services heading to and from Kyiv each day.


pages: 270 words: 132,960

Use of Weapons by Iain M. Banks

centre right, double helix, driverless car, gravity well, job satisfaction, oil shale / tar sands, trade route

'Calm down, dammit.' 'Sma,' the drone said, voice almost languid, 'I am calm. I'm just trying to communicate to you the enormity of the planet-ary cock-up Zakalwe has managed to concoct here. TheVery Little Gravitas Indeed has blown a fuse; even as we talk, Contact Minds in an ever-expanding sphere centred right here are clearing their intellectual decks and trying to work out what the hell to do to tidy this stunningly ghastly mess. If that GSV hadn't been on its way here anyway, they'd have diverted it because of this. An asteroid belt-sized pile of shit is about to hit a fan exactly the size of this planet, thanks to Zakalwe's ludicrous good-guy schemes, and Contact is going to have to try and field all of it.'


The Rough Guide to Prague by Humphreys, Rob

active transport: walking or cycling, Albert Einstein, anti-communist, Berlin Wall, centre right, clean water, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Frank Gehry, Johannes Kepler, land reform, Live Aid, Mikhail Gorbachev, Peace of Westphalia, sexual politics, sustainable-tourism, trade route, upwardly mobile

The state-run Český rozhlas broadcasts numerous stations including ČR1 (94.6FM), mainly made up of current affairs programmes, ČR2 (91.3FM), which features more magazine-style programming, and ČR3 Vltava (105FM), a culture and arts station that plays a fair amount of classical music. The three top commercial channels are the French-owned Evropa 2 (88.2FM), Rádio Bonton (99.7FM) and Kiss 98 FM (98FM), which dish out bland Euro-pop. More interesting is Radio 1 (91.9FM), which plays a wide range of alternative music. BASICS under the First Republic) is now a populist centre-right daily, while the orange-coloured Hospodářské noviny is the Czech equivalent of the Financial Times or Wall Street Journal. The country’s most popular newspaper is Blesk (Lightning), a sensationalist tabloid with lurid colour pictures, naked women and reactionary politics. If all you want, however, is yesterday’s (or, more often than not, the day before yesterday’s) international sports results, pick up a copy of the daily Sport.


pages: 464 words: 139,088

The End of Alchemy: Money, Banking and the Future of the Global Economy by Mervyn King

Alan Greenspan, Andrei Shleifer, Asian financial crisis, asset-backed security, balance sheet recession, bank run, banking crisis, banks create money, behavioural economics, Berlin Wall, Bernie Madoff, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, bitcoin, Black Monday: stock market crash in 1987, Black Swan, Boeing 747, Bretton Woods, British Empire, business cycle, capital controls, Carmen Reinhart, Cass Sunstein, central bank independence, centre right, classic study, collapse of Lehman Brothers, creative destruction, Credit Default Swap, crowdsourcing, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, distributed generation, Doha Development Round, Edmond Halley, Fall of the Berlin Wall, falling living standards, fiat currency, financial engineering, financial innovation, financial intermediation, floating exchange rates, foreign exchange controls, forward guidance, Fractional reserve banking, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, full employment, German hyperinflation, Glass-Steagall Act, Great Leap Forward, Hyman Minsky, inflation targeting, invisible hand, Japanese asset price bubble, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Meriwether, joint-stock company, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Arrow, Kenneth Rogoff, labour market flexibility, large denomination, lateral thinking, liquidity trap, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, manufacturing employment, market clearing, Martin Wolf, Mexican peso crisis / tequila crisis, Money creation, money market fund, money: store of value / unit of account / medium of exchange, moral hazard, Myron Scholes, Nick Leeson, no-fly zone, North Sea oil, Northern Rock, oil shale / tar sands, oil shock, open economy, paradox of thrift, Paul Samuelson, Ponzi scheme, price mechanism, price stability, proprietary trading, purchasing power parity, quantitative easing, rent-seeking, reserve currency, Richard Thaler, rising living standards, Robert Shiller, Robert Solow, Satoshi Nakamoto, savings glut, secular stagnation, seigniorage, stem cell, Steve Jobs, The Great Moderation, the payments system, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, Thomas Malthus, too big to fail, transaction costs, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, yield curve, Yom Kippur War, zero-sum game

The leaders of the smaller countries, in particular, have been cowed by threats from the centre, on the one hand, and by the prospect of jobs in European institutions when they stand down from national office on the other. Voters in a growing number of countries have turned away from centre-left and centre-right parties towards more extreme parties that still respect national sovereignty. There is a limit to the economic pain that can be imposed in the pursuit of a federal Europe without a political counter-reaction. Iraq between the Gulf Wars The second example illustrating the complex relationship between money and nations is the remarkable story of currency arrangements in Iraq between the First and Second Gulf Wars.


pages: 506 words: 133,134

The Lonely Century: How Isolation Imperils Our Future by Noreena Hertz

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", Airbnb, airport security, algorithmic bias, Asian financial crisis, autism spectrum disorder, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, big-box store, Broken windows theory, call centre, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, car-free, Cass Sunstein, centre right, conceptual framework, Copley Medal, coronavirus, correlation does not imply causation, COVID-19, dark matter, deindustrialization, Diane Coyle, digital divide, disinformation, Donald Trump, driverless car, emotional labour, en.wikipedia.org, Erik Brynjolfsson, Evgeny Morozov, fake news, Fellow of the Royal Society, future of work, gender pay gap, gentrification, gig economy, Gordon Gekko, greed is good, Greta Thunberg, happiness index / gross national happiness, housing crisis, illegal immigration, independent contractor, industrial robot, Jane Jacobs, Jeff Bezos, Jeremy Corbyn, Jessica Bruder, job automation, job satisfaction, karōshi / gwarosa / guolaosi, Kevin Roose, knowledge economy, labor-force participation, lockdown, longitudinal study, low interest rates, low skilled workers, Lyft, Mark Zuckerberg, mass immigration, means of production, megacity, meta-analysis, move fast and break things, Network effects, new economy, Pepto Bismol, QWERTY keyboard, Ray Oldenburg, remote working, rent control, RFID, robo advisor, Ronald Reagan, Salesforce, San Francisco homelessness, Second Machine Age, Shoshana Zuboff, side hustle, Silicon Valley, Skype, Snapchat, social distancing, Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits, SoftBank, Steve Jobs, surveillance capitalism, TaskRabbit, tech worker, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, The Future of Employment, The Great Good Place, the long tail, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, TikTok, Tim Cook: Apple, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, urban planning, Wall-E, warehouse automation, warehouse robotics, WeWork, work culture , working poor, workplace surveillance

Its grip on the imaginations, emotions and voting intentions of a considerable proportion of citizens is likely to endure. Of additional concern is that divisive, race-tinged rhetoric is often contagious in its own right. In an incendiary attempt to fend off a challenge from right-wing populist candidate Geert Wilders, the non-populist, centre-right prime minister of the Netherlands Mark Rutte ran a newspaper ad in 2017 that instructed immigrants to ‘Be Normal, or Be Gone’.79 Denmark’s Centre Left Social Democrats were victorious in Denmark’s 2019 election with a manifesto that was disturbingly redolent of the far right when it came to issues of immigration.80 Indeed, in many ways the greatest danger associated with the rise in populism in recent years is how it has pushed traditional parties of both the right and left ever further to the extremes and normalised a discourse of divisiveness, distrust and hate.


pages: 432 words: 143,491

Failures of State: The Inside Story of Britain's Battle With Coronavirus by Jonathan Calvert, George Arbuthnott

Boeing 747, Boris Johnson, Brexit referendum, Bullingdon Club, centre right, collapse of Lehman Brothers, contact tracing, contact tracing app, coronavirus, COVID-19, data science, disinformation, Dominic Cummings, Donald Trump, Etonian, gig economy, global pandemic, high-speed rail, Jeremy Corbyn, Kickstarter, lockdown, nudge unit, open economy, Rishi Sunak, Ronald Reagan, Skype, social distancing, zoonotic diseases

Stevens had a long-standing connection with the prime minister stretching back decades. The pair had been unlikely friends after meeting at Balliol College, Oxford, where they studied in the mid-1980s. Johnson, an old Etonian and a former member of the Bullingdon Club, the notorious all-male dining society, was politically centre-right, while Stevens, known as ‘Simes’, had been educated at a Birmingham comprehensive school and was a member of the Labour Club. Yet their friendship was forged during a trip to America with the Oxford Union debating society.4 Many years later, when standing to be Conservative Party leader in 2019, Johnson described how Stevens had helped him get elected as union president in 1986.


The Rough Guide to Cyprus (Travel Guide eBook) by Rough Guides

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Airbnb, Berlin Wall, British Empire, carbon footprint, centre right, Ford Model T, Google Earth, sustainable-tourism

The election of pro-austerity President Nicos Anastasiades in 2013, the continued natural gas exploration, and the surprise election of Mustafa Akinci to the presidency of the north in 2015 held out hope for a surge in economic and political progress. The tourism-based economy picked up fairly quickly and is now among the best faring in the Mediterranean area. However, the election of centre-right president Nicos Anastasiades in the Republic in 2013 indicated that reunification had slipped down the political agenda, with Anastasiades stating that “the most urgent task is to face the financial crisis”. The situation seemed to have arrived at stalemate, though many hoped that Turkey’s long-held ambitions to join the EU might be a possible catalyst for new talks between the two sides.


pages: 669 words: 150,886

Behind the Berlin Wall: East Germany and the Frontiers of Power by Patrick Major

anti-communist, Berlin Wall, centre right, disinformation, Easter island, falling living standards, Great Leap Forward, guns versus butter model, land reform, Mikhail Gorbachev, military-industrial complex, mittelstand, open borders, Panopticon Jeremy Bentham, post-materialism, Prenzlauer Berg, refrigerator car, rising living standards, Ronald Reagan, Sinatra Doctrine

This, too, partly explains the growing prevalence of the slogan ‘No violence’ among the more law-abiding protestors who felt that ‘their’ demonstration was being hijacked. On 9–10 September oppositionists formed ‘New Forum’, and on 19 September applied for recognition, the first of several civil rights groups such as Democracy Now and the more centre-right Democratic Awakening to emerge over the autumn, all prompted to go public ⁸¹ Hertle, Fall der Mauer, 109. ⁸² 13 Mar. 1989 in Mitter and Wolle (eds), ‘Ich liebe euch’, 28. ⁸³ Johannes B., 10 May 1989, SAPMO-BArch, DY30/1094, fos. 11–12. ⁸⁴ Maier, Dissolution, 136. 244 Behind the Berlin Wall by the opening of the Hungarian border.


pages: 482 words: 149,351

The Finance Curse: How Global Finance Is Making Us All Poorer by Nicholas Shaxson

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", "World Economic Forum" Davos, activist fund / activist shareholder / activist investor, Airbnb, airline deregulation, Alan Greenspan, anti-communist, bank run, banking crisis, Basel III, Bear Stearns, benefit corporation, Bernie Madoff, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Blythe Masters, Boris Johnson, Bretton Woods, British Empire, business climate, business cycle, capital controls, carried interest, Cass Sunstein, Celtic Tiger, central bank independence, centre right, Clayton Christensen, cloud computing, corporate governance, corporate raider, creative destruction, Credit Default Swap, cross-subsidies, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, demographic dividend, Deng Xiaoping, desegregation, Donald Trump, Etonian, export processing zone, failed state, fake news, falling living standards, family office, financial deregulation, financial engineering, financial innovation, forensic accounting, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, full employment, gig economy, Gini coefficient, Glass-Steagall Act, global supply chain, Global Witness, high net worth, Ida Tarbell, income inequality, index fund, invisible hand, Jeff Bezos, junk bonds, Kickstarter, land value tax, late capitalism, light touch regulation, London Whale, Long Term Capital Management, low skilled workers, manufacturing employment, Mark Zuckerberg, Martin Wolf, megaproject, Michael Milken, Money creation, Mont Pelerin Society, moral hazard, neoliberal agenda, Network effects, new economy, Northern Rock, offshore financial centre, old-boy network, out of africa, Paul Samuelson, plutocrats, Ponzi scheme, price mechanism, proprietary trading, purchasing power parity, pushing on a string, race to the bottom, regulatory arbitrage, rent-seeking, road to serfdom, Robert Bork, Ronald Coase, Ronald Reagan, Savings and loan crisis, seminal paper, shareholder value, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Skype, smart grid, Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits, South Sea Bubble, sovereign wealth fund, special economic zone, Steve Ballmer, Steve Jobs, stock buybacks, Suez crisis 1956, The Chicago School, Thorstein Veblen, too big to fail, Tragedy of the Commons, transfer pricing, two and twenty, vertical integration, Wayback Machine, wealth creators, white picket fence, women in the workforce, zero-sum game

Juncker has denied rumours that he is an alcoholic, telling a French newspaper in 2016 that his occasional lurches and staggers are due to a leg injury he got in a car crash in 1989. (He chugged four glasses of champagne during that interview.) His outbreaks of irrational honesty are legendary. ‘When it becomes serious, you have to lie,’ he once said with a shrug in 2011, on live television. Though Juncker built his career in the centre-right CSV party, he was always a bit of a lefty. He splashed state subsidies widely, including handsome pensions and unemployment benefits; he promoted very strict employment-protection laws and progressive wage policies, and a Euro-style tripartite social dialogue between workers, company owners and the state, softening globalisation’s hard edges.


pages: 513 words: 156,022

Dictatorland: The Men Who Stole Africa by Paul Kenyon

agricultural Revolution, anti-communist, Ascot racecourse, Boeing 747, British Empire, centre right, clean water, colonial rule, Etonian, European colonialism, falling living standards, friendly fire, Global Witness, land reform, mandatory minimum, Nelson Mandela, Norman Mailer, offshore financial centre, oil rush, oil shale / tar sands, Ronald Reagan, Rosa Parks, Scramble for Africa, transatlantic slave trade, Yom Kippur War

There was bitter debate about how to deal with the captured leaders of the Vichy government and the thousands of paid officials who had worked under German occupation: policemen, teachers, civil servants. De Gaulle, by now the embodiment of France, was responsible for imposing a centralized, unified state. He headed a provisional government (GPRF), comprising an uneasy tripartite alliance between the French Communist Party (PCF), the French Section of the Workers International (SFIO) and the centre-right Popular Republic Movement (MRP), which was loyal to de Gaulle. But it was the PCF that had been steadily increasing in popularity and influence. During the war, communists had dominated the Resistance movement, organizing guerrilla groups and carrying out many daring political assassinations. Buoyed by its prominent role, the PCF had enjoyed a surge in membership, rising to more than a million in 1945.


pages: 344 words: 161,076

The Rough Guide to Barcelona 8 by Jules Brown, Rough Guides

active transport: walking or cycling, bike sharing, centre right, Frank Gehry, gentrification, glass ceiling, Guggenheim Bilbao, haute couture, Kickstarter, sustainable-tourism, trade route, urban planning, urban renewal

His newly appointed prime minister, Adolfo Suárez, steered through a Political Reform Act, which allowed for a two-chamber parliament and a referendum in favour of democracy; he also legitimized the Socialist Party (the PSOE) and the Communists, and called elections for the following year, the first since 1936. In the elections of 1977, the Pacte Democratico per Catalunya – an alliance of pro-Catalan parties – gained ten seats in the lower house of the Spanish parliament (Basque nationalists won a similar number) dominated by Suárez’s own centre-right UCD party but also with a strong Socialist presence. In a spirit of consensus and amnesty, it was announced that Catalunya was to be granted a degree of autonomy, and a million people turned out on the streets of Barcelona to witness the re-establishment of the Generalitat and to welcome home its president-in-exile, Josep Tarradellas.


pages: 543 words: 147,357

Them And Us: Politics, Greed And Inequality - Why We Need A Fair Society by Will Hutton

Abraham Maslow, Alan Greenspan, Andrei Shleifer, asset-backed security, bank run, banking crisis, Bear Stearns, behavioural economics, Benoit Mandelbrot, Berlin Wall, Bernie Madoff, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Blythe Masters, Boris Johnson, bread and circuses, Bretton Woods, business cycle, capital controls, carbon footprint, Carmen Reinhart, Cass Sunstein, centre right, choice architecture, cloud computing, collective bargaining, conceptual framework, Corn Laws, Cornelius Vanderbilt, corporate governance, creative destruction, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, debt deflation, decarbonisation, Deng Xiaoping, discovery of DNA, discovery of the americas, discrete time, disinformation, diversification, double helix, Edward Glaeser, financial deregulation, financial engineering, financial innovation, financial intermediation, first-past-the-post, floating exchange rates, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, Frank Levy and Richard Murnane: The New Division of Labor, full employment, general purpose technology, George Akerlof, Gini coefficient, Glass-Steagall Act, global supply chain, Growth in a Time of Debt, Hyman Minsky, I think there is a world market for maybe five computers, income inequality, inflation targeting, interest rate swap, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, James Dyson, James Watt: steam engine, Japanese asset price bubble, joint-stock company, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Rogoff, knowledge economy, knowledge worker, labour market flexibility, language acquisition, Large Hadron Collider, liberal capitalism, light touch regulation, Long Term Capital Management, long term incentive plan, Louis Pasteur, low cost airline, low interest rates, low-wage service sector, mandelbrot fractal, margin call, market fundamentalism, Martin Wolf, mass immigration, means of production, meritocracy, Mikhail Gorbachev, millennium bug, Money creation, money market fund, moral hazard, moral panic, mortgage debt, Myron Scholes, Neil Kinnock, new economy, Northern Rock, offshore financial centre, open economy, plutocrats, power law, price discrimination, private sector deleveraging, proprietary trading, purchasing power parity, quantitative easing, race to the bottom, railway mania, random walk, rent-seeking, reserve currency, Richard Thaler, Right to Buy, rising living standards, Robert Shiller, Ronald Reagan, Rory Sutherland, Satyajit Das, Savings and loan crisis, shareholder value, short selling, Silicon Valley, Skype, South Sea Bubble, Steve Jobs, systems thinking, tail risk, The Market for Lemons, the market place, The Myth of the Rational Market, the payments system, the scientific method, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, three-masted sailing ship, too big to fail, unpaid internship, value at risk, Vilfredo Pareto, Washington Consensus, wealth creators, work culture , working poor, world market for maybe five computers, zero-sum game, éminence grise

Both main political groupings need to attract the centre ground to win a simple first-past-the-post election, but too many voters with above-average and even average incomes – middle class or aspirational middle class – will always fear that a centre-left party will revert back to its egalitarian roots and raise redistributive taxes. The worst a centre-right party might do is move right and cut taxes and spending. So politics is systematically pulled to the right. Furthermore, the 24/7 media requires a constant flow of initiatives to retain the political agenda, and a strong media operation within the government system to manage the pressure. Political advisers understand these exigencies in a way that civil servants do not, hence ministers come to rely on them.


pages: 579 words: 160,351

Breaking News: The Remaking of Journalism and Why It Matters Now by Alan Rusbridger

"World Economic Forum" Davos, accounting loophole / creative accounting, Airbnb, Andy Carvin, banking crisis, Bellingcat, Bernie Sanders, Bletchley Park, Boris Johnson, Brexit referendum, Cambridge Analytica, centre right, Chelsea Manning, citizen journalism, country house hotel, cross-subsidies, crowdsourcing, data science, David Attenborough, David Brooks, death of newspapers, Donald Trump, Doomsday Book, Double Irish / Dutch Sandwich, Downton Abbey, Edward Snowden, Etonian, Evgeny Morozov, fake news, Filter Bubble, folksonomy, forensic accounting, Frank Gehry, future of journalism, G4S, high net worth, information security, invention of movable type, invention of the printing press, Jeff Bezos, jimmy wales, Julian Assange, Large Hadron Collider, Laura Poitras, Mark Zuckerberg, Mary Meeker, Menlo Park, natural language processing, New Journalism, offshore financial centre, oil shale / tar sands, open borders, packet switching, Panopticon Jeremy Bentham, post-truth, pre–internet, ransomware, recommendation engine, Ruby on Rails, sexual politics, Silicon Valley, Skype, Snapchat, social web, Socratic dialogue, sovereign wealth fund, speech recognition, Steve Bannon, Steve Jobs, the long tail, The Wisdom of Crowds, Tim Cook: Apple, traveling salesman, upwardly mobile, WikiLeaks, Yochai Benkler

Commercially, its audience (and therefore value) over time could be greater than its value on day one. That was the theory of the long tail. What did an editorial long tail look like? We came to shorthand this as the ‘Nick Clegg’ problem. Nick Clegg was the rising star of the (centre-left) UK Liberal Democrat party. An MP in 2005, leader of his party by 2007 and (centre-right) deputy prime minister by 2010. Suppose you wanted to know all about Clegg and came to the Guardian (via Google) to find out. At least 90 per cent of what you’d find on the Guardian would be the daily ticktock of incremental news. Clegg said this in Sheffield; opened that in Birmingham; criticised this in Westminster.


pages: 811 words: 160,872

Scots and Catalans: Union and Disunion by J. H. Elliott

active measures, agricultural Revolution, banking crisis, British Empire, centre right, land tenure, mass immigration, mobile money, new economy, North Sea oil, Red Clydeside, sharing economy, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, urban renewal, work culture

CEDA was not therefore the rabidly anti-republican movement with centralizing ambitions depicted by its enemies, but its programme commanded the acquiescence, if not the wholesale support, of many of the most right-wing forces in Spanish society, who were determined to see the political and social reforms of the preceding two years overturned. CEDA won the most votes in the general election of November 1933 – the first held in the Spanish Republic – although without securing an absolute majority, and a government of the centre-right was formed under the leadership of the veteran but now more moderate radical, Alejandro Lerroux. In the elections to the Catalan parliament the right also showed impressive signs of recovery, with Esquerra Republicana losing thirteen of its thirty-one deputies, and the tally of the Lliga, which changed its name in 1933 from ‘Lliga Regionalista’ to ‘Lliga Catalana’, rising from four to twenty-four. 98 Spain’s parties of the left, however, were unable to accept their defeat, and the appointment as ministers of three representatives of CEDA at the end of September 1934 confirmed the fears of the left that the forces of fascism were about to take over the country, and provided the occasion, or the pretext, for the socialist insurrection known as the ‘October Revolution’. 99 The savage repression of the miners’ strike in Asturias by troops of the Army of Africa was to be the prelude to the notorious ‘black biennium’ ( bienio negro ), during which conservative governments, while failing to restore political or social stability, managed to reverse much of the legislation of 1931–3.


Lonely Planet Belgium & Luxembourg by Lonely Planet

active transport: walking or cycling, Albert Einstein, bike sharing, Black Lives Matter, carbon footprint, centre right, charter city, colonial rule, coronavirus, COVID-19, friendly fire, gentrification, glass ceiling, Kickstarter, Louis Pasteur, Peace of Westphalia, QR code, ride hailing / ride sharing, three-masted sailing ship, urban renewal

Just up the lane, a cute brasserie-B&B serves local beers and cheap snacks, while on the main village square, upmarket restaurant Lemonnier (%084-38 88 83; www.lemonnier.be; Rue Lemonnier 82; mains €32-54, degustation €82; hnoon-2pm & 7-9pm Thu-Mon; W) is a foodie delight. Lavaux’s junction is south-off, north-on so expect a small diversion to get back on the southbound highway. Euro Space Centre Right at Junction 23 of the E411, the solar-panel-wrapped Euro Space Center (%061 65 64 65; www.eurospacecenter.be; Rue Devant les Hêtres, Transinne; adult/student/child €12/11/8; h10am-6pm Tue-Sun mid-Apr–Jun & Sep, daily Jul & Aug, last entry 4pm; c; g61) is a family-oriented mix of fun and education.


pages: 1,194 words: 371,889

The scramble for Africa, 1876-1912 by Thomas Pakenham

active measures, British Empire, Cape to Cairo, centre right, clean water, colonial rule, Etonian, European colonialism, God and Mammon, imperial preference, Khartoum Gordon, land reform, out of africa, Scramble for Africa, spice trade, spinning jenny, Suez canal 1869, trade route, transatlantic slave trade

The slave trade suited the ivory trade and both made the fortune of Tippu Tib (inset) Niger rivals in 1883: Sultan Ahmadu Colonel Borgnis-Desbordes Empire-builders of the 1880s: George Goldie (top left), Charles Gordon (centre left) and Carl Peters (bottom left). Reluctant imperialists: Lord Granville (top right), Gladstone (centre right) and Prince Bismarck (bottom right) Lord Wolseley, en route for the Sudan to rescue Gordon, August 1884 Wilson’s two steamers try to break through to Khartoum, 28 January 1885 A present for Slatin (left), 26 January 1885 Mengo, capital of Buganda, the largest kingdom in central Africa.

King Mtesa (inset), claimed British missionaries were welcome King Mwanga (top left), Mtesa’s erratic successor. Mackay (centre left), the missionary who sent the SOS to England. Emin Pasha (right), last of Gordon’s heroic lieutenants The pushy new imperialists of the 1890s: Joe Chamberlain (top left), Cecil Rhodes (top right), Alfred Milner (centre left), Fred Lugard (centre right). Lord Salisbury (below), tried to go his own pace (Left): Rhodes’s pioneers invade Mashonaland, July 1890. Dr Jarneson (seated left). Frederick Selous (seated at rear), Alexander Colquhoun (seated right). (Right): The pioneers relax after the Shona rebellion, July 1896 General Dabormida’s Last Stand at Adowa, 1 March 1896.


The Rough Guide to Jerusalem by Daniel Jacobs

centre right, en.wikipedia.org, facts on the ground, Frank Gehry, gentrification, haute cuisine, Khartoum Gordon, low cost airline, Mount Scopus, Skype, Suez canal 1869, sustainable-tourism, trade route, urban planning, Wall-E

Intifada Palestinian uprising; the First Intifada (1987-91) was charcterized by strikes, rioting and civil disobedienc; the Second Intifada (2000-2006) was characterized by suicide bombings and other attacks on Israeli civilians. Irgun Pre-1948 right-wing Zionist paramilitary group (also called Etzel). JNF (Jewish National Fund) Official Israeli body controlling state land on behalf of the Jewish people. Kadima Centre-right Israeli political party created by Ariel Sharon when he split Likud by withdrawing from Gaza. Gan Park or garden. Kakh Illegal and officially defunct racist Israeli political party (equivalent to the BNP or KKK), supported mainly among extreme settler groups such as those in Hebron. Green Line 1949 Armistice Line between Israel and Jordan – the boundary between Israel and the West Bank.


Croatia by Anja Mutic, Vesna Maric

call centre, car-free, carbon footprint, centre right, friendly fire, G4S, haute cuisine, low cost airline, off-the-grid, starchitect

Fontana Tours ( 742 133; www.happyhvar.com; Riva 18) Finds private accommodation, runs excursions, books boat taxis around the island and handles rentals. It has a romantic and isolated two-person apartment on Palmižana (600KN per night). Francesco (Burak bb; per hr 30KN; 8.30am-midnight) Internet cafe and call centre right behind the post office. Left luggage (35KN per day) and laundry service (50KN per load). Pelegrini Tours ( 742 743; www.pelegrini-hvar.hr; Riva bb) Private accommodation, boat tickets to Italy with Blue Line, excursions (its daily trips to the Pakleni Islands are popular) and bike, scooter and boat rental.


Sweden by Becky Ohlsen

accounting loophole / creative accounting, car-free, centre right, clean water, financial independence, glass ceiling, haute couture, Kickstarter, low cost airline, mass immigration, New Urbanism, period drama, place-making, post-work, retail therapy, starchitect, the built environment, white picket fence

In recent years, rapid changes had begun to affect the make-up of the country. In October 2006, partly as a result of the general sense that Sweden had been relying too heavily on unemployment benefits and had become a nation of ‘bystanders’, the long-entrenched Social Democrats lost their leadership position in the Swedish Parliament. The centre-right Alliance Party won the election, with new Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt campaigning on a ‘work first’ platform. * * * The Southeast Asian tsunami on Boxing Day 2004 killed more people from Sweden than from any other nation outside Asia, with almost 600 Swedes still unaccounted for. * * * Toward the end of 2008, in response to the global economic crisis, Sweden’s central banks cut interest rates by half a point, announcing plans to drop them again within six months.


Frommer's San Francisco 2012 by Matthew Poole, Erika Lenkert, Kristin Luna

airport security, Albert Einstein, Bay Area Rapid Transit, Blue Bottle Coffee, California gold rush, car-free, centre right, Chuck Templeton: OpenTable:, El Camino Real, gentrification, glass ceiling, Golden Gate Park, Haight Ashbury, high-speed rail, Loma Prieta earthquake, machine readable, Mason jar, Maui Hawaii, McDonald's hot coffee lawsuit, off-the-grid, place-making, Port of Oakland, post-work, San Francisco homelessness, sensible shoes, Silicon Valley, South of Market, San Francisco, Torches of Freedom, transcontinental railway, urban renewal, Works Progress Administration, young professional

I’m a huge fan of chef Chris Yeo’s spicy Malaysian-Indian-Chinese offerings, such as murtabak (stuffed Indian bread), chili crab, basil chicken, nonya daging rendang (beef simmered in lime leaves), ikan pangang (banana leaf–wrapped barbecued salmon with chili paste), and, hottest of all, his green curry (prawns, scallops, and mussels simmered in a jalapeño-based curry). The stylish restaurant—practically glowing with its profusion of polished woods, stainless steel accents, and gleaming open kitchen—is located on the fourth floor of the fancy Westfield Centre (right above Bloomingdale’s, in fact), so you can squeeze in an afternoon of power shopping before your culinary adventure begins. Westfield San Francisco Centre, 845 Market St., Ste. 597. 415/668-1783. www.straitsrestaurants.com. Reservations recommended. Main courses $10–$34. AE, DC, MC, V. Sun–Wed 11am–10pm; Thurs–Sat 11am–midnight.


Lonely Planet Andalucia: Chapter From Spain Travel Guide by Lonely Planet

bike sharing, British Empire, car-free, carbon footprint, centre right, credit crunch, discovery of the americas, Francisco Pizarro, haute cuisine, Kickstarter, Skype, trade route, urban renewal

The PSOE has also dominated Andalucía’s regional government in Seville since it was inaugurated in 1982. PSOE government eradicated the worst of Andalucian poverty in the 1980s and early 1990s with grants, community works schemes and a relatively generous dole system. It also gave Andalucía Spain’s biggest network of environmentally protected areas. The PSOE lost power nationally in 1996 to the centre-right Partido Popular (PP; People’s Party), which presided over eight years of economic progress. Andalucía benefited from steady growth in tourism and industry, massive EU subsidies for agriculture, and a long construction boom, with its unemployment rate almost halving in the PP years to 16% (still the highest in Spain).


The Rough Guide to Sweden (Travel Guide eBook) by Rough Guides

carbon footprint, centre right, congestion charging, glass ceiling, high-speed rail, Julian Assange, Kickstarter, large denomination, Peace of Westphalia, place-making, sensible shoes, Suez crisis 1956, trade route, urban planning, WikiLeaks

However, Carlsson’s was a minority government, and with a background of rising inflation and slow economic growth, the government announced an austerity package in January 1990. This included a two-year ban on strike action, and a wage, price and rent freeze – strong measures which astounded most Swedes, used to living in a liberal, consensus-style society. The General Election of 1991 merely confirmed that the consensus model had finally broken down. A four-party centre-right coalition came to power, led by Carl Bildt, which promised tax cuts and economic regeneration, but the recession sweeping western Europe did not pass Sweden by. Unemployment hit a postwar record and in autumn 1992 – as the British pound and Italian lira collapsed on the international money markets – the krona came under severe pressure.


pages: 612 words: 200,406

The Last Spike: The Great Railway, 1881-1885 by Pierre Berton

banking crisis, business climate, California gold rush, centre right, Columbine, company town, death from overwork, financial independence, God and Mammon, Khartoum Gordon, mass immigration, transcontinental railway, unbiased observer, young professional

The ties were unloaded first, on either side of the track, to be picked up by the waiting wagons and mule teams – thirty ties to a wagon – hauled forward and dropped all the way along the graded embankment for exactly half a mile. Two men with marked rods were standing by, and as the ties were thrown out they laid them across the grade, exactly two feet apart from centre to centre. Right behind the teams came a handtruck hauled by two horses, one on each side of the grade, and loaded with rails, fishplates, and spikes. Six men marched on each side of the truck, and when they reached the far end of the last pair of newly laid rails, each crew seized a rail among them and threw it into exact position.


pages: 683 words: 203,624

The Victorian City: Everyday Life in Dickens' London by Judith Flanders

anti-work, antiwork, centre right, Corn Laws, Dutch auction, it's over 9,000, John Snow's cholera map, Ralph Waldo Emerson, traveling salesman, urban sprawl, working poor

Street boys ordering a pennyworth of the Wednesday soup and a halfpenny-worth of bread ‘could go in the strength of that meal for twenty-four hours’. Scharf sketched the streets at Sunday dinnertime: the people in the top row are collecting their dinner beer, and a potboy with a wooden frame makes deliveries; the other two rows show dinners being carried home from the cookshops. Note the enthusiasm of the boy, centre right, who is carrying a pie. Coffee shops were of two sorts: those for the working classes and those for City gents. Some working-class coffee shops had a temperance tinge to them; many were used by working men as a meeting place, where communal newspapers could be read and political discussions held.


Germany by Andrea Schulte-Peevers

Albert Einstein, bank run, Berlin Wall, Boeing 747, call centre, capitalist realism, car-free, carbon footprint, centre right, company town, computer age, credit crunch, Donald Trump, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Frank Gehry, gentrification, glass ceiling, Google Earth, haute couture, haute cuisine, Honoré de Balzac, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Johannes Kepler, Kickstarter, low cost airline, messenger bag, Mikhail Gorbachev, New Urbanism, Peace of Westphalia, Peter Eisenman, place-making, post-work, Prenzlauer Berg, retail therapy, ride hailing / ride sharing, sensible shoes, Skype, trade route, urban planning, urban renewal, V2 rocket, white picket fence

Almost two million Germans took advantage of this scheme, which was intended to boost business for domestic car manufacturers and dealers and push polluters off the road. On the whole, the short-term result was positive, but many economists doubt the program’s long-term usefulness. The 2009 elections showed people’s disillusionment with the grand coalition by putting a centre-right alliance of CDU/CSU and FDP into power. While the former dropped a couple of percentage points to 33.8%, support for the pro-business FDP grew by a third to 14.6%, thereby increasing its political strength within the coalition. It was a personal victory for the socially liberal but free-market-fixated FDP, which is led by Guido Westerwelle, one of Germany’s few openly gay politicians.

There are also left-luggage stations at the central bus station ZOB and at the airports at Tegel and Schönefeld. Return to beginning of chapter Media For entertainment-listings zines, Click here. Berliner Zeitung Left-leaning German-language daily most widely read in the eastern districts. Der Tagesspiegel Local German-language daily with centre-right political orientation, solid news and foreign section, and decent cultural coverage. Exberliner English-language magazine about the city; for expats and visitors, with features, essays and listings. taz Appeals to an intellectual crowd with its unapologetically pink-leaning news analysis and reporting.


pages: 1,510 words: 218,417

Lonely Planet Norway (Travel Guide) by Lonely Planet, Donna Wheeler

car-free, carbon credits, carbon footprint, centre right, company town, energy security, high-speed rail, illegal immigration, low cost airline, mass immigration, Mikhail Gorbachev, North Sea oil, place-making, Skype, sustainable-tourism, trade route, urban renewal

The 'no' vote (52%) draws on the concerns of family farms, fishing interests and the perceived loss of national sovereignty that membership would supposedly bring. 2001 A rare victory for a conservative-liberal coalition after the Labour-led government suffers a massive fall in its vote in national elections; no single party wins enough votes to form government. 2005 A 'red-green' coalition wins parliamentary elections, overturning a conservative-led coalition government that had won power in 2001. 2009 A centre-left coalition led by Jens Stoltenberg, who had led Labour to its 2001 election defeat, wins closely contested parliamentary elections. 22 July 2011 Right-wing extremist Anders Breivik kills 77 people in Oslo and on the nearby island of Utøya in protest of Norway's multicultural policies. He is later sentenced to the maximum 21 years in prison. 2013 A four-party, centre-right coalition unseats the red-green coalition of Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, winning 96 out of 169 parliamentary seats. Erna Solberg becomes prime minister. Landscapes & National Parks Norway's geographical facts tell quite a story. The Norwegian mainland stretches 2518km from Lindesnes in the south to Nordkapp in the Arctic North with a narrowest point of 6.3km wide.


pages: 1,520 words: 221,543

Britain at Bay: The Epic Story of the Second World War: 1938-1941 by Alan Allport

Bletchley Park, Boris Johnson, British Empire, centre right, clean water, COVID-19, disinformation, Downton Abbey, hydroponic farming, imperial preference, lone genius, mass incarceration, military-industrial complex, moral hazard, new economy, plutocrats, trade route, éminence grise

Neville and Austen’s father, Joseph, was a magnetic populist who had captivated the masses (and split two political parties with his opposition to Irish home rule and his support for tariff reform) in the final years of Queen Victoria’s reign. Neville’s allegiance to the Conservative Party was circumstantial. He described the Conservative brand as ‘odious’ on one occasion, and mused about creating an entirely new party of the centre-right. His confidence in the power of the state to implement lasting social progress was more Fabian than Tory.27 During his first stint in ministerial office in the 1920s, he joked that he and Samuel Hoare were the two socialists in the Conservative government.28 Chamberlain was never, in fact, fully happy thinking of himself as a politician at all.


pages: 767 words: 208,933

Liberalism at Large: The World According to the Economist by Alex Zevin

"there is no alternative" (TINA), activist fund / activist shareholder / activist investor, affirmative action, Alan Greenspan, anti-communist, Asian financial crisis, bank run, Berlin Wall, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Bretton Woods, British Empire, business climate, business cycle, capital controls, carbon tax, centre right, Chelsea Manning, collective bargaining, Columbine, Corn Laws, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, creative destruction, credit crunch, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, debt deflation, desegregation, disinformation, disruptive innovation, do well by doing good, Donald Trump, driverless car, Edward Snowden, failed state, Fall of the Berlin Wall, financial deregulation, financial innovation, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, full employment, Gini coefficient, Glass-Steagall Act, global supply chain, guns versus butter model, hiring and firing, imperial preference, income inequality, interest rate derivative, invisible hand, It's morning again in America, Jeremy Corbyn, John von Neumann, Joseph Schumpeter, Julian Assange, junk bonds, Khartoum Gordon, land reform, liberal capitalism, liberal world order, light touch regulation, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, market bubble, Martin Wolf, means of production, Michael Milken, Mikhail Gorbachev, Monroe Doctrine, Mont Pelerin Society, moral hazard, Naomi Klein, new economy, New Journalism, Nixon triggered the end of the Bretton Woods system, no-fly zone, Norman Macrae, Northern Rock, Occupy movement, Philip Mirowski, plutocrats, post-war consensus, price stability, quantitative easing, race to the bottom, railway mania, rent control, rent-seeking, road to serfdom, Ronald Reagan, Rosa Parks, Seymour Hersh, Snapchat, Socratic dialogue, Steve Bannon, subprime mortgage crisis, Suez canal 1869, Suez crisis 1956, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, too big to fail, trade liberalization, trade route, unbanked and underbanked, underbanked, unorthodox policies, upwardly mobile, War on Poverty, WikiLeaks, Winter of Discontent, Yom Kippur War, young professional

Across the public sphere today, much of the media articulates a bien–pensant consensus, posted as progressive, that is generally regarded as liberal. In political clarity, coherence and throw weight, the Economist stands above this ruck. As in classical composition, subdominants recur beneath the dominant, in a tonal balance that distinguishes the Economist with respect to the rest of the liberal press. From centre-left to centre-right, few of the weeklies or dailies approach it, simply in terms of print circulation: not the Nation, with around 100,000, or the Guardian, with 150,000; not Le Monde or the New York Times, with 330,000 and 590,000; not the New Republic at 50,000, the Atlantic at 500,000, or the New York Review of Books at 135,000.


pages: 721 words: 238,678

Fall Out: A Year of Political Mayhem by Tim Shipman

banking crisis, Beeching cuts, Bernie Sanders, Boris Johnson, Brexit referendum, centre right, Clapham omnibus, Corn Laws, corporate governance, Dominic Cummings, Donald Trump, drone strike, Etonian, eurozone crisis, fake news, Gordon Gekko, greed is good, high-speed rail, iterative process, Jeremy Corbyn, John Bercow, Kickstarter, kremlinology, land value tax, low interest rates, mutually assured destruction, Neil Kinnock, new economy, non-tariff barriers, offshore financial centre, open borders, public intellectual, quantitative easing, Ronald Reagan, Snapchat, Steve Bannon, working poor

Timothy and Hill were joined by Chris Wilkins, the director of strategy, Jojo Penn, Alex Dawson, Stephen Parkinson and the campaign professionals led by Sir Lynton Crosby, the Australian who had masterminded David Cameron’s surprise 2015 election victory, both of Boris Johnson’s wins in the London mayoral elections of 2008 and 2012, and numerous other wins for centre-right candidates around the world. He was accompanied by Stephen Gilbert, a stalwart of Conservative campaigns for two decades who was contracted to the party, and Crosby’s business partner Mark Fullbrook, who had overseen Zac Goldsmith’s failed bid for London mayor. Over ‘a rather odd chicken lasagne’ served, bizarrely, with boiled potatoes, Wilkins outlined the plan he had been developing with Timothy to position the prime minister for victory.


Israel & the Palestinian Territories Travel Guide by Lonely Planet

active transport: walking or cycling, airport security, Albert Einstein, back-to-the-land, bike sharing, biodiversity loss, carbon footprint, centre right, clean water, coronavirus, flag carrier, G4S, game design, gentrification, high-speed rail, illegal immigration, information security, Khartoum Gordon, Louis Pasteur, sensible shoes, Silicon Valley, Skype, South China Sea, special economic zone, spice trade, Suez canal 1869, trade route, urban planning, Yom Kippur War, zero-sum game

(Civil marriages abroad, including homosexual marriages, are recognised in Israel.) Israeli Political Parties: an Introduction Can't keep all the Israeli political parties mentioned in the news straight? Here's a rundown of the 13 parties represented in the 19th Knesset, elected in 2013: *Likud (30 MKs) The centre-right party of Prime Minister Netanyahu includes far-right, populist elements. The 2015 election was viewed largely as a referendum on the leadership of Netanyahu, a divisive figure both at home and internationally. After a tight race, Likud won the 2015 elections with a decisive margin. The party takes a hard line on security issues and concessions to the Palestinians.


The Rise and Fall of the British Nation: A Twentieth-Century History by David Edgerton

active measures, Arthur Marwick, Berlin Wall, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, blue-collar work, British Empire, business cycle, call centre, centre right, collective bargaining, colonial exploitation, company town, Corn Laws, corporate governance, deglobalization, deindustrialization, dematerialisation, deskilling, Donald Davies, double helix, Dr. Strangelove, endogenous growth, Etonian, European colonialism, feminist movement, first-past-the-post, full employment, gentrification, imperial preference, James Dyson, knowledge economy, labour mobility, land reform, land value tax, low interest rates, manufacturing employment, means of production, Mikhail Gorbachev, military-industrial complex, Neil Kinnock, new economy, non-tariff barriers, North Sea oil, offshore financial centre, old-boy network, packet switching, Philip Mirowski, Piper Alpha, plutocrats, post-Fordism, post-industrial society, post-truth, post-war consensus, public intellectual, rising living standards, road to serfdom, Ronald Reagan, scientific management, Suez canal 1869, Suez crisis 1956, technological determinism, The inhabitant of London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed, the various products of the whole earth, trade liberalization, union organizing, very high income, wages for housework, wealth creators, Winter of Discontent, women in the workforce, working poor

Robert Holland is an exception, when he notes of the ‘alone’ period that the fight against Hitler jelled with ‘an essentially Edwardian idyll of an integrated and disciplined nation’ (Robert Holland, The Pursuit of Greatness: Britain and the World Role, 1900–1970 (London, 1991), p. 177). Harold Nicolson’s diaries provide an example from the centre right of a Churchill enthusiast celebrating Britain with new fervour, contemplating, on 31 July 1940, the possibility of fighting on and winning: ‘I have always loved England. But now I am in love with England. What a people! What a chance!’ Harold Nicolson, Diaries and Letters, 1939–1945 (1967) (London, 1970), p. 101. 56.


Lonely Planet Norway by Lonely Planet

carbon credits, carbon footprint, cashless society, centre right, energy security, G4S, GPS: selective availability, illegal immigration, Kickstarter, low cost airline, mass immigration, North Sea oil, place-making, trade route, urban renewal, white picket fence

The 'no' vote (52%) draws on the concerns of family farms, fishing interests and the perceived loss of national sovereignty that membership would supposedly bring. 2001 A rare victory for a conservative-liberal coalition after the Labour-led government suffers a massive fall in its vote in national elections; no single party wins enough votes to form government. 2005 A 'red-green' coalition wins parliamentary elections, overturning the conservative-led coalition government. 2009 A centre-left coalition led by Jens Stoltenberg, who had led Labour to its 2001 election defeat, wins closely contested parliamentary elections. 22 July 2011 Right-wing extremist Anders Breivik kills 77 people in Oslo and on the nearby island of Utøya in protest of Norway's multicultural policies. He is later sentenced to the maximum 21 years in prison. 2013 A four-party, centre-right coalition unseats the red-green coalition of Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, winning 96 out of 169 parliamentary seats. Erna Solberg becomes prime minister. 2014 Norway's Major-General Kristin Lund becomes the first woman to command a UN peacekeeping force, heading a 1000-strong peacekeeping force in Cyprus. 2016 Norway's Lutheran Church adopts new rules allowing gay couples to marry in church weddings. 2017 Norway's government announces plans to ban the full Islamic face veil in universities and schools, with the law expected to come into effect in 2018. 2017 An unusually warm winter in the sub-polar archipelago of Svalbard causes flooding in the Global Seed Vault, forcing a rethink of the vault's impregnability.


Italy by Damien Simonis

active transport: walking or cycling, airport security, bike sharing, Bonfire of the Vanities, call centre, car-free, carbon footprint, centre right, clean water, company town, congestion charging, dark pattern, discovery of the americas, Frank Gehry, haute couture, high-speed rail, illegal immigration, Kickstarter, Kinder Surprise, large denomination, low cost airline, Murano, Venice glass, pension reform, period drama, Peter Eisenman, Pier Paolo Pasolini, retail therapy, Skype, spice trade, starchitect, sustainable-tourism, trade route, urban planning, urban sprawl, women in the workforce

In early 2009, Salvatore Zazo, a key Camorra boss involved in drug trafficking between Colombia and Naples, was arrested in Barcelona, Spain. Immigration is a hot potato. Immigrants have forever changed the face of Italian cities and towns, bringing cultural enrichment and social tension. Berlusconi’s centre-right administration has made illegal immigration a major issue and, in 2009, signed a deal with Libya allowing Italian Navy vessels to force boat people back to Libya. The first three boatloads were sent back in May, raising eyebrows from the UN to Brussels and causing an outcry at home. Further protest came with a new, hardline security law package passed in July.

* * * The rest of the Italian political scene was rocked by the Tangentopoli (‘kickback city’) scandal, which broke in Milan in 1992. Led by a pool of Milanese magistrates, including the tough Antonio di Pietro, investigations known as Mani Pulite (Clean Hands) implicated thousands of politicians, public officials and businesspeople in scandals ranging from bribery and receiving kickbacks to blatant theft. The old centre-right political parties collapsed in the wake of these trials and from the ashes rose what many Italians hoped might be a breath of fresh political air. Media magnate Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia (Go Italy) party swept to power in 2001 and, after an inconclusive two-year interlude of centre-left government under former European Commission head Romano Prodi from 2006, again in April 2008.


pages: 932 words: 307,785

State of Emergency: The Way We Were by Dominic Sandbrook

anti-communist, Apollo 13, Arthur Marwick, back-to-the-land, banking crisis, Bretton Woods, British Empire, centre right, collective bargaining, Corn Laws, David Attenborough, Doomsday Book, edge city, estate planning, Etonian, falling living standards, fear of failure, Fellow of the Royal Society, feminist movement, financial thriller, first-past-the-post, fixed income, full employment, gentrification, German hyperinflation, global pandemic, Herbert Marcuse, mass immigration, meritocracy, moral panic, Neil Kinnock, new economy, New Urbanism, Norman Mailer, North Sea oil, oil shock, Own Your Own Home, post-war consensus, sexual politics, traveling salesman, union organizing, upwardly mobile, urban planning, Winter of Discontent, young professional

They were certainly not the militant bogeymen portrayed by the Daily Express’s highly conservative cartoonist Michael Cummings: one study found that only 17 per cent belonged to a political party, while in the GMWU only half of the shop stewards paid the political levy. A survey of white-collar shop stewards, meanwhile, found that more than half identified themselves as centre-right or right-wing, a fact that would surely have surprised many conservative commentators. They were increasingly keen to defy their union bosses, to be sure, but their chief priority was the interests of their men. Almost all of their strikes were concerned with better wages and working conditions, and instead of spending their time pontificating on the evils of capitalism, most shop stewards were far more interested in mundane things like toilet facilities, tea breaks and the prevention of accidents at work.14 At the time, many observers thought that the real problem with the trade unions was not so much political militancy as the impact of mass affluence.


pages: 1,013 words: 302,015

A Classless Society: Britain in the 1990s by Alwyn W. Turner

Alan Greenspan, Berlin Wall, Bob Geldof, Boris Johnson, bread and circuses, British Empire, call centre, centre right, deindustrialization, demand response, Desert Island Discs, endogenous growth, Etonian, eurozone crisis, facts on the ground, Fall of the Berlin Wall, falling living standards, first-past-the-post, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, friendly fire, full employment, gentrification, global village, greed is good, inflation targeting, lateral thinking, means of production, millennium bug, minimum wage unemployment, moral panic, negative equity, Neil Kinnock, Nelson Mandela, no-fly zone, offshore financial centre, old-boy network, period drama, post-war consensus, Ronald Reagan, sexual politics, Stephen Fry, Stephen Hawking, upwardly mobile, Winter of Discontent, women in the workforce

That phrase, ‘clear blue water’, which first appeared in the month that Blair was elected leader, rapidly became something of a cliché; it was used, for example, as the title of a pamphlet compiling extracts from speeches by Michael Portillo, put together by the Eurosceptic MP George Gardiner. Other voices, though, urged caution. Phillip Oppenheim, conscious that his Amber Valley constituency in Derbyshire was a very tight marginal, was one of the more moderate MPs warning against abandoning the traditional centre-right ground: ‘there’s real danger in diving off your own patch of land just because someone else is muscling on to it. Initially bracing though the clear blue water might be, you may not find any other firm land.’ Amongst those articulating the case for an extension of Margaret Thatcher’s reforming radicalism, the boldest were John Redwood, David Willetts and John Patten, the latter calling for further privatisation of state-held assets: ‘We should now dispose of everything that remains by 1999, so that the new century can begin with a clean slate.’


Central Europe Travel Guide by Lonely Planet

Albert Einstein, anti-communist, Berlin Wall, call centre, car-free, carbon footprint, centre right, Defenestration of Prague, Fall of the Berlin Wall, flag carrier, Frank Gehry, Gregor Mendel, Guggenheim Bilbao, high-speed rail, illegal immigration, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Kickstarter, low cost airline, messenger bag, Mikhail Gorbachev, Nelson Mandela, offshore financial centre, Peter Eisenman, place-making, Prenzlauer Berg, ride hailing / ride sharing, Ronald Reagan, Ronald Reagan: Tear down this wall, Rubik’s Cube, Skype, trade route, urban renewal, white picket fence, young professional

The Unification Treaty signed on 3 October that year designated Berlin the official capital of Germany, and in June 1991 the parliament voted to move the seat of government from Bonn back to Berlin. In 1999 that was finally achieved. Times, however, have been tough. Without the huge national subsidies provided during the decades of division, the newly unified Berlin has struggled economically. In 2001 the centre-right mayor resigned amid corruption allegations, leaving the city effectively bankrupt. Current centre-left mayor Klaus Wowereit, Berlin’s first openly gay mayor, first came into power in 2001 and was re-elected in 2006 – he is popular and passionately dedicated to his city, but has made few inroads into the crisis.


Ireland (Lonely Planet, 9th Edition) by Fionn Davenport

air freight, Berlin Wall, Bob Geldof, British Empire, carbon credits, carbon footprint, Celtic Tiger, centre right, classic study, country house hotel, credit crunch, Easter island, glass ceiling, global village, haute cuisine, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Jacquard loom, Kickstarter, McMansion, new economy, period drama, reserve currency, risk/return, sustainable-tourism, three-masted sailing ship, urban planning, urban renewal, urban sprawl, young professional

Globe Drycleaning & Laundrette (Map; 37 Botanic Ave) Mike’s Laundrette (Map; 46 Agincourt Ave, South Belfast) Whistle Laundrette (Map; 160 Lisburn Rd, South Belfast) Offers service washes only; no self-service. Left Luggage Because of security concerns, there are no left-luggage facilities at Belfast’s airports, train stations and bus stations. However, most hotels and hostels allow guests to leave their bags for the day, and the Belfast Welcome Centre (right) also offers a daytime left-luggage service (£4.50 per item). Libraries Belfast Central Library (Map; 9050 9150; Royal Ave; 9am-8pm Mon-Thu, to 5.30pm Fri, to 4.30pm Sat) Linen Hall Library (Map; 9032 1707; cnr Fountain St & Donegall Sq; 9.30am-5.30pm Mon-Wed & Fri, to 7pm Thu, to 4pm Sat) Medical Services For advice on medical and dental emergencies, call NHS Direct ( 0845 4647; 24hr).


Germany Travel Guide by Lonely Planet

Airbnb, Albert Einstein, bank run, Berlin Wall, bike sharing, Boeing 747, British Empire, call centre, capitalist realism, car-free, carbon footprint, centre right, company town, double helix, Dr. Strangelove, eurozone crisis, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Frank Gehry, gentrification, glass ceiling, Gregor Mendel, haute couture, haute cuisine, high-speed rail, Honoré de Balzac, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Johannes Kepler, Kickstarter, low cost airline, messenger bag, Mikhail Gorbachev, Neil Armstrong, New Urbanism, off-the-grid, oil shale / tar sands, Peace of Westphalia, Peter Eisenman, post-work, Prenzlauer Berg, retail therapy, ride hailing / ride sharing, Ronald Reagan, Ronald Reagan: Tear down this wall, sensible shoes, Skype, starchitect, three-masted sailing ship, trade route, upwardly mobile, urban planning, urban renewal, V2 rocket, white picket fence

Only the breweries are going as strong as ever, churning out huge quantities of delicious beer and ale, much of it for export. Sights Ignoring the imminent arrival of the mega-attraction, the German Football Museum, Dortmund continues the Ruhrgebiet theme of industrial resuse with a brewery-turned-art-centre right by the station and a string of beautiful churches in its centre. You can easily take it all in in a few hours. Commerce coexists with religious treasures in Dortmund’s city centre, just south of the Hauptbahnhof. The trio of churches described below conveniently line up along the pedestrianised Westenhellweg.


pages: 177 words: 50,167

The Populist Explosion: How the Great Recession Transformed American and European Politics by John B. Judis

affirmative action, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Albert Einstein, anti-communist, back-to-the-land, Bernie Sanders, Boris Johnson, Bretton Woods, capital controls, carbon tax, centre right, Charlie Hebdo massacre, collapse of Lehman Brothers, deindustrialization, desegregation, Donald Trump, eurozone crisis, financial deregulation, first-past-the-post, fixed income, full employment, ghettoisation, glass ceiling, Glass-Steagall Act, hiring and firing, illegal immigration, immigration reform, income inequality, invisible hand, Jeremy Corbyn, laissez-faire capitalism, Les Trente Glorieuses, mass immigration, means of production, neoliberal agenda, obamacare, Occupy movement, open borders, plutocrats, Post-Keynesian economics, post-materialism, rolodex, Ronald Reagan, Silicon Valley, War on Poverty, We are the 99%, white flight, Winter of Discontent

In those years, Socialist, Social Democratic, and labour parties shared power relatively equitably with Christian Democrats, Tories, Gaullists, and other centrist and center-right parties. In France and Italy, even Communist parties had a subordinate role. The parties and their supporters in business, labor, and the middle classes, eager to avoid the clashes of the 1920s, cooperated to expand social programs. Countries established universal access to healthcare, generous unemployment benefits and family allowances, and free college education. The center and center-right parties held power more often than not, but a politics borne of reform-minded social democracy and Keynesian economics predominated in the same way that New Deal liberalism held sway in the United States even during Republican administrations.

In addition, Podemos dropped its demand for an audit of the federal debt, which might have justified selective defaults, and for a universal living wage. But after the spectacle of the Greeks rejecting and then Syriza accepting the Troika’s demands, Podemos plunged in the polls to as low as 10 percent, falling behind a new center-right anti-corruption party Ciudadanos, or Citizens. The PP expected to win reelection. While unemployment was still 23.7 percent on the eve of the election, the economy had started growing, thanks in part to the ECB curiously ignoring a center-right government running deficits that exceeded the 3 percent limit. But Spain’s political system was rife with bribes and kickbacks and as the election approached, 40 PP officials were scheduled to stand trial for a kickback scheme.

In France, inflation had climbed to 14 percent by the 1981 presidential election, and 1.5 million were unemployed. That allowed François Mitterrand to be elected the first Socialist Party president of the Fifth Republic. Mitterrand tried to develop an alternative to Thatcher’s neoliberalism. Elected in 1981 after a center-right government had failed to halt France’s slide, Mitterrand and his advisors assumed that the downturn had exhausted itself and that global demand would soon be picking up. With a parliamentary majority, Mitterrand and the Socialists enacted a huge boost in social spending aimed at redistributing wealth and fuelling consumer demand, and they undertook extensive nationalizations to assure that the profits businesses received were reinvested.


pages: 340 words: 81,110

How Democracies Die by Steven Levitsky, Daniel Ziblatt

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Ayatollah Khomeini, basic income, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Black Lives Matter, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, Cass Sunstein, centre right, Charles Lindbergh, clean water, David Brooks, Donald Trump, fake news, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Gunnar Myrdal, illegal immigration, immigration reform, income inequality, Jeff Bezos, Nate Silver, Norman Mailer, old-boy network, Robert Gordon, Ronald Reagan, single-payer health, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, universal basic income

This entails major changes: Republicans must marginalize extremist elements; they must build a more diverse electoral constituency, such that the party no longer depends so heavily on its shrinking white Christian base; and they must find ways to win elections without appealing to white nationalism, or what Republican Arizona senator Jeff Flake calls the “sugar high of populism, nativism, and demagoguery.” A refounding of America’s major center-right party is a tall order, but there are historical precedents for such transformations—and under even more challenging circumstances. And where it has been successful, conservative party reform has catalyzed democracy’s rebirth. A particularly dramatic case is the democratization of West Germany after the Second World War. At the center of this achievement was an underappreciated development: the formation of Germany’s center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) out of the wreckage of a discredited conservative and right-wing tradition.

Before the 1940s, Germany never had a conservative party that was both well-organized and electorally successful, on the one hand, and moderate and democratic on the other. German conservatism was perennially wracked by internal division and organizational weakness. In particular, the highly charged divide between conservative Protestants and Catholics created a political vacuum on the center-right that extremist and authoritarian forces could exploit. This dynamic reached its nadir in Hitler’s march to power. After 1945, Germany’s center-right was refounded on a different basis. The CDU separated itself from extremists and authoritarians—it was founded primarily by conservative figures (such as Konrad Adenauer) with “unassailable” anti-Nazi credentials. The party’s founding statements made clear that it was directly opposed to the prior regime and all it had stood for.

As new Catholic and Protestant CDU leaders went door-to-door to Catholic and Protestant homes during the founding years of 1945–46, they conjured into existence a new party of the center-right that would reshape German society. The CDU became a pillar of Germany’s postwar democracy. The United States played a major role in encouraging the formation of the CDU. It is a great historical irony, then, that Americans can today learn from these successful efforts to help rescue our own democracy. To be clear: We are not equating Donald Trump or any other Republicans with German Nazis. Yet the successful rebuilding of the German center-right offers some useful lessons for the GOP. Not unlike their German counterparts, Republicans today must expel extremists from their ranks, break sharply with the Trump administration’s authoritarian and white nationalist orientation, and find a way to broaden the party’s base beyond white Christians.


pages: 339 words: 95,270

Trade Wars Are Class Wars: How Rising Inequality Distorts the Global Economy and Threatens International Peace by Matthew C. Klein

Alan Greenspan, Albert Einstein, Asian financial crisis, asset allocation, asset-backed security, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Branko Milanovic, Bretton Woods, British Empire, business climate, business cycle, capital controls, centre right, collective bargaining, currency manipulation / currency intervention, currency peg, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, deglobalization, deindustrialization, Deng Xiaoping, Donald Trump, Double Irish / Dutch Sandwich, Fall of the Berlin Wall, falling living standards, financial innovation, financial repression, fixed income, full employment, George Akerlof, global supply chain, global value chain, Great Leap Forward, high-speed rail, illegal immigration, income inequality, intangible asset, invention of the telegraph, joint-stock company, land reform, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, Malcom McLean invented shipping containers, manufacturing employment, Martin Wolf, mass immigration, Mikhail Gorbachev, Money creation, money market fund, mortgage debt, New Urbanism, Nixon triggered the end of the Bretton Woods system, offshore financial centre, oil shock, open economy, paradox of thrift, passive income, reserve currency, rising living standards, Robert Shiller, Ronald Reagan, savings glut, Scramble for Africa, sovereign wealth fund, stock buybacks, subprime mortgage crisis, The Nature of the Firm, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Tim Cook: Apple, trade liberalization, Wolfgang Streeck

Broad dissatisfaction with the economy had been offset by Schröder’s personal charisma, his effective response to the devastating five-hundred-year floods that hit eastern Germany over the summer, and the Red-Green government’s firm opposition to the unpopular Iraq War. Moreover, the center-right bloc was not a viable alternative for opponents of the Hartz program. The SPD lost votes in the West, including to its Green coalition partners, but gained ground in the East at the expense of the PDS. Thanks to Germany’s hybrid system of direct elections and proportional representation, the Red-Green government was returned to office with a razor-thin majority in the Bundestag while the center-right bloc boosted its share of seats by six percentage points. (The PDS lost all but two of their parliamentarians.)27 Despite the shrunken mandate, Schröder felt he had to go forward with his reform program, which he called “Agenda 2010.”

Even in the prosperous and conservative southern states of Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria, Die Linke won more than 3 percent of the vote. The hard left’s strong showing created a political impasse. Neither the Red-Green coalition nor the center-right bloc could command and a majority in the Bundestag. In theory, Die Linke could have joined a new Red-Red-Green coalition that could have taken credit for the subsequent recovery, but there was too much animosity on both sides to make that work. Schröder would have to go. The question was who would replace him as chancellor. At first, the center right tried to convince the Greens to join them in a larger grouping, which would have relegated the SPD to the opposition alongside Die Linke.

West German taxpayers were not going to pay “to stabilize conditions that have become untenable.” To get the money for needed imports, East Germany would have to change.5 It did. The rapid liberalization of the political system led to East Germany’s first—and last—free elections on March 18, 1990. Thanks to the active support of Kohl and the West German government, the center-right Alliance for Germany won just under half the seats in parliament. Lothar de Mazière, the new prime minister of East Germany, had campaigned on a program of rapid reunification. (He quit politics by the end of the year after being accused of having informed for the Stasi.) The PDS won barely a sixth of the popular vote, with the rest going to other opposition parties.


pages: 446 words: 117,660

Arguing With Zombies: Economics, Politics, and the Fight for a Better Future by Paul Krugman

affirmative action, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Alan Greenspan, Andrei Shleifer, antiwork, Asian financial crisis, bank run, banking crisis, basic income, behavioural economics, benefit corporation, Berlin Wall, Bernie Madoff, bitcoin, blockchain, bond market vigilante , Bonfire of the Vanities, business cycle, capital asset pricing model, carbon footprint, carbon tax, Carmen Reinhart, central bank independence, centre right, Climategate, cognitive dissonance, cryptocurrency, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, different worldview, Donald Trump, Edward Glaeser, employer provided health coverage, Eugene Fama: efficient market hypothesis, fake news, Fall of the Berlin Wall, fiat currency, financial deregulation, financial innovation, financial repression, frictionless, frictionless market, fudge factor, full employment, green new deal, Growth in a Time of Debt, hiring and firing, illegal immigration, income inequality, index fund, indoor plumbing, invisible hand, it is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it, job automation, John Snow's cholera map, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Rogoff, knowledge worker, labor-force participation, large denomination, liquidity trap, London Whale, low interest rates, market bubble, market clearing, market fundamentalism, means of production, Modern Monetary Theory, New Urbanism, obamacare, oil shock, open borders, Paul Samuelson, plutocrats, Ponzi scheme, post-truth, price stability, public intellectual, quantitative easing, road to serfdom, Robert Gordon, Robert Shiller, Ronald Reagan, secular stagnation, Seymour Hersh, stock buybacks, The Chicago School, The Great Moderation, the map is not the territory, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, trade liberalization, transaction costs, universal basic income, very high income, We are all Keynesians now, working-age population

By “liberal professional economists” I mean researchers who try to understand the economy as best they can, but who, being human, also have political preferences, which in their case puts them on the left side of the U.S. political spectrum, although usually only modestly left of center. Conservative professional economists are their counterparts on the center right. Professional conservative economists are something quite different. They’re people who even center-right professionals consider charlatans and cranks; they make a living by pretending to do actual economics—often incompetently—but are actually just propagandists. And no, there isn’t really a corresponding category on the other side, in part because the billionaires who finance such propaganda are much more likely to be on the right than on the left.

INEQUALITY Essay: The Skewing of America The Rich, the Right, and the Facts Graduates versus Oligarchs Money and Morals Don’t Blame Robots for Low Wages What’s the Matter with Trumpland? 13. CONSERVATIVES Essay: Movement Conservatism Same Old Party Eric Cantor and the Death of a Movement The Great Center-Right Delusion The Empty Quarters of U.S. Politics 14. EEK! SOCIALISM! Essay: Red-Baiting in the 21st Century Capitalism, Socialism, and Unfreedom Something Not Rotten in Denmark Trump versus the Socialist Menace 15. CLIMATE Essay: The Most Important Thing Donald and the Deadly Deniers The Depravity of Climate-Change Denial Climate Denial Was the Crucible for Trumpism Hope for a Green New Year 16.

Some of it is clearly ambition on the part of conservative economists still hoping for high-profile appointments. Some of it, I suspect, may be just the desire to stay on the inside with powerful people. But there’s something pathetic about this professional self-abasement, because the rewards center-right economists long for haven’t come, and never will. It’s not just that Trump has assembled an administration of the worst and the dimmest. The truth is that the modern G.O.P. doesn’t want to hear from serious economists, whatever their politics. It prefers charlatans and cranks, who are its kind of people.


pages: 550 words: 124,073

Democracy and Prosperity: Reinventing Capitalism Through a Turbulent Century by Torben Iversen, David Soskice

Andrei Shleifer, assortative mating, augmented reality, barriers to entry, Big Tech, Bretton Woods, business cycle, capital controls, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, central bank independence, centre right, clean tech, cloud computing, collateralized debt obligation, collective bargaining, colonial rule, confounding variable, corporate governance, Credit Default Swap, credit default swaps / collateralized debt obligations, deindustrialization, deskilling, Donald Trump, first-past-the-post, full employment, general purpose technology, gentrification, Gini coefficient, hiring and firing, implied volatility, income inequality, industrial cluster, inflation targeting, invisible hand, knowledge economy, labor-force participation, liberal capitalism, low skilled workers, low-wage service sector, means of production, middle-income trap, mirror neurons, mittelstand, Network effects, New Economic Geography, new economy, New Urbanism, non-tariff barriers, Occupy movement, offshore financial centre, open borders, open economy, passive investing, precariat, race to the bottom, radical decentralization, rent-seeking, RFID, road to serfdom, Robert Bork, Robert Gordon, Silicon Valley, smart cities, speech recognition, tacit knowledge, The Future of Employment, The Great Moderation, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, the strength of weak ties, too big to fail, trade liberalization, union organizing, urban decay, vertical integration, Washington Consensus, winner-take-all economy, working-age population, World Values Survey, young professional, zero-sum game

A key question for our entire understanding of the role of democratic politics in redistribution is the extent to which governments have stepped in to compensate and assist workers who have been adversely affected by deindustrialization and technological change.25 In past work, we have argued that in multiparty PR systems where each class is represented by its own party, there is an incentive for the middle-income party to ally with the low-income party because the size of the pie to be divided rises with the wealth of those excluded from the coalition. Majoritarian systems with a center-left and a center-right party are different because with incomplete preelection commitment, the middle might end up with fewer benefits and higher taxes under a center-left government dominated by the left, whereas lower benefits are likely to be partially offset by lower taxes if the right dominates in a center-right government. The qualification to this logic is for PR systems with strong Christian democratic parties. Following Manow (2009) and Manow and Van Kersbergen (2009), if parties under PR represent more than one class it opens up the possibility for governing coalitions that exclude both the left and right.

In a PR multiparty system where each class is represented by its own party, there is an incentive for the middle-income party to ally with the low-income party, because the size of the pie to be divided rises with the wealth of those excluded from the coalition. Majoritarian two-party systems are different, because the middle might end up with fewer benefits and higher taxes under a center-left government where the left has taken over, whereas lower benefits are likely to be partially offset by lower taxes if the right takes over in a center-right government (under the assumption that redistribution cannot be regressive). This model implies that redistribution to the vulnerable sector is only possible in PR multiparty systems. Yet there is an important differentiation within these systems that speaks to Esping-Andersen’s (1990) distinction between social democratic and conservative welfare states.

LMEs do exhibit high investment in general skills, which also serves as insurance against labor market insecurity, but it has been difficult to secure political support for extending public higher education into the lower middle classes—an important fact that we argue in chapter 5 is one reason for the spread of populist sentiments in countries like the US and the UK. Because of the center-left bias of the Scandinavian model, lower-end access has been expanded at a much higher rate. Christian democratic PR countries fall in between, as we would expect from the centrist political system that tends to be more encompassing than the center-right majoritarian systems characteristic of LMEs (Iversen and Stephens 2008). The last paragraph highlights a key difference to Esping-Andersen’s conjecture that the welfare state undermines markets and the interests of business in general, including the advanced sectors of the economy. In this view the welfare state is fundamentally the result of a class struggle (Korpi 1983; Stephens 1979); it is “politics against markets,” as succinctly captured by the title of Esping-Andersen’s 1985 book.


The New Class War: Saving Democracy From the Metropolitan Elite by Michael Lind

"World Economic Forum" Davos, affirmative action, anti-communist, basic income, Bernie Sanders, Boris Johnson, Bretton Woods, Brexit referendum, business cycle, Cambridge Analytica, capital controls, Cass Sunstein, central bank independence, centre right, collective bargaining, commoditize, corporate governance, cotton gin, crony capitalism, deindustrialization, disinformation, Doha Development Round, Donald Trump, Edward Snowden, export processing zone, fake news, future of work, gentrification, global supply chain, guest worker program, Haight Ashbury, illegal immigration, immigration reform, independent contractor, invisible hand, Jeremy Corbyn, knowledge economy, Les Trente Glorieuses, liberal world order, low skilled workers, low-wage service sector, manufacturing employment, Mark Zuckerberg, mass immigration, means of production, Michael Milken, moral panic, Nate Silver, new economy, offshore financial centre, oil shock, open borders, plutocrats, Ponzi scheme, purchasing power parity, Ralph Nader, regulatory arbitrage, rent-seeking, Richard Florida, Ronald Reagan, scientific management, Silicon Valley, SoftBank, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thorstein Veblen, Timothy McVeigh, trade liberalization, union organizing, universal basic income, upwardly mobile, WikiLeaks, Wolfgang Streeck, working poor

The “center” can be identified with what the sociologist Donald Warren in the 1970s called “Middle American Radicalism”—moderate social attitudes combined with prolabor, New Deal–style democratic pluralism. To put it another way, the center of gravity of the overclass is center-right (promarket) on economic issues and center-left (antitraditional) on social issues. In comparison, the center of gravity of the much larger working class is center-left on economic issues and center-right on social issues. Populists combined with social democratic leftists make up half or more of the US population, but they are almost completely unrepresented among the college-educated overclass professionals who make up most of the personnel in legislatures, executive agencies, courts, corporate suites, think tanks, universities, philanthropies, and media corporations.

A body of thought does exist that can explain the current upheavals in the West and the world. It is James Burnham’s theory of the managerial revolution, supplemented by the economic sociology of John Kenneth Galbraith. Burnham’s thought has recently enjoyed a revival among thinkers of the American center-right.1 Unfortunately, Galbraith’s sociology, along with his economics, remains out of fashion.2 James Burnham was a leader in the international Trotskyist movement in the 1930s before he became a zealous anticommunist and helped to found the post–World War II American conservative movement. Burnham was influenced by the argument of Adolf Berle and Gardiner Means in The Modern Corporation and Private Property (1932), which documented the separation of ownership and control in large-scale modern enterprises, and possibly by Bruno Rizzi’s Bureaucratization of the World (1939).3 In his worldwide bestseller The Managerial Revolution (1941), Burnham argued that in the era of large-scale capitalism and the bureaucratic state, the older bourgeoisie was being replaced by a new managerial class: What is occurring in this transition is a drive for social domination, for power and privilege, for the position of ruling class, by the social group or class of the managers. . . .

Demagogues might use mass communications to stir up fascism in the general public, but the wise leaders of interest groups, who would ignore “the cosmic enthusiasms of individual men” (Boorstin again), could operate a consensus state that would be good for everyone.3 By the time Lemann wrote that, the emerging orthodoxy shared from center-left to center-right held that Western countries would be more just and efficient if only enlightened technocratic policy makers and dynamic corporate executives could be liberated from the power of elected politicians and organized labor. In 1975 Michel Crozier, Samuel P. Huntington, and Joji Watanuki wrote a report for the elite Trilateral Commission, The Crisis of Democracy: On the Governability of Democracies, which was published as a book.


pages: 241 words: 75,417

The Last President of Europe: Emmanuel Macron's Race to Revive France and Save the World by William Drozdiak

Berlin Wall, bilateral investment treaty, Boeing 737 MAX, Boris Johnson, carbon tax, centre right, cloud computing, disinformation, Donald Trump, dual-use technology, failed state, fake news, Fall of the Berlin Wall, green new deal, Greta Thunberg, high-speed rail, hiring and firing, illegal immigration, immigration reform, income inequality, New Urbanism, offshore financial centre, reserve currency, Silicon Valley, Socratic dialogue, South China Sea, Steve Bannon, UNCLOS, working poor

Boris Vallaud, a National Assembly member for the shrunken Socialist Party, said that while “everyone marvels at Macron’s performance, the fact that he’s going over the heads of the government, the unions, and the representative institutions is weakening our democracy.”9 Some of Macron’s adversaries were cynical about what they described as a political stunt to deflect attention away from the shortcomings of the government. Christian Jacob, parliamentary leader of the center-right Republicans, called it a “great masquerade.” Within the Yellow Vest movement, there were mixed feelings about Macron’s initiative. About 40 percent of them, according to surveys, thought that it was a good idea and wanted to be part of the exercise, if only to see what it produced. Some of them came up with lists of their own action points and asked the government to incorporate them into new policies.

When Macron won the French presidency by thrashing Marine Le Pen in the second round of voting in May 2017, his victory was greeted with relief in many capitals and seen as an encouraging sign of voter repugnance toward populist forces. Yet in the wake of Macron’s triumph, the appeal of antidemocratic, illiberal, and anti-European policies became more visible across the continent. Austria’s Freedom Party entered government as part of a center-right coalition and took control, for a while, of the Interior Ministry. Poland’s Law and Justice Party solidified its grip on power by cracking down on dissent. Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orbán won reelection on an anti-immigrant platform. Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) Party emerged as the strongest opposition force in the Bundestag.

Totally open borders do not exist, because it just does not work.”18 Other centrist leaders in Europe have taken similarly expedient measures in order to block extremist parties from gaining power. In the Netherlands, once regarded as a bastion of sympathy for the cause of a United States of Europe, the center-right government pushed through a resolution calling for a halt to further efforts at European integration. “The Netherlands has moved to more Euroskeptic territory,” said Catherine De Vries, a political scientist at Amsterdam’s Free University. “We now see the EU in terms of economic and not political cooperation.


pages: 460 words: 107,454

Stakeholder Capitalism: A Global Economy That Works for Progress, People and Planet by Klaus Schwab, Peter Vanham

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", "World Economic Forum" Davos, 3D printing, additive manufacturing, agricultural Revolution, air traffic controllers' union, Anthropocene, Apple II, Asian financial crisis, Asperger Syndrome, basic income, Berlin Wall, Big Tech, biodiversity loss, bitcoin, Black Lives Matter, blockchain, blue-collar work, Branko Milanovic, Bretton Woods, British Empire, business process, capital controls, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, car-free, carbon footprint, carbon tax, centre right, clean tech, clean water, cloud computing, collateralized debt obligation, collective bargaining, colonial rule, company town, contact tracing, contact tracing app, Cornelius Vanderbilt, coronavirus, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, COVID-19, creative destruction, Credit Default Swap, credit default swaps / collateralized debt obligations, cryptocurrency, cuban missile crisis, currency peg, cyber-physical system, decarbonisation, demographic dividend, Deng Xiaoping, Diane Coyle, digital divide, don't be evil, European colonialism, Fall of the Berlin Wall, family office, financial innovation, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, future of work, gender pay gap, general purpose technology, George Floyd, gig economy, Gini coefficient, global supply chain, global value chain, global village, Google bus, green new deal, Greta Thunberg, high net worth, hiring and firing, housing crisis, income inequality, income per capita, independent contractor, industrial robot, intangible asset, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Internet of things, invisible hand, James Watt: steam engine, Jeff Bezos, job automation, joint-stock company, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Rogoff, Khan Academy, Kickstarter, labor-force participation, lockdown, low interest rates, low skilled workers, Lyft, manufacturing employment, Marc Benioff, Mark Zuckerberg, market fundamentalism, Marshall McLuhan, Martin Wolf, means of production, megacity, microplastics / micro fibres, Mikhail Gorbachev, mini-job, mittelstand, move fast and break things, neoliberal agenda, Network effects, new economy, open economy, Peace of Westphalia, Peter Thiel, precariat, Productivity paradox, profit maximization, purchasing power parity, race to the bottom, reserve currency, reshoring, ride hailing / ride sharing, Ronald Reagan, Salesforce, San Francisco homelessness, School Strike for Climate, self-driving car, seminal paper, shareholder value, Shenzhen special economic zone , Shenzhen was a fishing village, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, social distancing, Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits, special economic zone, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, synthetic biology, TaskRabbit, The Chicago School, The Future of Employment, The inhabitant of London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed, the various products of the whole earth, the scientific method, TikTok, Tim Cook: Apple, trade route, transfer pricing, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, union organizing, universal basic income, War on Poverty, We are the 99%, women in the workforce, working poor, working-age population, Yom Kippur War, young professional, zero-sum game

Fellow Christian-Democratic parties in other European countries, however, did not bounce back as well during the COVID crisis, lacking an equally resilient government apparatus and public health system and the steady hand of an experienced leader like Merkel. Instead, leading center-right major parties everywhere on the continent were confronted with an impossible dilemma: take a hard turn to the right to maintain popular support or lose a majority of voters to an alternative hard-line party. Either outcome meant the end of the Christian-Democrats as leading centrist Volksparteien. The result has been a hollowing out of the humanistic center. In Italy, a center-right coalition in theory remains the strongest political force to this day, as it has been for most of Italy's post-war history.

But the trend toward polarization goes beyond the Anglo-Saxon world, and it is deeper and more profound than it may appear at first sight. Consider the situation in Continental Europe, with its parliamentary democracies. Here, the political landscape was for a long time dominated by center-left and center-right parties, similar to those in Germany. But in recent years, the once leading Volksparteien have often disintegrated and been replaced by more extreme ones. Or they went through a transformation from within and reincarnated as more radical versions of themselves. Consider first the center-left.

And in Spain, a new political party called Podemos, or We Can, successfully challenged the Spanish Social Democrats on their left flank, coming to the forefront shortly after the street protests of indignant youth. What bound all these parties together was a wish to withdraw from existing international trade agreements, demands to reform or leave the European Union, and a general dislike for elites. The second and more drastic move away from the center in Europe happened on the center-right. For much of their recent history, the conservative Christian-Democratic parties were the true Volksparteien of Europe. They did not adhere to either of the ideologies born out of the Industrial Revolution or Enlightenment—socialism or liberalism—but instead put forth a humanistic vision of society, as well as a more centrist role in politics.


pages: 460 words: 107,454

Stakeholder Capitalism: A Global Economy That Works for Progress, People and Planet by Klaus Schwab

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", "World Economic Forum" Davos, 3D printing, additive manufacturing, agricultural Revolution, air traffic controllers' union, Anthropocene, Apple II, Asian financial crisis, Asperger Syndrome, basic income, Berlin Wall, Big Tech, biodiversity loss, bitcoin, Black Lives Matter, blockchain, blue-collar work, Branko Milanovic, Bretton Woods, British Empire, business process, capital controls, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, car-free, carbon footprint, carbon tax, centre right, clean tech, clean water, cloud computing, collateralized debt obligation, collective bargaining, colonial rule, company town, contact tracing, contact tracing app, Cornelius Vanderbilt, coronavirus, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, COVID-19, creative destruction, Credit Default Swap, credit default swaps / collateralized debt obligations, cryptocurrency, cuban missile crisis, currency peg, cyber-physical system, decarbonisation, demographic dividend, Deng Xiaoping, Diane Coyle, digital divide, don't be evil, European colonialism, Fall of the Berlin Wall, family office, financial innovation, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, future of work, gender pay gap, general purpose technology, George Floyd, gig economy, Gini coefficient, global supply chain, global value chain, global village, Google bus, green new deal, Greta Thunberg, high net worth, hiring and firing, housing crisis, income inequality, income per capita, independent contractor, industrial robot, intangible asset, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Internet of things, invisible hand, James Watt: steam engine, Jeff Bezos, job automation, joint-stock company, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Rogoff, Khan Academy, Kickstarter, labor-force participation, lockdown, low interest rates, low skilled workers, Lyft, manufacturing employment, Marc Benioff, Mark Zuckerberg, market fundamentalism, Marshall McLuhan, Martin Wolf, means of production, megacity, microplastics / micro fibres, Mikhail Gorbachev, mini-job, mittelstand, move fast and break things, neoliberal agenda, Network effects, new economy, open economy, Peace of Westphalia, Peter Thiel, precariat, Productivity paradox, profit maximization, purchasing power parity, race to the bottom, reserve currency, reshoring, ride hailing / ride sharing, Ronald Reagan, Salesforce, San Francisco homelessness, School Strike for Climate, self-driving car, seminal paper, shareholder value, Shenzhen special economic zone , Shenzhen was a fishing village, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, social distancing, Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits, special economic zone, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, synthetic biology, TaskRabbit, The Chicago School, The Future of Employment, The inhabitant of London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed, the various products of the whole earth, the scientific method, TikTok, Tim Cook: Apple, trade route, transfer pricing, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, union organizing, universal basic income, War on Poverty, We are the 99%, women in the workforce, working poor, working-age population, Yom Kippur War, young professional, zero-sum game

Fellow Christian-Democratic parties in other European countries, however, did not bounce back as well during the COVID crisis, lacking an equally resilient government apparatus and public health system and the steady hand of an experienced leader like Merkel. Instead, leading center-right major parties everywhere on the continent were confronted with an impossible dilemma: take a hard turn to the right to maintain popular support or lose a majority of voters to an alternative hard-line party. Either outcome meant the end of the Christian-Democrats as leading centrist Volksparteien. The result has been a hollowing out of the humanistic center. In Italy, a center-right coalition in theory remains the strongest political force to this day, as it has been for most of Italy's post-war history.

But the trend toward polarization goes beyond the Anglo-Saxon world, and it is deeper and more profound than it may appear at first sight. Consider the situation in Continental Europe, with its parliamentary democracies. Here, the political landscape was for a long time dominated by center-left and center-right parties, similar to those in Germany. But in recent years, the once leading Volksparteien have often disintegrated and been replaced by more extreme ones. Or they went through a transformation from within and reincarnated as more radical versions of themselves. Consider first the center-left.

And in Spain, a new political party called Podemos, or We Can, successfully challenged the Spanish Social Democrats on their left flank, coming to the forefront shortly after the street protests of indignant youth. What bound all these parties together was a wish to withdraw from existing international trade agreements, demands to reform or leave the European Union, and a general dislike for elites. The second and more drastic move away from the center in Europe happened on the center-right. For much of their recent history, the conservative Christian-Democratic parties were the true Volksparteien of Europe. They did not adhere to either of the ideologies born out of the Industrial Revolution or Enlightenment—socialism or liberalism—but instead put forth a humanistic vision of society, as well as a more centrist role in politics.


pages: 463 words: 115,103

Head, Hand, Heart: Why Intelligence Is Over-Rewarded, Manual Workers Matter, and Caregivers Deserve More Respect by David Goodhart

active measures, Airbnb, Albert Einstein, assortative mating, basic income, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, big-box store, Black Lives Matter, Boris Johnson, Branko Milanovic, Brexit referendum, British Empire, call centre, Cass Sunstein, central bank independence, centre right, computer age, corporate social responsibility, COVID-19, data science, David Attenborough, David Brooks, deglobalization, deindustrialization, delayed gratification, desegregation, deskilling, different worldview, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, emotional labour, Etonian, fail fast, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Flynn Effect, Frederick Winslow Taylor, future of work, gender pay gap, George Floyd, gig economy, glass ceiling, Glass-Steagall Act, Great Leap Forward, illegal immigration, income inequality, James Hargreaves, James Watt: steam engine, Jeff Bezos, job automation, job satisfaction, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, knowledge economy, knowledge worker, labour market flexibility, lockdown, longitudinal study, low skilled workers, Mark Zuckerberg, mass immigration, meritocracy, new economy, Nicholas Carr, oil shock, pattern recognition, Peter Thiel, pink-collar, post-industrial society, post-materialism, postindustrial economy, precariat, reshoring, Richard Florida, robotic process automation, scientific management, Scientific racism, Skype, social distancing, social intelligence, spinning jenny, Steven Pinker, superintelligent machines, TED Talk, The Bell Curve by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, Thorstein Veblen, twin studies, Tyler Cowen, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, universal basic income, upwardly mobile, wages for housework, winner-take-all economy, women in the workforce, young professional

It is also the main reason for that notorious ‘pay-gap.’ ”22 Social mobility, as I argued in Chapter One, is another idea and policy that has been relentlessly promoted, at least rhetorically, by cognitive class governments of center-left and center-right, especially in the United Kingdom and the United States, with little nuance or sense of its costs for those who are not upwardly mobile. For the politicians of the center-left, equality of opportunity is preferable to an unachievable and unpopular goal of equality of outcome, and for the center-right the stress on mobility helps to protect them from accusations of defending privilege. Yet less well-educated people often hear speeches from highly educated and successful people about social mobility as exhortations to become more like them, especially as—in the United Kingdom, at least—getting on often means a ladder out and leaving your roots behind: you have to “leave to achieve.”

And in principle it ought to be possible to have plenty of upward (and downward) mobility based on cognitive selection while also respecting and rewarding those who have other skills and aptitudes. But in practice this is hard to achieve. And if high mobility is the mark of the good society, as both center-left and center-right politicians have argued in recent years, then we are in trouble, because mobility slows when “smart produces smart.” How close we are to that point and how much mobility we can expect in a fair society is contested, as I will show in Chapter Three. It depends on how much family, class, and environmental factors can tilt the system in favor of the only moderately able and how much ability is heritable.

These are trends that are likely to be reinforced by the Covid-19 crisis, which revealed that most of the “key workers” who support our daily lives were Hand and Heart workers, mainly people without university degrees. There is one very big fact that modern politics will need to confront in the next decade. Political parties of both the center-left and center-right have taken as axiomatic that modern society will see a continuing expansion of secure, middle-class, professional graduate jobs. Both education and social mobility policy are based on this assumption. Yet it is almost certainly wrong. The knowledge economy does not need an ever-growing supply of knowledge workers.


pages: 493 words: 98,982

The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good? by Michael J. Sandel

affirmative action, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, anti-communist, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Boris Johnson, Brexit referendum, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, centre right, coronavirus, COVID-19, Credit Default Swap, Deng Xiaoping, Donald Trump, ending welfare as we know it, facts on the ground, Fall of the Berlin Wall, financial deregulation, financial engineering, financial innovation, global supply chain, helicopter parent, High speed trading, immigration reform, income inequality, Khan Academy, laissez-faire capitalism, meritocracy, meta-analysis, Nate Silver, new economy, obamacare, Occupy movement, open immigration, Paris climate accords, plutocrats, prosperity theology / prosperity gospel / gospel of success, Rishi Sunak, Ronald Reagan, smart grid, social distancing, Steve Jobs, Steven Levy, the market place, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, W. E. B. Du Bois, Washington Consensus, Yochai Benkler

It is almost as if globalization’s winners needed to persuade themselves, and everyone else, that those perched on top and those at the bottom have landed where they belong. Or if not, that they would land where they belong if only we could remove unfair barriers to opportunity. Political argument between mainstream center-right and center-left parties in recent decades has consisted mainly of a debate about how to interpret and implement equality of opportunity, so that people will be able to rise as far as their efforts and talents will take them. STRIVING AND DESERVING I first noticed the rising tide of meritocratic sentiment by listening to my students.

This may explain why the United States, with its robust faith that we are masters of our fate, has a less-generous welfare state than the social democracies of Europe, whose citizens are more inclined to attribute their life circumstance to forces outside their control. If everyone can succeed through effort and hard work, then government need simply ensure that jobs and opportunities are truly open to all. American politicians of the center-left and center-right may disagree about what policies equality of opportunity actually requires. But they share the assumption that the aim is to provide everyone, whatever his or her starting point in life, a chance to rise. They agree, in other words, that mobility is the answer to inequality—and that those who rise will have earned their success.

Defenders of affirmative action reply that such policies are necessary to make equality of opportunity a reality for members of groups that have suffered discrimination or disadvantage. At the level of principle at least, and political rhetoric, meritocracy has won the day. In democracies throughout the world, politicians of the center-left and center-right claim that their policies are the ones that will enable all citizens, whatever their race or ethnicity, gender or class, to compete on equal terms and to rise as far as their efforts and talents will take them. When people complain about meritocracy, the complaint is usually not about the ideal but about our failure to live up to it: The wealthy and powerful have rigged the system to perpetuate their privilege; the professional classes have figured out how to pass their advantages on to their children, converting the meritocracy into a hereditary aristocracy; colleges that claim to select students on merit give an edge to the sons and daughters of the wealthy and the well-connected.


Radiant Rest by Tracee Stanley

Albert Einstein, centre right, COVID-19, epigenetics, rewilding, source of truth

Feel, sense, or see a drop of healing nectar at each point and hear the mantra SRIM: Third eye SRIM Right elbow Right eye SRIM, healing nectar Right wrist Left eye SRIM, healing nectar Right thumb Right ear Right index finger Left ear Right middle finger Right nostril Right ring finger Left nostril Right pinky finger Right cheek Right wrist Left cheek Right elbow Upper lip Right shoulder Lower lip Throat center Upper teeth Left shoulder Lower teeth Left elbow Throat center SRIM Left wrist Right shoulder Left thumb Left index finger Right pinky toe Left middle finger Right ankle Left ring finger Right knee Left pinky finger Right hip Left wrist Pelvic center Left elbow Left hip Left shoulder Left knee Throat center Left ankle Heart center Left big toe Left side of the chest Left second toe Right side of the chest Left third toe Back Left fourth toe Navel Left pinky toe Belly Left ankle Pelvic center Left knee Base of spine Left hip Right hip Pelvic center Right knee Navel center Right ankle Heart center Right big toe Right side of the chest Right second toe Left side of the chest Right third toe Throat center Right fourth toe Third eye Feel that your entire body is filled with the cooling, immortal nectar of the moon.


pages: 135 words: 53,708

Top 10 San Diego by Pamela Barrus, Dk Publishing

California gold rush, centre right, Charles Lindbergh, East Village, El Camino Real, G4S, haute cuisine, illegal immigration, Silicon Valley, the market place, transcontinental railway, urban renewal

Photographer Chris Stowers Additional Photography Max Alexander, Geoff Dann, Frank Greenaway, Derek Hall, Neil Mersh, Rob Reichenfeld, Neil Setchfield, Scott Suchman Factchecker Paul Skinner AT DK INDIA: Managing Editor Aruna Ghose Art Editor Benu Joshi Project Editors Anees Saigal, Vandana Bhagra Editorial Assistance Pamposh Raina Project Designer Bonita Vaz Senior Cartographer Uma Bhattacharya Cartographer Suresh Kumar Picture Researcher Taiyaba Khatoon Indexer & Proofreader Bhavna Seth Ranjan DTP Co-ordinator Shailesh Sharma DTP Designer Vinod Harish 126 AT DK LONDON: Publisher Douglas Amrine Publishing Manager Lucinda Cooke Senior Art Editor Marisa Renzullo Senior Cartographic Editor Casper Morris Senior DTP Designer Jason Little DK Picture Library Richard Dabb, Romaine Werblow, Hayley Smith, Gemma Woodward Production Rita Sinha Picture Credits t-top, tl-top left; tlc-top left center; tc-top center; tr-top right; clacenter left above; ca-center above; cra-center right above; cl-center left; c-center; cr-center right; clbcenter left below; cb-center below; crb-center right below; blbottom left, b-bottom; bc-bottom center; bcl-bottom center left; brbottom right; d-detail. Every effort has been made to trace the copyright holders of images, and we apologize in advance for any unintentional omissions. We would be pleased to insert the appropriate acknowledgements in any subsequent edition of this publication.

Exhibitions feature paintings, drawings, photography, sculptures, and custom furniture from artists such as Mario Uribe, Gail Roberts, Paul Henry, and Johnny Coleman. The glowing, spiritual landscapes of Nancy Kittredge merit special notice. d Map H2 BO U.S. Naval Hospital 5 East Village 12th & Market 8 v Gaslamp Quarter 1 43 San Diego’s Top 10 Left San Diego County Administration Center Right Hotel del Coronado Architectural Highlights San Diego County Administration Center Four architects responsible for San Diego’s look collaborated on this civic landmark. What began as a Spanish-Colonial design evolved into a more “Moderne” 1930s style with intricate Spanish tile work and plaster moldings on the tower. d Map H3 • 1600 Pacific Hwy • Open 8am–5pm Mon–Fri California Building & Tower Bertram Goodhue designed this San Diego landmark for the California-Panama Exposition of 1915–16, using Spanish Plateresque, Baroque, and Rococo details.


Lonely Planet France by Lonely Planet Publications

banking crisis, bike sharing, British Empire, car-free, carbon footprint, centre right, Charles Lindbergh, Columbine, David Sedaris, double helix, Frank Gehry, G4S, gentrification, glass ceiling, haute couture, haute cuisine, Henri Poincaré, Herbert Marcuse, high-speed rail, Honoré de Balzac, illegal immigration, Jacquard loom, Joseph-Marie Jacquard, Kickstarter, Louis Blériot, Louis Pasteur, low cost airline, Mahatma Gandhi, mass immigration, Murano, Venice glass, ride hailing / ride sharing, sensible shoes, Silicon Valley, Suez canal 1869, supervolcano, three-masted sailing ship, trade route, urban renewal, urban sprawl, V2 rocket

But in the subsequent run-off ballot, Chirac enjoyed a landslide victory, echoed in parliamentary elections a month later when the president-backed coalition UMP (Union pour un Mouvement Populaire) won a healthy majority, leaving Le Pen’s FN without a seat in parliament and ending years of cohabitation. SARKOZY’S FRANCE Presidential elections in 2007 ushered out old-school Jacques Chirac (in his 70s with two terms under his belt) and brought in Nicolas Sarkozy. Dynamic, ambitious and media-savvy, the former interior minister and chairman of centre-right party UMP wooed voters with policies about job creation, lower taxes, crime crackdown and help for France’s substantial immigrant population – issues that had particular pulling power coming from the son of a Hungarian immigrant father and Greek Jewish-French mother. However, his first few months in office were dominated by personal affairs as he divorced his wife Cecilia and wed Italian multimillionaire singer Carla Bruni a few months later, and his popularity plummeted.


pages: 1,909 words: 531,728

The Rough Guide to South America on a Budget (Travel Guide eBook) by Rough Guides

Airbnb, Albert Einstein, Atahualpa, banking crisis, California gold rush, call centre, car-free, centre right, colonial rule, Colonization of Mars, company town, Day of the Dead, discovery of the americas, Easter island, Francisco Pizarro, garden city movement, gentrification, haute cuisine, illegal immigration, it's over 9,000, Kickstarter, mass immigration, Nelson Mandela, off grid, openstreetmap, place-making, restrictive zoning, side project, Skype, sustainable-tourism, the long tail, trade route, urban sprawl, walkable city

Three years later he is elected president. 1952 Perón’s wife Evita dies at the age of 33. 1955 Perón is overthrown in a military coup and exiled. 1973 Perón returns from exile in Spain and is re-elected. 1974 Perón dies and power defaults to his third wife “Isabelita”. 1976 Videla leads a military coup against Isabel Perón, marking the beginning of the “Dirty War”. 1978 Argentina hosts, and wins, the FIFA World Cup in the middle of a military dictatorship. 1982 A military force invades the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas) and is defeated by the British. 1983 Democracy is restored and Radical Raúl Alfonsín is elected president. 1989 Neoliberal Peronist Carlos Menem begins a decade as president during which most services are privatized. 2001 President De la Rúa is forced to resign in the midst of economic collapse and violent rioting. 2008 Cristina Fernández de Kirchner is inaugurated as the country’s first elected female president, succeeding her husband, Néstor. 2010 The country celebrates two centuries of nationhood with parades and other festivities. 2012 The first year of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s second term as president is marred by corruption scandals, rising inflation, mass demonstrations and urban riots. 2014 Argentina defaults on a debt with US “vulture” funds. 2015 Centre-right businessman Mauricio Macri is elected president. When to visit Buenos Aires is at its best during spring (October and November), when purple jacaranda trees are in bloom all over the city and the weather is typically sunny and warm. For spectacular autumnal colours, visit Mendoza between April and May, or else in early March to witness its international harvest festival.


Culture of Terrorism by Noam Chomsky

anti-communist, Bolshevik threat, Bretton Woods, Caribbean Basin Initiative, centre right, clean water, David Brooks, disinformation, failed state, Farzad Bazoft, guns versus butter model, land reform, Monroe Doctrine, risk tolerance, Robert Bork, Ronald Reagan, Seymour Hersh, union organizing

The central feature of the plan, the New York Times observed approvingly, is that “Nicaragua would ‘democratize’ and the United States would stop aid to the contras,” but the Sandinistas “have long refused to accept an election process that jeopardized their power”12—in contrast to El Salvador, where “the masses,” who “were with the guerrillas” when the terror began according to Duarte (see p. 103, above), were permitted to choose within a narrow center-right spectrum controlled by the military and oligarchy after the murder of the political opposition and the intimidation or outright destruction of its popular base by terror. The reaction was similar throughout, including the doves. The Arias plan made no mention of Nicaragua. It called for moves towards democracy throughout the region while insisting upon “the right of all nations to freely choose their own economic, political and social system.”13 Little attention was given to the fact that as part of its efforts to sabotage the Arias plan, the Reagan administration made it clear that “if the administration felt its views and interests were not reflected in the regional arrangements it would continue to fund the Nicaraguan contra rebels despite agreements reached by the [Central American] leaders,” so Reagan “peace emissary” Philip Habib informed “high-ranking senators and their aides.”14 Within Central America, there is no difficulty in understanding that the U.S. and its allies were disturbed over the Arias plan, and why this should be so: “Neither Salvadoran President José Napoleón Duarte or the US administration is comfortable at the prospect of an amnesty and cease-fire arrangement with the FMLN [guerrillas], as called for by the Arias plan.”15 A careful search through the small print reveals that the national media in the U.S. are also aware of this fundamental problem with the Arias plan, and the reason why no plan calling for internal freedom and democracy can possibly be implemented except in some formal sense within the U.S.

“With this panel Duarte has closed the political spaces for dialogue.”49 The signing of the agreement was also followed by a wave of repression to which we return, arousing no comment here. The contrast to the appointment of the Nicaraguan Commission is striking in two respects: (1) while the Nicaraguan Commission was headed by the most outspoken critic of the regime and was broadly based, the Salvadoran Commission was restricted to the center-right and headed by the U.S. candidate for president; (2) while the appointment of the Nicaraguan Commission elicited an immediate outburst of abuse against the treacherous Sandinistas, Duarte’s moves passed in silence, not suggesting that Duarte is failing to live up to the spirit of reconciliation and only paying lip service to the Central American accord.

Guatemala did proceed to establish a Commission on September 9, selecting the Vice-President, the leader of the Conservative Party, a Bishop, and as private sector delegate, the co-owner of the most rightist newspaper in the country, reputed to have been a personal friend of General Ríos Montt, perhaps the most extreme of the recent batch of mass murderers. The government did not appoint Guatemala City Archbishop Prospero Penados del Barrio, “a highly regarded and ardent critic of human rights violations.”51 The Commission of Reconciliation, then, will deal with problems arising within the spectrum from ultra-right to center-right, in the most violent country of the region, the one with the longest-running guerrilla struggle. All of this too appears to have passed without notice. As U.S. allies or outright clients, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador are exempt from the conditions of any agreement they might sign, which the U.S. government will ensure is “directed at Nicaragua” (James LeMoyne).


pages: 137 words: 43,960

Top 10 Maui, Molokai and Lanai by Bonnie Friedman

airport security, centre right, Charles Lindbergh, G4S, Maui Hawaii, polynesian navigation, Ronald Reagan

Take the road down into the valley, but do not cross the inlet as the other side is private property. d Map D5 Beyond Maui – Moloka‘i and L…na‘i Left Kaunakakai Harbor Right Moa‘ula Falls D6 & B5 • To visit first call the Nature Conservancy of Hawai‘i: 553 5236 St. Joseph’s Church Located off of Highway 450 at mile marker 11, this small rural church was built in 1876 by Belgian priest Father Damien, who was best known for his work at the St. Joseph’s Church 97 Beyond Maui – Moloka‘i and L…na‘i Left Moloka‘i Museum and Cultral Center Right Kalaupapa Peninsula Moloka‘i Museum and Cultural Center Also known as the Sugar Mill Museum, this 19th-century industrial building was the work of R.W. Meyer, a German immigrant engineer. When the mill first turned in 1878, it used real horsepower and a steam engine to crush and process sugar cane.

Book a Non-Ocean View Room Oceanfront rooms are the most expensive accommodations in Hawai‘i. Next come ocean view rooms and then partial ocean view rooms. In high-rise hotels, the upper floors are also priced at a premium. Booking a mountain or garden room view could save you hundreds of dollars on your accommodations bill. 109 Streetsmart Left Cash point Center left Pay phone Center right Postal stamps Right Newspapers Banking & Communications Banks Bank of Hawai‘i and First Hawaiian Bank are Hawai‘i’s largest, with branches throughout the islands, some of them inside supermarkets. In general, all banks are open: Mon–Thu 8:30am– 3pm or 4pm, Fri 8:30am– 6pm. Some branches have Saturday hours.

She previously contributed to the DK Eyewitness Travel Guide to Hawai‘i. Picture Credits Dorling Kindersley would like to thank all the churches, museums, hotels, restaurants, bars and other sights for their assistance and kind permission to photograph. Placement Key t=top; tl=top left; tr=top right; tc=top center; tcl=top center left; l=left; c=center; cr=center right; ca=center above; cb=center below; r=right; b=bottom; bl=bottom left; br=bottom right BIEGEL COMMUNICATIONS INC: 52tr; RON DAHLQUIST: 30b, 32c, 33r, 34tr, 36tl/tr/c/b, 44c/b, 46c/b, 47, 63b 114tl; PETER FRENCH: 32tr courtesy of HAWAIIAN AIRLINES: 106tc; LEONARDO MEDIA LTD: 116tc; MAUI ARTS & CULTURAL CENTER: Tony Novak-Clifford 13clb; DOUGLAS PEEBELS: 26–7, 37br, 48c, 50tl/b, 53br; Michael Nolan/Wildlife Images 49bl; Darrell Wong 76–7; THE PLANTATION INN: 119C; ALAN SEIDEN: 30tl/tr, 31tr/br, 32tl, 35r All other images © Dorling Kindersley.


Big Data and the Welfare State: How the Information Revolution Threatens Social Solidarity by Torben Iversen, Philipp Rehm

23andMe, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, algorithmic bias, barriers to entry, Big Tech, business cycle, centre right, collective bargaining, COVID-19, crony capitalism, data science, DeepMind, deindustrialization, full employment, George Akerlof, income inequality, information asymmetry, invisible hand, knowledge economy, land reform, lockdown, loss aversion, low interest rates, low skilled workers, microbiome, moral hazard, mortgage debt, Network effects, new economy, obamacare, personalized medicine, Ponzi scheme, price discrimination, principal–agent problem, profit maximization, Robert Gordon, speech recognition, subprime mortgage crisis, tail risk, The Market for Lemons, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, union organizing, vertical integration, working-age population

These inequities are conditioned by tax (dis)incentives for the purchase of private insurance, which has emerged as a polarizing partisan issue. Denmark (2002) and Norway (2003) introduced tax deductions under center-right governments to offset the cost of private insurance – essentially reducing or eliminating the double-payment problem – but center-left governments subsequently repealed them (in the case of employer-based plans, by making health insurance benefits taxable) (Alexandersen et al. 2016, 77–78). A reform introduced in Sweden in 2009–2010 under the center-right Reinfeldt government that greatly expanded the choice of private healthcare centers likewise brought deep partisan divisions in its wake (Bendz 2017).

As a result, almost every Swede was a member of a union and its affiliated UIF (even though the two types of membership were formally separated in most cases). However, this system was significantly overhauled, first under the center-right Bildt government during the economic crisis of the early 1990s, when replacement rates and benefit ceilings were reduced and eligibility requirements tightened, and then again in a series of more fundamental reforms from 2006 to 2008 under another center-right government, this one led by Fredrik Reinfeldt. With the latter reforms, benefits were cut further, but the key change was to shift a greater share of the financing burden from the state to the UIFs, with fees varying according to actuarial principles based on the unemployment rate in each UIF, while the obligation to pay into the equalization fund was lifted (Clasen and Viebrock 2008).

This institutional bifurcation of the unemployment insurance system is reflected in increasingly divided voting behavior. LO members still disproportionally support the SAP, but rising numbers are voting for either the radical-left Left Party or the radical-right Sweden Democrats. At the same time, Saco and private unions in TCO increasingly vote for center-right parties (Arndt and Rennwald 2016). Arndt (2018) also documents that private-sector white-collar union members across the Scandinavian countries are much less supportive of redistribution, and far more supportive of privatization, than LO union members. It is perhaps an indication of weaker social networks that nonunionized workers are much more likely to vote for the Sweden Democrats, and much less https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009151405.006 Published online by Cambridge University Press Conclusion 183 likely to vote for SAP, than unionized workers – even after controlling for a range of observables (Arndt and Rennwald 2016).


pages: 363 words: 92,422

A Fine Mess by T. R. Reid

accelerated depreciation, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Alan Greenspan, Bernie Sanders, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, carbon tax, carried interest, centre right, clean water, Donald Trump, Double Irish / Dutch Sandwich, game design, Gini coefficient, High speed trading, Home mortgage interest deduction, Honoré de Balzac, income inequality, industrial robot, land value tax, loss aversion, mortgage tax deduction, obamacare, Occupy movement, offshore financial centre, oil shock, plutocrats, race to the bottom, Ronald Reagan, seigniorage, Silicon Valley, Skype, Snapchat, sovereign wealth fund, Tax Reform Act of 1986, Tesla Model S, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Tim Cook: Apple, Tobin tax, We are the 99%, WikiLeaks

In terms of égalité, at least, this tax regime seems to have worked; France has always had a lower Gini coefficient (that is, a more even distribution of wealth) than most of its European neighbors or the United States. When the Great Recession hit France in 2008, Nicolas Sarkozy, a center-right politician, was president. (Sarkozy supports free higher education, a complete ban on handguns, and unemployment compensation that never ends, but in European terms that makes him “center-right.”) Along with other leaders across Europe, Sarkozy opted for a policy of austerity—tax cuts, reduced government spending, limits on labor unions—as the proper course for economic revival. This didn’t work.

The new nation had virtually no private industry and minimal investment capital to build businesses. Estonia desperately needed to attract private capital and promote business development. In these straits, the national legislature turned to a youthful historian, Mart Laar, to head the government. Laar had become active as a student in Estonia’s main center-right political party; the party elders quickly realized that this young volunteer had the intelligence and the personal charm to go far in politics. And he did; he was elected prime minister in 1992, at the age of thirty-two, the youngest head of state in Estonian history. When I met him, two decades later, Laar had ascended to the position of elder statesman; he was the head of Estonia’s central bank.

She said that in 1997, and it clearly stung. Some seventeen years later, just about everybody I met in Slovakia reminded me of that insult. After a severe economic downturn at the end of the 1990s—unemployment reached 20%—Slovakian voters threw out their left-leaning government and installed a center-right party. The new government hired Ivan Mikloš, a smart, no-nonsense economist, to be finance minister, with a mission to revamp the nation’s tax system. By the time I met him, Mikloš’s party had lost an election, and the former finance minister had been relegated to a minute closet of an office in an annex building of the parliament.


pages: 278 words: 93,540

The Full Catastrophe: Travels Among the New Greek Ruins by James Angelos

bank run, Berlin Wall, centre right, death of newspapers, disinformation, Fall of the Berlin Wall, ghettoisation, illegal immigration, income inequality, moral hazard, plutocrats, urban planning

Yet the magnitude of Greece’s revision, and the fact that it had made often-sizable upward revisions every year since it had joined the eurozone, confirmed for Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union, that the Greek government had engaged in “widespread misreporting” of its deficit and debt figures. Big accounting revisions had become a custom in Greece, particularly following elections. In 2004, the new party in power, the center-right New Democracy, said that the previous ruling party, center-left PASOK, had badly messed up the statistics, revealing that Greece’s eurozone entry—which was based on meeting “convergence criteria” like keeping an annual deficit no greater than 3 percent of GDP—had been based on false numbers. Then, in 2009, when PASOK regained power, it said the big revision at the time was due to New Democracy’s massive concealment of its true spending.

Greek right-wing voters took a far more extreme turn toward Golden Dawn—a neo-Nazi party that denied being neo-Nazi—which was expanding its popularity beyond the ragged central Athens neighborhood where it had unleashed assault squads to hunt dark-skinned immigrants on the streets. Many Greeks reacted positively to Golden Dawn’s assertions of Hellenic superiority, and its pledge to put the nation above all else. In the May election, Syriza came in second just behind the center-right New Democracy party, and Golden Dawn won its way into parliament. No party, however, had enough votes to form a government, and so a new election was called for the following month. In the interim, the country seemed to be succumbing to ungovernable chaos. Global financial markets convulsed in fear of an impending win for Syriza, whose young, necktie-averse leader, a former communist youth activist, threatened to renege on Greece’s debt obligations.

“I will personally take them all to the district attorney and I will ask for all the money that they took back,” he said. “I’m not retreating. This corruption in Greece can’t continue.” Everything will be “brought to light,” he added, because the path of justice was an obligation. For a Greek politician, he struck me as suspiciously noble. He singled out the former prefect, a member of the center-right New Democracy party, and the local ophthalmologist as the main players in the scheme. The ophthalmologist, he told me, I could find at the hospital. As for the prefect, he’d “gotten lost.” That turned out not to be true. Later that afternoon I found Dionysios Gasparos, the former prefect, a urologist, in his nearby office on the ground floor of a pink, three-story building with several balconies.


pages: 502 words: 82,170

The Book of CSS3 by Peter Gasston

centre right, disruptive innovation, en.wikipedia.org, Firefox, Google Chrome, Great Leap Forward, Salesforce, web application, wikimedia commons

As before, the best way to illustrate the differences between the two syntaxes is with a demonstration; for that, I’ll use the following code: .gradient-1 { background-image: -moz-linear-gradient(left, black, white, black); background-image: -webkit-gradient(linear, left center, right center, from(black), color-stop(50%,white), to(black)); } .gradient-2 { background-image: -moz-linear-gradient(left, black, white 75%, black); background-image: -webkit-gradient(linear, left center, right center, from(black), color-stop(75%,white), to(black)); } .gradient-3 { background-image: -moz-linear-gradient(bottom, black, white 20px, black); background-image: -webkit-gradient(linear, center bottom, center top, from(black), color-stop(0.2,white), to(black)); } .gradient-4 { background-image: -moz-linear-gradient(45deg, black, white, black, white, black); background-image: -webkit-gradient(linear, left bottom, right top, from(black), color-stop(25%,white), color-stop(50%,black), color- stop(75%,white), to(black)); } You can see the output in Figure 11-3.

Using Linear Gradients Keeping the differences between the two syntaxes in mind, I’m going to present five different examples and then walk you through the code required to create them. Here’s the relevant CSS snippet: .gradient-1 { background-image: -moz-linear-gradient(left, white, black); background-image: -webkit-gradient(linear, left center, right center, from(white), to(black)); } .gradient-2 { background-image: -moz-linear-gradient(right, white, black); background-image: -webkit-gradient(linear, right center, left center, from(white), to(black)); } .gradient-3 { background-image: -moz-linear-gradient(50% 100%, white, black); background-image: -webkit-gradient(linear, 50% 100%, 50% 0%, from(white), to(black)); } .gradient-4 { background-image: -moz-linear-gradient(0% 100%, white, black); background-image: -webkit-gradient(linear, 0% 100%, 100% 0%, from(white), to(black)); } .gradient-5 { background-image: -moz-linear-gradient(225deg, white, black); background-image: -webkit-gradient(linear, 100% 0%, 0% 100%, from(white), to(black)); } These examples are shown in Figure 11-2.

The Firefox syntax will evenly distribute the color-stops along the length of the gradient unless otherwise specified. In this example, the white color-stop will be exactly halfway between the two blacks. In WebKit, the same effect is achieved with the following syntax: div { background-image: -webkit-gradient( linear, left center, right center, from(black), color-stop(50%,white), to(black) );} Notice here that I declare the color-stop using a color-stop() function, which requires two values: the position along the gradient where the stop should be implemented and the color. Unlike Firefox, the distribution of colors is not automatically calculated.


pages: 98 words: 27,609

The American Dream Is Not Dead: (But Populism Could Kill It) by Michael R. Strain

Bernie Sanders, business cycle, centre right, creative destruction, deindustrialization, Donald Trump, feminist movement, full employment, gig economy, Gini coefficient, income inequality, job automation, labor-force participation, market clearing, market fundamentalism, new economy, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, public intellectual, Robert Gordon, Ronald Reagan, social intelligence, Steven Pinker, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, Tyler Cowen, upwardly mobile, working poor

Strain provides a thoughtful and balanced assessment of the evidence on the state of American workers and families, in the process rejecting some of the claims coming from both the left and the right.” —JASON FURMAN, professor of practice, Harvard Kennedy School and former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers “Michael Strain is one of the keenest economists at work on the center-right today. In this brief but important book, he dares to bring facts to the overheated and often poorly informed debate over the state of the American Dream. Engaging and convincing, it is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand our economic present—and future.” —RICH LOWRY, editor of National Review “In this lively contribution to our national debate, Michael Strain presents the evidence for how Americans are really doing.

DIONNE JR. is a Washington Post columnist, professor at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and a visiting professor at Harvard University. His latest book is Code Red: How Progressives and Moderates Can Unite to Save Our Country (St. Martin’s Press, 2020). HENRY OLSEN is currently a Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and a columnist at the Washington Post. He has worked in senior executive positions at many center-right think tanks. Olsen served as vice president and director of the National Research Initiative at the American Enterprise Institute from 2006 to 2013. He previously worked as vice president of programs at the Manhattan Institute and as president of the Commonwealth Foundation. Mr. Olsen’s work has been featured in many prominent publications, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the Guardian, National Review, and the Weekly Standard.


pages: 162 words: 61,105

Eyewitness Top 10 Los Angeles by Catherine Gerber

Berlin Wall, centre right, City Beautiful movement, clean water, East Village, Frank Gehry, haute couture, machine readable, Mahatma Gandhi, Ronald Reagan, transcontinental railway

Boarding House 123 Zane Grey Pueblo Hotel 146 Zankou Chicken 93 Zuma Beach 44, 119 Acknowledgments Photographer David Peevers Additional Photography Max Alexander, Steve Gorton, Dave King, Susanna Price, Neil Setchfield AT DK INDIA: Managing Editor Aruna Ghose Art Editor Benu Joshi Project Editor Kajori Aikat Project Designer Priyanka Thakur Senior Cartographer Uma Bhattacharya Cartographer Suresh Kumar Picture Researcher Taiyaba Khatoon Fact Checker Janet Grey, Aimee Lind Indexer & Proofreader Bhavna Sharma DTP Co-ordinator Shailesh Sharma DTP Designer Vinod Harish AT DK LONDON: Publisher Douglas Amrine Publishing Manager Jane Ewart Senior Cartographic Editor Casper Morris Senior DTP Designer Jason Little DK Picture Library Brigitte Arora, Ellen Root Production Shane Higgins Editorial and Design Assistance Rhiannon Furbear, Claire Jones, Alison McGill, Carolyn Patten, Rada Radojicic, Susana Smith, Sylvia TombesiWalton, Hugo Wilkinson Picture Credits t-top, tl-top left, tlc-top left center, tc-top center, tr-top right, cla-center left above, cacenter above, cra- center right above, cl-center left, c- center, cr- center right, clb- center left below, cb-center below, crb-center right below, blbottom left, b-bottom, bcbottom center, bcl-bottom center left, br-bottom right. Every effort has been made to trace the copyright holders, and we apologize in advance for any unintentional omissions. We would be pleased to insert the appropriate acknowledgments in any subsequent edition of this publication.


pages: 586 words: 160,321

The Euro and the Battle of Ideas by Markus K. Brunnermeier, Harold James, Jean-Pierre Landau

"there is no alternative" (TINA), Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Alan Greenspan, asset-backed security, bank run, banking crisis, battle of ideas, Bear Stearns, Ben Bernanke: helicopter money, Berlin Wall, Bretton Woods, Brexit referendum, business cycle, capital controls, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, Celtic Tiger, central bank independence, centre right, collapse of Lehman Brothers, collective bargaining, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, cross-border payments, currency peg, currency risk, debt deflation, Deng Xiaoping, different worldview, diversification, Donald Trump, Edward Snowden, en.wikipedia.org, Fall of the Berlin Wall, financial deregulation, financial repression, fixed income, Flash crash, floating exchange rates, full employment, Future Shock, German hyperinflation, global reserve currency, income inequality, inflation targeting, information asymmetry, Irish property bubble, Jean Tirole, Kenneth Rogoff, Les Trente Glorieuses, low interest rates, Martin Wolf, mittelstand, Money creation, money market fund, Mont Pelerin Society, moral hazard, negative equity, Neil Kinnock, new economy, Northern Rock, obamacare, offshore financial centre, open economy, paradox of thrift, pension reform, Phillips curve, Post-Keynesian economics, price stability, principal–agent problem, quantitative easing, race to the bottom, random walk, regulatory arbitrage, rent-seeking, reserve currency, risk free rate, road to serfdom, secular stagnation, short selling, Silicon Valley, South China Sea, special drawing rights, tail risk, the payments system, too big to fail, Tyler Cowen, union organizing, unorthodox policies, Washington Consensus, WikiLeaks, yield curve

It was unambiguously a popular rejection of Europe and in particular of immigration from the European Union, foreshadowing the Brexit vote in June 2016. Neither the optimistic nor the pessimistic forecasts about the experiment in European democracy were correct. No obvious European leader emerged by a simple operation of democratic choice. The selection of Jean-Claude Juncker, the Spitzenkandidat of the center-right European People’s Party, as the next Commission president looked complicated and rather undemocratic. But on the other hand, there was also no uniform wave of anti-Europeanism or disillusion with the European project. Juncker then reshaped the European Commission in two important ways. First, he introduced a new layer to the hierarchy, with seven vice presidents standing above other commissioners.

For example, the left-leaning Commissioner Pierre Moscovici has to find common ground with “austerian reformer” Vice President Valdis Dombroviskis first. Juncker also worked very closely with the European Parliament president, Martin Schulz, the social-democratic Spitzenkandidat, creating what was in effect a Great Coalition of center-right and center-left on the European level. A third challenge, when France again seemed to try to recover the intellectual leadership in Europe, came after the election in January 2015 of a radical Greek populist government, dominated by the left-wing Syriza party, which explicitly sought to formulate an alternative to German austerity.

The difference is that the conditionality for help is imposed by the European Commission (or troika), rather than the ESM itself, and that the IMF does not borrow on private capital markets. The ratification of the ESM treaty was full of stumbling blocks. Most notably, in October 2011, the Slovakian center-right government of Iveta Radicova fell when, after the parliamentary vote on ratification of the ESM treaty, the Slovakian Parliament decided not to contribute to the Greek package. A small party in the four-party coalition opposed the package as a “road to socialism.”9 It was easy to claim that the whole exercise was unfair, in that the beneficiaries, the Greeks, were far richer in terms of GDP per capita than Slovakians.


pages: 125 words: 35,820

Cyprus - Culture Smart!: The Essential Guide to Customs & Culture by Constantine Buhayer

banking crisis, British Empire, business climate, centre right, COVID-19, financial independence, glass ceiling, Google Earth, haute cuisine, Kickstarter, lockdown, low cost airline, offshore financial centre, open economy, Skype, women in the workforce, young professional

But from the late 1990s Athens began to feel imposed upon by “needy” Cyprus distracting it from its own regional pursuits, not least rapprochement with Turkey. However, a hardening line from Ankara and its challenge to the Greek and Cypriot Exclusive Economic Zones, rebooted the Athens–Nicosia partnership. THE GOVERNMENT Traditionally the Republic of Cyprus is ruled by coalitions of center-right governments. On occasions the left-wing AKEL party has participated in the coalition; as a result social welfare remains an important factor in government policy. This has led to a social democratic, mixed-economy model. It even survived, slightly bruised, the 2013 financial collapse. A JUDICIOUS APPROACH TO CHANGE At first, the likelihood of Cyprus becoming an EU member state was a losing bet.

Another organizing factor of the community in the diaspora is the British branch of the AKEL party. It advocates “Cypriotism,” that Greek and Turkish Cypriots share the same aspirations and cultural identity. It publishes the oldest British Cypriot newspaper, Parikiaki (“of the community”). Poignantly, its weekly obituaries over the decades constitute a history in faces. The center-right newspaper Eleftheria is rich in historical articles. The Turkish-Cypriot newspapers include Londra Gazete and the monthly magazine North Cyprus, featuring local personalities, recipes, and life back in Cyprus. All the papers have English sections and online editions. Diaspora Impact on Cyprus During the decades when the border between North and South was sealed, things moved on in Britain.


Belgium - Culture Smart!: The Essential Guide to Customs & Culture by Bernadett Varga

Airbnb, Black Lives Matter, centre right, coronavirus, COVID-19, Day of the Dead, high-speed rail, lockdown, Peace of Westphalia, trade route, women in the workforce, work culture

The most widely read paper is La Dernière Heure des Sports, a populist tabloid-style daily. The main quality papers are, in Flanders, De Standaard (very Flemish) and De Morgen (left-wing with a good reputation for investigative journalism), and in Wallonia Le Soir (center-right, fairly neutral) and La Libre Belgique (also center-right, serious, very Catholic). There are a couple of business-oriented newspapers (L’Echo de la Bourse and De Financieel-Ekonomische Tijd), and English-language papers are widely read, especially in Brussels, where a wide range is available on most newsstands. European Voice, an English-language paper with an EU focus, is published in Brussels.


pages: 868 words: 149,572

CSS: The Definitive Guide by Eric A. Meyer

centre right, Chuck Templeton: OpenTable:, conceptual framework, Ralph Waldo Emerson

If only one keyword appears, then the other is assumed to be center. Table 9-1 shows equivalent keyword statements. Table 9-1. Position keyword equivalents Single keyword Equivalent keywords center center center top top center center top bottom bottom center center bottom right center right right center left center left left center So if you want an image to appear in the top center of every paragraph, you need only declare: p {background-image: url(yinyang.gif); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-position: top;} Percentage values Percentage values are closely related to the keywords, although they behave in a more sophisticated way.

Declaring only one percentage value means the vertical position evaluates to 50% Table 9-2 gives a breakdown of keyword and percentage equivalencies. Table 9-2. Positional equivalents Single keyword Equivalent keywords Equivalent percentages center center center 50% 50% 50% top top center center top 50% 0% bottom bottom center center bottom 50% 100% right center right right center 100% 50% 100% left center left left center 0% 50% 0% top left left top 0% 0% top right right top 100% 0% bottom right right bottom 100% 100% bottom left left bottom 0% 100% In case you're wondering, the default values for background-position are 0% 0%, which is functionally the same as top left.

CSS2.x defines two properties to accomplish this, one of which defines the angle of a sound's source on a horizontal plane, and the second of which defines the source's angle on a vertical plane. The placement of sounds along the horizontal plane is handled using azimuth. azimuth Values: <angle> | [[ left-side | far-left | left | center-left | center | center-right | right | far-right | right-side ] || behind ] | leftwards | rightwards | inherit Initial value: center Applies to: All elements Inherited: Yes Computed value: Normalized angle Angle values can come in three units: deg (degrees), grad (grads), and rad (radians). The possible ranges for these unit types are 0-360deg, 0-400grad, and 0-6.2831853rad.


pages: 303 words: 74,206

GDP: The World’s Most Powerful Formula and Why It Must Now Change by Ehsan Masood

Alan Greenspan, anti-communist, bank run, banking crisis, biodiversity loss, Bob Geldof, Bretton Woods, centre right, clean water, colonial rule, coronavirus, COVID-19, Credit Default Swap, decarbonisation, deindustrialization, Diane Coyle, energy security, European colonialism, financial engineering, government statistician, happiness index / gross national happiness, income inequality, indoor plumbing, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Isaac Newton, job satisfaction, Kickstarter, Mahbub ul Haq, mass immigration, means of production, Meghnad Desai, Mohammed Bouazizi, Robert Solow, Ronald Reagan, Sheryl Sandberg, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, Skype, statistical model, the scientific method, The Spirit Level, Washington Consensus, wealth creators, zoonotic diseases

After 2008, across Europe and America, governments poured billions into expensive schemes such as roads, dams, and bridges (or “shovel-ready” projects, in the words of President Barack Obama), to help people get back into employment.8 But the idea of a Keynesian stimulus was—and continues to be—opposed, especially on the center-right of politics. That is because, as Kuznets pointed out, governments on their own are not productive in any economic sense. They merely spend what they receive, and that is largely from the taxes they collect from their citizens. Large government expenditure according to this view risks spending beyond what a country can afford.

Indeed, there was still one country that had yet to be persuaded and this was the UK.17 Strong knew that getting UK agreement was critical in part because, along with China, France, the Soviet Union, and the United States, Britain was one of the P5, the five permanent nuclear weapons states which in effect are the UN’s most powerful members. The British government’s opposition to the Stockholm conference was partly ideological and partly based on scientific grounds. The government of the day was led by the center-right Conservative Party. Prime Minister Edward Heath wasn’t convinced that the time was right to hold such a conference, and Heath’s officials had a list of concerns that they wanted answers to. Why weren’t all of the world’s top scientists agreed that the planet was in peril? What did scientists at the top British universities have to say?

Here he is in 2008 after the financial crisis, explaining why: “All over the world people believe they are being lied to, that the figures are false; that they are being manipulated. And there are good reasons for feeling this way. For years people whose lives were becoming more and more difficult were being told that living standards were rising. How could they not feel deceived?”1 These are the words of a center-right, indeed hawkish head of state, not your average leftish economics blogger. “That is how we create the gulf of incomprehension between the expert certain in his knowledge and the citizen whose experience of life is completely out of synch with the story being told by the data. This gulf is dangerous because the citizens end up believing they are being deceived.


Europe: A History by Norman Davies

agricultural Revolution, Albert Einstein, anti-communist, Berlin Wall, bread and circuses, Bretton Woods, British Empire, business climate, centre right, charter city, classic study, clean water, Columbian Exchange, conceptual framework, continuation of politics by other means, Corn Laws, cuban missile crisis, Defenestration of Prague, discovery of DNA, disinformation, double entry bookkeeping, Dr. Strangelove, Edmond Halley, Edward Lloyd's coffeehouse, equal pay for equal work, Eratosthenes, Etonian, European colonialism, experimental economics, financial independence, finite state, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, Francisco Pizarro, full employment, gentleman farmer, global village, Gregor Mendel, Honoré de Balzac, Index librorum prohibitorum, interchangeable parts, invention of agriculture, invention of movable type, Isaac Newton, James Hargreaves, James Watt: steam engine, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Johannes Kepler, John Harrison: Longitude, joint-stock company, Joseph-Marie Jacquard, Korean Air Lines Flight 007, land reform, liberation theology, long peace, Louis Blériot, Louis Daguerre, Mahatma Gandhi, mass immigration, Mikhail Gorbachev, military-industrial complex, Monroe Doctrine, Murano, Venice glass, music of the spheres, New Urbanism, North Sea oil, offshore financial centre, Peace of Westphalia, Plato's cave, popular capitalism, Potemkin village, purchasing power parity, Ralph Waldo Emerson, road to serfdom, sceptred isle, Scramble for Africa, spinning jenny, Suez canal 1869, Suez crisis 1956, Thales of Miletus, the scientific method, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, trade route, transatlantic slave trade, Transnistria, urban planning, urban sprawl, W. E. B. Du Bois

The opposition of ‘Left’ and ‘Right’ has provided a basic metaphor for the political spectrum ever since.1 Yet the metaphor has its problems. It only works if the political spectrum is seen to be ranged along a straight line, with ‘Left’ and ‘Right’ separated by the conciliatory ‘Centre’ between them: Reform————Status quo————Reaction Extreme—Left—Centre-Left—CENTRE—Centre-Right—Right—Extreme Left Right In this scheme, the most successful politicians are likely to be those who command the consensus of ‘the centre ground’ with the help of either the moderate Left or the moderate Right. Marxists, and other dialecticians, however, see the political spectrum not as unilinear, but as bi-polar.


State-Building: Governance and World Order in the 21st Century by Francis Fukuyama

Asian financial crisis, behavioural economics, Berlin Wall, Bretton Woods, centre right, corporate governance, demand response, Doha Development Round, European colonialism, failed state, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, George Akerlof, Hernando de Soto, information asymmetry, liberal world order, Live Aid, Nick Leeson, Pareto efficiency, Potemkin village, precautionary principle, price stability, principal–agent problem, rent-seeking, road to serfdom, Ronald Coase, structural adjustment programs, Suez crisis 1956, tacit knowledge, technology bubble, The Market for Lemons, The Nature of the Firm, transaction costs, vertical integration, Washington Consensus, Westphalian system

The collapse of the most extreme form of statism, communism, gave extra impetus to the movement to reduce the size of the state in noncommunist countries. Friedrich A. Hayek, who was pilloried at midcentury for suggesting that there was a connection between totalitarianism and the modern welfare state (Hayek 1956), saw his ideas taken much more seriously by the time of his death in 1992—not just in the political world, where conservative and center-right parties came to power, but in academia as well, where neoclassical economics gained enormously in prestige as the leading social science. Reducing the size of the state sector was the dominant theme of policy during the critical years of the 1980s and early 1990s, when a wide variety of countries in the former communist world, Latin America, Asia, and Africa were emerging from authoritarian rule after what Huntington (1991) labeled the “third wave” of democratization.

Europe could certainly spend money on defense at a level that would put it on a par with the United States, but it chooses not to. Europe spends barely $130 billion collectively on defense—a sum that has been steadily falling— compared to U.S. defense spending of $300 billion, which is due to rise sharply. Despite Europe’s turn in a more conservative direction in 2002, not one rightist or center-right candidate is campaigning on a platform of significantly raising defense spending. Europe’s ability to deploy its power is of course greatly weakened by the collective action problems posed by 112 state-building the current system of EU decision making, but the failure to create more useable military power is clearly a political and normative issue.


pages: 147 words: 42,682

Facing Reality: Two Truths About Race in America by Charles Murray

2021 United States Capitol attack, 23andMe, affirmative action, Black Lives Matter, centre right, correlation coefficient, critical race theory, Donald Trump, feminist movement, gentrification, George Floyd, Gunnar Myrdal, income inequality, invention of agriculture, longitudinal study, low skilled workers, medical malpractice, meta-analysis, publication bias, school vouchers, Silicon Valley, The Bell Curve by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, War on Poverty

If you are on the center left, the material in this book is unlikely to be treated accurately in the newspapers you read, the blogs you follow, your social media feeds, or the news that you watch or listen to. Be assured that nothing in this book will challenge your political principles with which I disagree – there’s nothing here promoting my libertarian views on freedom or small government. I continue to hold those views, but in this book I argue from a center-right position, aiming to make common cause with people of other political persuasions in restoring an element of the American creed on which we agree. For whatever has happened with the progressive left, the importance of equality before the law and of treating people as individuals has historically been at the core of American liberal principles – just as it has been at the core of American conservative principles, no matter what has happened with the Trumpian right.

For their part, leaders of the Republican Party must stop posturing as the guardians of true Americanism and instead say out loud in front of cameras and microphones that the people who love this country have always been on both sides of the political spectrum and still are today. As simple as that. If both of those things were to happen, it would be much easier for people on the center left and the center right to say out loud to friends and relatives that they repudiate the extremists on their own side. It would be much easier for Blacks and Latinos to say out loud to friends and relatives that they love America. The return to an embrace of the American creed must be a celebration of America’s original ideal of equality under the law.


Crisis and Dollarization in Ecuador: Stability, Growth, and Social Equity by Paul Ely Beckerman, Andrés Solimano

banking crisis, banks create money, barriers to entry, business cycle, capital controls, Carmen Reinhart, carried interest, central bank independence, centre right, clean water, currency peg, declining real wages, disintermediation, financial intermediation, fixed income, floating exchange rates, Future Shock, Gini coefficient, income inequality, income per capita, labor-force participation, land reform, London Interbank Offered Rate, Mexican peso crisis / tequila crisis, microcredit, Money creation, money: store of value / unit of account / medium of exchange, offshore financial centre, old-boy network, open economy, pension reform, price stability, rent-seeking, school vouchers, seigniorage, trade liberalization, women in the workforce

As of mid-2001, representatives of 10 parties sit in the (unicameral) national Congress. The parties are difficult to classify ideologically. Populism figures heavily in their styles and substance. Of the four largest, two are relatively, if inconsistently, center-right and center-left parties based mainly in the Sierra and two are relatively center-right and centerleft parties based mainly in the Costa.6 Another party (Pachakutik) claims exclusively to represent indigenous ethnic minorities. During 1998 and 1999, party fragmentation made it difficult to pass emergency legislation that was essential precisely because of the limitations of the central government’s executive and administrative powers (see Part 4). 22 CRISIS AND DOLLARIZATION IN ECUADOR A paradoxical consequence of Ecuador’s regionalism has been a longstanding failure to develop effective subnational governments.

Some indigenous groups have lived in self-governing village communities. Over the 20th century, however, after revised constitutions afforded them political rights, Ecuador’s indigenous peoples gradually increased their political participation, more and more through specifically indigenous organizations and parties. 6. The center-right parties are the Sierra-based Democracia Popular and the Costa-based Partido Social Cristiano; the more center-left parties are the Sierrabased Izquierda Democrática and the populist Costa-based Partido Roldosista Ecuatoriana. It is only fair to note that the “right, center, and left” labels can often be highly misleading. 7.


pages: 324 words: 80,217

The Decadent Society: How We Became the Victims of Our Own Success by Ross Douthat

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, AI winter, Apollo 13, Bernie Sanders, bitcoin, Black Lives Matter, Boeing 747, Burning Man, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, carbon tax, centre right, Charlie Hebdo massacre, charter city, crack epidemic, CRISPR, crowdsourcing, David Graeber, Deng Xiaoping, deplatforming, Donald Trump, driverless car, East Village, Easter island, Elon Musk, fake news, Flynn Effect, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, Francisco Pizarro, ghettoisation, gig economy, Golden age of television, green new deal, Haight Ashbury, helicopter parent, hive mind, Hyperloop, immigration reform, informal economy, intentional community, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Islamic Golden Age, Jeff Bezos, Jeremy Corbyn, Joan Didion, Kevin Kelly, Kickstarter, knowledge worker, life extension, low interest rates, mass immigration, mass incarceration, means of production, megacity, meritocracy, microaggression, move fast and break things, multiplanetary species, Neal Stephenson, Neil Armstrong, New Journalism, Nicholas Carr, Norman Mailer, obamacare, Oculus Rift, open borders, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, out of africa, Panopticon Jeremy Bentham, Paris climate accords, peak TV, Peter Thiel, plutocrats, pre–internet, private spaceflight, QAnon, quantitative easing, radical life extension, rent-seeking, Robert Bork, Robert Gordon, Ronald Reagan, secular stagnation, self-driving car, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley billionaire, Silicon Valley ideology, Snapchat, Snow Crash, Social Justice Warrior, social web, Steve Bannon, Steve Jobs, Steven Pinker, technoutopianism, TED Talk, the built environment, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, Tyler Cowen, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, wage slave, WeWork, women in the workforce, Y2K

But for our purposes, it’s enough to say that Piketty’s villains, the grands rentiers (the global superrich) and petit rentiers (the mass upper class forged by meritocracy), are both instantly recognizable types, and his description of how the modern upper class has consolidated its position would be at home in Lindsey and Teles’s more libertarian analysis as well. The Pikettian left and the libertarian center right differ in which kind of rentier they are most eager to indict: Piketty and his admirers are hardest on the superrich, blaming their political influence and essential selfishness for foiling necessary large-scale redistribution, while libertarian antirentiers are more likely to argue that the richest of the rich still generally rise on their own merits (think Jeff Bezos or Warren Buffett), while it’s the mass upper class that’s really guilty of what the Brookings Institution’s Richard Reeves calls “dream hoarding”: the combined effects of inherited wealth, educational requirements, real estate prices, and tax breaks that essentially reproduce privilege from one generation to the next.

The European Stalemate If the distinctly American features of sclerosis were the only ones that matter, the Old Continent should be in considerably better shape. Europe has parliamentary systems with fewer veto points, smaller polities with more efficient governments (at least in northern Europe), greater accountability for bureaucrats, and less danger of extraordinary public-sector sprawl. It has center-right parties that have historically stiff-armed populism rather than embracing it, and a technocratic elite that’s resisted the pull of polarization. It has a strong recent history of not only transpartisan but also multinational cooperation between different political factions and coalitions, all in the service of a grand civilizational project rooted in the optimism of the postwar period—the dreams of progress after the horror of war.

The consequences were swift: Brexit in Britain, a populist government in Italy, a boost for preexisting nationalist governments in eastern Europe, a far right party gaining ground in Germany, the respectable center left collapsing everywhere from Scandinavia to Spain. All of this turbulence, however, has not produced dramatic policy change. Instead, it’s delivered European politics to a stalemate different from the American one, but equally enervating. Instead of two polarized parties, Europe has a center-right and center-left that are no longer powerful enough to really govern, challenged by a populism (right-wing in most cases, left-wing in a few) that’s potent enough to disrupt but not sufficiently popular to rule. It has a central elite that’s too unpopular to impose its will on the periphery, even as the periphery’s leaders, however populist they may be, flinch from taking any step that might actually unravel the whole disastrous system.


pages: 597 words: 172,130

The Alchemists: Three Central Bankers and a World on Fire by Neil Irwin

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Alan Greenspan, Ayatollah Khomeini, bank run, banking crisis, Bear Stearns, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, break the buck, Bretton Woods, business climate, business cycle, capital controls, central bank independence, centre right, collapse of Lehman Brothers, collateralized debt obligation, credit crunch, currency peg, eurozone crisis, financial engineering, financial innovation, Flash crash, foreign exchange controls, George Akerlof, German hyperinflation, Google Earth, hiring and firing, inflation targeting, Isaac Newton, Julian Assange, low cost airline, low interest rates, market bubble, market design, middle-income trap, Money creation, money market fund, moral hazard, mortgage debt, new economy, Nixon triggered the end of the Bretton Woods system, Northern Rock, Paul Samuelson, price stability, public intellectual, quantitative easing, rent control, reserve currency, Robert Shiller, Robert Solow, rolodex, Ronald Reagan, Savings and loan crisis, savings glut, Socratic dialogue, sovereign wealth fund, The Great Moderation, too big to fail, union organizing, WikiLeaks, yield curve, Yom Kippur War

After all, they had to take into account the fact that the drachmas they were repaid would be worth less than those they had loaned. In 1992, when low-inflation Germany could borrow money for a decade at 8 percent, Greece had to pay 24 percent. Both the major Greek political parties, the center-left Panhellenic Socialist Movement and the center-right New Democracy, were enthusiasts for joining the eurozone, with only the communist left and neofascist right, together amounting to around 20 percent of the population, opposing. Greece’s problems during the 1980s and 1990s were anemic growth, double-digit inflation and interest rates, and large deficits.

One irony was that a socialist government was being forced to desocialize the Greek economy. Many of Papandreou’s own party members were threatening to defect rather than vote for privatizations that seemed to violate their convictions. The prime minister offered to step down if the opposition center-right party, New Democracy, would agree to form a coalition “unity” government with his Panhellenic Socialist Movement, or PASOK. But New Democracy saw too much political advantage in letting Papandreou twist in the wind and forcing his fellow party members to take a series of wildly unpopular votes for austerity.

“We made Papandreou . . . aware of the fact that his behavior is disloyal,” said Eurogroup chief Jean-Claude Juncker later. Papandreou returned to Athens the next morning and embarked on the new strategy of discussing with New Democracy’s Antonis Samaras a coalition government between Greece’s center-left and center-right parties, led by a technically accomplished but nonpartisan elder statesman. “Papandreou became the punching bag for everything bad in Greek society,” said a senior Greek official. “He had honest intentions of navigating the country through a difficult program, but he did not have the skills to convincingly defend it, and he appeared out of touch.


Guide to LaTeX by Helmut Kopka, Patrick W. Daly

centre right, Donald Knuth, framing effect, hypertext link, invention of movable type, Menlo Park

The text ‘center’ is centered both horizontally and vertically. UL = 0.8 cm. 6 center 1.2 UL ? 2.5 UL - (1.5,1.2) The effect of the text positioning argument is made clear with the following examples (UL = 1 cm): (3.0,3.2) center right @ R @ top center bot. left @ I @ (0.0,1.95) (2.0,0.3) @ I @ (3.0,1.95) center @ R @ stretch \put(0.0,1.95){\framebox(2,1.0) [t]{top center}} \put(3.0,1.95){\framebox(2,0.8) [lb]{bot. left}} \put(3.0,3.2){\framebox(2,0.6) [r]{center right}} \put(2.0,0.3){\framebox(2,0.6) [s]{stretch\hfill center}} The picture element \makebox is exactly the same as the \framebox command but without the rectangular frame. It is most often employed with the dimensional pair (0,0) in order to place text at a desired location.

It inserts enough space at that point to force the text on either side to be pushed over to the left and right margins. With Left\hfill Right one produces Left Right Multiple occurrences of \hfill within one line will each insert the same amount of spacing so that the line becomes left and right justified. For example, the text Left\hfill Center\hfill Right generates Left Center Right If \hfill comes at the beginning of a line, the spacing is suppressed in accordance with the behavior of the standard form for \hspace. If a rubber space is really to be added at the beginning or end of a line, \hspace*{\fill} must be used instead. However, LATEX also offers a number of commands and environments to simplify most such applications (see Section 4.2.2).

Inserting variable . . . . . . and sequences Two commands that work exactly the same way as \hfill are \dotfill and \hrulefill Instead of inserting empty space, these commands fill the gap with dots or a ruled line, as follows: Start \dotfill\ Finish\\ and Left \hrulefill\ Center \hrulefill\ Right\\ produce Start . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Finish Left Center Right 2.7. Fine-tuning text 31 Any combination of \hfill, \dotfill, and \hrulefill may be given on one line. If any of these commands appears more than once at one location, the corresponding filling will be printed that many more times than for a single occurrence. Departure \dotfill\dotfill\dotfill\ 8:30 \hfill\hfill Arrival \hrulefill\ 11:45\\ Departure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8:30 2.7.2 Arrival 11:45 Line breaking Breaking text into lines is done automatically in TEX and LATEX.


pages: 291 words: 90,200

Networks of Outrage and Hope: Social Movements in the Internet Age by Manuel Castells

"World Economic Forum" Davos, access to a mobile phone, banking crisis, call centre, centre right, citizen journalism, cognitive dissonance, collective bargaining, conceptual framework, crowdsourcing, currency manipulation / currency intervention, disintermediation, en.wikipedia.org, Glass-Steagall Act, housing crisis, income inequality, microcredit, military-industrial complex, Mohammed Bouazizi, Occupy movement, offshore financial centre, Port of Oakland, social software, statistical model, Twitter Arab Spring, We are the 99%, web application, WikiLeaks, World Values Survey, young professional, zero-sum game

Yet, when social movements do exist and the state institutions are open to change, the transformative potential of social movements may find an institutional expression, as in Chile and Brazil. In most countries of Europe, the crisis of political legitimacy, deepened by the economic crisis, prompted right-wing populist political reactions, always ultra-nationalist, often xenophobic, that threaten to undo the European Union and are calling into question the duopoly of center-right and center-left blocks in the political system. The European parliamentary elections of May 25, 2014, were a turning point in this regard. The ultra-nationalist, anti-European UKIP became the top vote getter in the UK. The extreme right Front National of Marine Le Pen was the winner of the elections in France, and opinion polls in the Fall of 2014 were predicting the victory of Le Pen in the presidential elections of 2016.

On February 22, 2013, hundreds of thousands gathered in Piazza San Giovanni in Roma to listen to the inflammatory speech of Beppe Grillo. At the ballot box, M5S became the most voted-for party for the Chamber of Deputies, with 25.6 percent of the vote, although the center-left coalition, led by the Democratic Party, and the center-right coalition, led by Berlusconi, obtained more deputies and barred access of M5S to government. The movement became the largest political force in a number of regions, including Liguria (the home of Grillo), Sicily and Sardinia. It also elected 54 senators, second only to the Democratic Party, and played a significant role in enacting or blocking legislation and appointments, such as the appointment of the President of the Republic.

However, in political terms, perhaps more significant than the defeat of Silva’s candidacy was the success of the conservative candidates in the parliamentary elections that were held simultaneously with the presidential election. Major states, such as São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Rio Grande do Sul, and Minas Gerais, elected or re-elected center-right or right-wing politicians, including some who had been directly challenged by the movement. Yes, the PT lost ground in the Congress, but it was to the benefit of the centrist PSDB, the rightist and corrupt PMDB, and a number of extreme-right candidates. As a result, the Brazilian Congress resulting from the 2014 election was the most conservative Congress since the end of the military regime.


pages: 312 words: 91,835

Global Inequality: A New Approach for the Age of Globalization by Branko Milanovic

Asian financial crisis, assortative mating, Berlin Wall, bitcoin, Black Swan, Branko Milanovic, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, centre right, colonial exploitation, colonial rule, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, deglobalization, demographic transition, Deng Xiaoping, discovery of the americas, European colonialism, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, full employment, Gini coefficient, Gunnar Myrdal, income inequality, income per capita, invisible hand, labor-force participation, liberal capitalism, low skilled workers, Martin Wolf, means of production, military-industrial complex, mittelstand, moral hazard, Nash equilibrium, offshore financial centre, oil shock, open borders, open immigration, Paul Samuelson, place-making, plutocrats, post scarcity, post-industrial society, profit motive, purchasing power parity, Ralph Nader, Robert Solow, Second Machine Age, seigniorage, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, special economic zone, stakhanovite, trade route, transfer pricing, very high income, Vilfredo Pareto, Washington Consensus, women in the workforce

Legislative elections in 2012–2015 are the latest elections at the time of writing (August 2015): France (2012), Germany and Austria (2013), Belgium, Sweden, Hungary (2014), Greece, Finland, Denmark (2015). Parties are ranked from top to bottom according to their share in the most recent national election. Data source: Compiled by the author from various Internet sources. The rise of such parties has had another effect: moving mainstream center-right parties more to the right. This shift is obvious in France, where the center-right party led by Nicolas Sarkozy is in many respects indistinguishable from the right-wing National Front (although Sarkozy’s party attempts to highlight the differences and ignore the similarities). It is also obvious in the United Kingdom, where conservatives have in many instances moved closer to the positions held by the far-right United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP).

The reaction of the middle and lower middle classes to the gradual loss of welfare-state protection and encroachment on their other acquired rights has been to shift politically to the right, toward populist and nativist parties. This trend has been facilitated, first, by the disappearance of alternatives on the left, which were discredited after the end of communism, second, by the co-optation of leftist parties (such as the Socialist Party in France and PSOE in Spain) by centrist or center-right parties from which they can hardly be distinguished any longer, and third, by the discrediting of the mainstream parties following their inept handling of the Great Recession. The crumbling of the left and of the mainstream parties has opened the way, in practically all Western and Central European countries, to the rise of mildly antisystemic populist parties.


pages: 191 words: 51,242

Unsustainable Inequalities: Social Justice and the Environment by Lucas Chancel

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Anthropocene, behavioural economics, biodiversity loss, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, carbon footprint, carbon tax, centre right, clean water, COVID-19, disinformation, Donald Trump, energy security, energy transition, financial deregulation, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, Gini coefficient, green new deal, income inequality, Indoor air pollution, job satisfaction, low skilled workers, offshore financial centre, oil shock, price stability, purchasing power parity, Ronald Reagan, Simon Kuznets, The Spirit Level, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, Thorstein Veblen, trade liberalization, Tragedy of the Commons, transaction costs, urban planning, very high income, Washington Consensus

Yet in the context of wage stagnation at the lower end of the scale in the United States, and considering the inability of progressive political voices since then to make a convincing argument in favor of the social benefits of environmental policies, Trump’s dramatic break with international norms no doubt boosted his polling numbers in mining states, to the detriment of the environment and the health of people everywhere. This is a familiar tactic, of course, and by no means a monopoly of the political UFO that is the forty-fifth president of the United States. Take an example in France: ten years before the yellow vests movement (which I will discuss later in the book), the center-right government tried to implement a carbon tax. A part of the opposition on the left took issue with what it saw as an “antisocial” measure that would disproportionately affect low-income workers and rural households more than others. These segments of the population rely on automobiles in order to get to work and to do daily errands—unlike the so-called bourgeois bohemians of the major cities, who take public transportation during the week and fill up their cars with gas only when they go away on weekends.

Few expected the social unrest that was about to come.19 Because the planned rise in carbon tax revenues had not been accompanied either by additional compensatory mechanisms to offset the burden on low- and middle-income households or by a significant increase in energy transition investments, however, millions of households had no low-carbon transport or heating alternatives. In the absence of any meaningful financial assistance, rising carbon tax rates were bound to trigger popular discontent. This is what finally happened in 2018, when the new center-right government of Emmanuel Macron ratcheted up the carbon tax as part of a broader plan to scrap the wealth tax and reduce tax rates on capital incomes. Taxes on the richest of the rich were reduced by more than €4 billion that year, while carbon tax revenues, raised disproportionately from low- and middle-income households, were increased by about €4 billion.


pages: 319 words: 95,854

You Are What You Speak: Grammar Grouches, Language Laws, and the Politics of Identity by Robert Lane Greene

anti-communist, British Empire, centre right, discovery of DNA, European colonialism, facts on the ground, Great Leap Forward, haute couture, illegal immigration, machine translation, Mahatma Gandhi, Mikhail Gorbachev, Nelson Mandela, Parag Khanna, Ronald Reagan, Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, Steven Pinker, Yogi Berra, zero-sum game

Not only that, but allowing the la would only exacerbate the notion that men and women ministers were different. La ministre was an affront to equality. Man or woman, said the Academy, everyone had the right to be le ministre. But the government did not change its practice. In 2007 the BBC was at it again, reporting that “a new French resistance” was under way. A center-right member of parliament was arguing publicly that the invasion of English words was very dangerous, because “the French language is the spirit of France and of every Frenchman.” A union leader bemoaned the fact that 7 percent of French companies were using English as their official language. The article cited les e-mails, le web, and l’Internet as proof that the English were invading back across the Channel.

The attempt to eradicate la ministre can be defended on grounds of French tradition (“We have always done it this way”) or on the basis of universalism and equality (“Le ministre can be a man or a woman”). Though France is internally politically divided between left and right, language policy is an area of broad agreement: from right to left, there is a national concord on the need to promote and defend French. The Academy’s members include a former center-right president, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, and a well-known socialist (and formerly Communist) journalist, Max Gallo. The right and the nationalists support French language planning in the name of national prestige, while the left argues that French is a key to universal values like liberty, equality, and fraternity.

De Gaulle developed a nuclear bomb for France, yanked his country out of NATO’s military command, and booted the alliance’s headquarters out of Paris. He believed in a strong Europe, with France its undisputed leader, an independent pole of power between the Soviet- and American-led blocs. The main center-right party in France, which has changed offical names repeatedly, is still universally known as the “Gaullist” party, and its leaders—notably Jacques Chirac in recent years—share the America-wary DNA of the general himself. So what greets the visitor arriving at Charles de Gaulle airport today? Among other things, signs reading “The department store capital of fashion,” “Only the brave,” “I ♥ Italian shoes,” and “Duty free like nowhere else.”


pages: 364 words: 99,613

Servant Economy: Where America's Elite Is Sending the Middle Class by Jeff Faux

air traffic controllers' union, Alan Greenspan, back-to-the-land, Bear Stearns, benefit corporation, Bernie Sanders, Black Swan, Bretton Woods, BRICs, British Empire, business cycle, call centre, centre right, classic study, cognitive dissonance, collateralized debt obligation, collective bargaining, creative destruction, Credit Default Swap, credit default swaps / collateralized debt obligations, crony capitalism, currency manipulation / currency intervention, David Brooks, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, disruptive innovation, falling living standards, financial deregulation, financial innovation, full employment, Glass-Steagall Act, guns versus butter model, high-speed rail, hiring and firing, Howard Zinn, Hyman Minsky, illegal immigration, indoor plumbing, informal economy, invisible hand, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, junk bonds, Kevin Roose, Kickstarter, lake wobegon effect, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, market fundamentalism, Martin Wolf, McMansion, medical malpractice, Michael Milken, military-industrial complex, Minsky moment, mortgage debt, Myron Scholes, Naomi Klein, new economy, oil shock, old-boy network, open immigration, Paul Samuelson, plutocrats, price mechanism, price stability, private military company, public intellectual, radical decentralization, Ralph Nader, reserve currency, rising living standards, Robert Shiller, rolodex, Ronald Reagan, Savings and loan crisis, school vouchers, Silicon Valley, single-payer health, Solyndra, South China Sea, statistical model, Steve Jobs, Suez crisis 1956, Thomas L Friedman, Thorstein Veblen, too big to fail, trade route, Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, union organizing, upwardly mobile, urban renewal, War on Poverty, We are the 99%, working poor, Yogi Berra, Yom Kippur War, you are the product

“The fact is, despite all the problems, America’s future is exceedingly bright.”7 Leaving aside that there are no facts about the future, Brooks is an intelligent, widely read center-right pundit. We can trust him to give us the best available arguments for an optimistic tomorrow. Two books impressed him: Rebound: Why America Will Emerge Stronger from the Financial Crisis by economist Stephen Rose and The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050 by Joel Kotkin, whom Brooks calls an “über-geographer.” Rose and Kotkin are smart analysts. They are both former left-leaning thinkers who have moved to the center-right in the last twenty years. Rose begins his case in Rebound with a statistical argument about living standards in the recent past.

As the investment and ethos of the business corporation further infuses U.S. education, teachers will be treated less like professionals with a calling and more like the employees of other for-profit enterprises—that is, judged by their contribution to the bottom line. There is no reason to believe that the Republicans and their center-right Democratic allies will not continue their attacks on teachers’ unions and, by strong inference, on public schools. They will not have to win every political battle, but they will be on the offense, and teachers and other public workers will be on the defense. Arne Duncan’s notion that newly minted and highly motivated fantastic teachers would compensate for large class sizes will prove hollow.


pages: 336 words: 95,773

The Theft of a Decade: How the Baby Boomers Stole the Millennials' Economic Future by Joseph C. Sternberg

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Airbnb, Alan Greenspan, American Legislative Exchange Council, Asian financial crisis, banking crisis, Basel III, Bear Stearns, Bernie Sanders, blue-collar work, centre right, corporate raider, Detroit bankruptcy, Donald Trump, Edward Glaeser, employer provided health coverage, Erik Brynjolfsson, eurozone crisis, financial engineering, future of work, gig economy, Gordon Gekko, hiring and firing, Home mortgage interest deduction, housing crisis, independent contractor, job satisfaction, job-hopping, labor-force participation, low interest rates, low skilled workers, Lyft, Marc Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg, minimum wage unemployment, mortgage debt, mortgage tax deduction, Nate Silver, new economy, obamacare, oil shock, payday loans, pension reform, quantitative easing, Richard Florida, Ronald Reagan, Saturday Night Live, Second Machine Age, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, sovereign wealth fund, Steve Bannon, stop buying avocado toast, TaskRabbit, total factor productivity, Tyler Cowen, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, uber lyft, unpaid internship, women in the workforce

Germans had a national election in September 2017, and the remarkable thing about that campaign was that tax-cut pledges hardly resonated at all. The center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) tried to promise tax cuts for the middle class, to be offset by a tax increase on those with higher incomes. That wasn’t enough to spare the SPD from its worst election result since West German democracy restarted in 1949. As for the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) of Chancellor Angela Merkel, anyone who thought the functional equivalent of the US Republican Party would make a big push for tax reform was sorely mistaken. Merkel started the campaign not wanting to promise any tax cuts at all and had to be dragged into promising a very small package of tax cuts by some right-wing malcontents in her party’s leadership.

* The discussion of Europe in this section will exclude the United Kingdom, which was affected differently by the 2007–2008 crisis and recovered differently afterward. † The first big moment of revelation came in late 2009 and early 2010, when the government in Athens admitted Greece’s budget deficit and national debt were much higher than previous budget statements had suggested. ‡ Italy and Sweden are two countries that don’t. § Members of Britain’s center-right Conservative Party are also known by the nickname Tories. ¶ Baby Boomers born 1946–1965; Millennials born 1981–2000. * Put another way, in 1995, 65 percent of middle-earning households headed by someone born 1961–1970 owned the home they occupied, but by 2015 only 27 percent of middle-earning households with a head born 1981–1990 owned

* They were implemented by SPD chancellor Gerhard Schroeder but are known as the Hartz reforms after Peter Hartz, the former Volkswagen executive who led the panel that proposed the overhauls. † After elections in both 2013 and 2017, Germany emerged with an unwieldy “Grand Coalition” government made up of the main center-right and center-left parties, and the finance minister in her government after 2017 was from the opposing party. This explains why a conservative such as Merkel can end up implementing policy ideas advocated by the Social Democrats. ‡ Lester Thurow, the dean of MIT’s Sloan School of Business in the late 1980s and early 1990s, built a career around warning that Americans were failing to keep up with Japanese competitors who in his telling were better at just about every aspect of economic leadership and corporate management; the timing of his most famous book, 1992’s Head to Head: The Coming Economic Battle Among Japan, Europe, and America, now seems unfortunate in light of the fact that when it came out, Japan was entering into what has now become two decades of near-stagnation.


pages: 412 words: 96,251

Why We're Polarized by Ezra Klein

affirmative action, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, barriers to entry, Bernie Sanders, Black Lives Matter, Cass Sunstein, centre right, Climategate, collapse of Lehman Brothers, currency manipulation / currency intervention, David Brooks, demographic transition, desegregation, disinformation, Donald Trump, ending welfare as we know it, fake news, Ferguson, Missouri, illegal immigration, immigration reform, microaggression, Nate Silver, no-fly zone, obamacare, Ralph Nader, Ronald Reagan, Silicon Valley, single-payer health, source of truth, systems thinking

In 2014, the Pew Research Center conducted a survey measuring trust in different media sources, giving respondents thirty-six different outlets to consider and asking them to rate their trust in each. Respondents who counted as “consistent liberals” trusted a wide variety of media outlets ranging from center-right to left: ABC, Al Jazeera America, the BBC, Bloomberg, CBS, CNN, The Colbert Report, Daily Kos, The Daily Show, the Economist, The Ed Schultz Show, Google News, the Guardian, the Huffington Post, Mother Jones, MSNBC, NBC, the New Yorker, the New York Times, NPR, PBS, Politico, Slate, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and Yahoo!

Those ecosystems create the context in which voters make demands, in which politicians make strategic choices, in which presidential aspirants craft messages. The Democratic Party’s informational ecosystem combines mainstream sources that seek objectivity, liberal sources that push partiality, and even some center-right sources with excellent reputations, like the Economist and the news reporting in the Wall Street Journal. On any given question, liberals trust in sources that pull them left and sources that pull them toward the center, in sources oriented toward escalation and sources oriented toward moderation, in sources that root their identity in a political movement and sources that carefully tend a reputation for being antagonistic toward political movements.

This is the way in which the parties are not structurally symmetrical and thus why they have not responded to a polarizing era in the same ways: Democrats simply can’t win running the kinds of campaigns and deploying the kinds of tactics that succeed for Republicans. They can move to the left—and they are—but they can’t abandon the center or, given the geography of American politics, the center-right, and still hold power. And they know it. In December 2018, well into the Trump era, Gallup asked Democrats and Republicans whether they wanted to see their party become more liberal, more conservative, or more moderate. By a margin of 57–37, Republicans wanted their party to become more conservative; by a margin of 54–41, Democrats wanted their party to become more moderate.24 I. 


pages: 486 words: 150,849

Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America: A Recent History by Kurt Andersen

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", "World Economic Forum" Davos, affirmative action, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, air traffic controllers' union, airline deregulation, airport security, Alan Greenspan, always be closing, American ideology, American Legislative Exchange Council, An Inconvenient Truth, anti-communist, Apple's 1984 Super Bowl advert, artificial general intelligence, autonomous vehicles, basic income, Bear Stearns, Bernie Sanders, blue-collar work, Bonfire of the Vanities, bonus culture, Burning Man, call centre, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, carbon tax, Cass Sunstein, centre right, computer age, contact tracing, coronavirus, corporate governance, corporate raider, cotton gin, COVID-19, creative destruction, Credit Default Swap, cryptocurrency, deep learning, DeepMind, deindustrialization, Donald Trump, Dr. Strangelove, Elon Musk, ending welfare as we know it, Erik Brynjolfsson, feminist movement, financial deregulation, financial innovation, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, future of work, Future Shock, game design, General Motors Futurama, George Floyd, George Gilder, Gordon Gekko, greed is good, Herbert Marcuse, Herman Kahn, High speed trading, hive mind, income inequality, industrial robot, interchangeable parts, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, It's morning again in America, James Watt: steam engine, Jane Jacobs, Jaron Lanier, Jeff Bezos, jitney, Joan Didion, job automation, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, Joseph Schumpeter, junk bonds, Kevin Roose, knowledge worker, lockdown, low skilled workers, Lyft, Mark Zuckerberg, market bubble, mass immigration, mass incarceration, Menlo Park, Naomi Klein, new economy, Norbert Wiener, Norman Mailer, obamacare, Overton Window, Peter Thiel, Picturephone, plutocrats, post-industrial society, Powell Memorandum, pre–internet, public intellectual, Ralph Nader, Right to Buy, road to serfdom, Robert Bork, Robert Gordon, Robert Mercer, Ronald Reagan, Saturday Night Live, Seaside, Florida, Second Machine Age, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, social distancing, Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits, Steve Jobs, Stewart Brand, stock buybacks, strikebreaker, tech billionaire, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, The Future of Employment, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Tim Cook: Apple, too big to fail, trickle-down economics, Tyler Cowen, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, union organizing, universal basic income, Unsafe at Any Speed, urban planning, urban renewal, very high income, wage slave, Wall-E, War on Poverty, We are all Keynesians now, Whole Earth Catalog, winner-take-all economy, women in the workforce, working poor, young professional, éminence grise

But when it asked the question in 2018, the numbers had flipped—58 percent now want the government to do more to help people, a larger majority than ever before in this poll, and only 38 percent want to leave the big-problem-solving to businesses and individuals. Among people under forty, two-thirds or more think we should, through government, be doing more to solve our big problems. 2. On economics, Americans have been leaning pretty left. “America today is not a center-right country,” the Princeton sociologist Paul Starr wrote in 2018, but rather “a country with a center-right economic elite” that has dominated both political parties for a long time, “and a polarized electorate torn between parties on the far right and center left.” I think that’s correct. More specifically, I think the leftist UC Berkeley economist Emmanuel Saez was correct when he said in a 2016 lecture that “in America, people do not have a strong view against inequality per se, as long as inequality is fair,” meaning that “individual income and wealth reflect the value of what people produce or otherwise contribute to the economic system.”

But despite the liberal Establishment’s openness and the right’s new think tanks and foundations and zillionaire donors, it seemed in the 1970s that the antigovernment diehards and libertarian freaks, the Milton Friedmanites and Ayn Randians and Wall Street Journal ideologues, would never really be allowed to run the show. The American ideological center of gravity was plainly undergoing a rightward shift, but wouldn’t the 1980s just turn out to be some kind of modest course correction, like what happened in the late 1940s and ’50s, part of the normal endless back-and-forth pendulum swing from center-left to center-right? We had no idea. Almost nobody foresaw fully the enormity of the sharp turn America was about to take. Nobody knew that we’d keep heading in that direction for half a lifetime, that in the late 1970s big business and the well-to-do were at the start of a forty-year-plus winning streak at the expense of everyone else.

He was a quirky retro figure, some Ben & Jerry’s guy who didn’t realize the 1960s were over and was channeling Eugene Debs and Norman Thomas from the ’20s and ’30s. In 1992, when Clinton won the nomination, his only serious competitors were two fellow New Democrats, Brown and Tsongas. Democrats had settled into their role as America’s economically center-right party. There was no organized, viable national economic left in the vicinity of power. * The earliest use of the phrase socially liberal but fiscally conservative in all 5 million books and other publications digitized by Google was in 1978, in Charles Koch’s magazine Inquiry: A Libertarian Review, to refer to the new ideological territory that Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis and President Carter were both trying to claim.


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The Glass Half-Empty: Debunking the Myth of Progress in the Twenty-First Century by Rodrigo Aguilera

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", "World Economic Forum" Davos, activist fund / activist shareholder / activist investor, Alan Greenspan, Anthropocene, availability heuristic, barriers to entry, basic income, benefit corporation, Berlin Wall, Bernie Madoff, Bernie Sanders, bitcoin, Boris Johnson, Branko Milanovic, Bretton Woods, Brexit referendum, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, capitalist realism, carbon footprint, Carmen Reinhart, centre right, clean water, cognitive bias, collapse of Lehman Brothers, Colonization of Mars, computer age, Corn Laws, corporate governance, corporate raider, creative destruction, cryptocurrency, cuban missile crisis, David Graeber, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, death from overwork, decarbonisation, deindustrialization, Deng Xiaoping, Doha Development Round, don't be evil, Donald Trump, Doomsday Clock, Dunning–Kruger effect, Elon Musk, European colonialism, fake news, Fall of the Berlin Wall, first-past-the-post, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, fundamental attribution error, gig economy, Gini coefficient, Glass-Steagall Act, Great Leap Forward, green new deal, Hans Rosling, housing crisis, income inequality, income per capita, index fund, intangible asset, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invisible hand, Jean Tirole, Jeff Bezos, Jeremy Corbyn, Jevons paradox, job automation, job satisfaction, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, joint-stock company, Joseph Schumpeter, karōshi / gwarosa / guolaosi, Kenneth Rogoff, Kickstarter, lake wobegon effect, land value tax, Landlord’s Game, late capitalism, liberal capitalism, long peace, loss aversion, low interest rates, Mark Zuckerberg, market fundamentalism, means of production, meta-analysis, military-industrial complex, Mont Pelerin Society, moral hazard, moral panic, neoliberal agenda, Network effects, North Sea oil, Northern Rock, offshore financial centre, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, Overton Window, Pareto efficiency, passive investing, Peter Thiel, plutocrats, principal–agent problem, profit motive, public intellectual, purchasing power parity, race to the bottom, rent-seeking, risk tolerance, road to serfdom, Robert Shiller, Robert Solow, savings glut, Scientific racism, secular stagnation, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley ideology, Slavoj Žižek, Social Justice Warrior, Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits, sovereign wealth fund, Stanislav Petrov, Steven Pinker, structural adjustment programs, surveillance capitalism, tail risk, tech bro, TED Talk, The Spirit Level, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, too big to fail, trade liberalization, transatlantic slave trade, trolley problem, unbiased observer, universal basic income, Vilfredo Pareto, Washington Consensus, Winter of Discontent, Y2K, young professional, zero-sum game

Far-right parties have also gained ground in many other countries including in Germany, arguably the country that has done more than any other in the world to purge extremism from its society given its Nazi past. Britain has recently joined the ranks, having selected one of the three horsemen of Brexit, Boris Johnson, as Prime Minister in July 2019 and showing that the reactionary, xenophobic rot in the ostensibly center-right British Conservative Party runs deep. But this is not just a Western phenomenon, it is global — with countries as disparate as the Philippines and Brazil also turning to the far right and proving that the narrative of white working-class discontent combined with anti-immigration sentiment is not the sole explanation for the appeal of these leaders.

The election of Jair Bolsonaro needs little explanation beyond the fact that Brazil was suffering from an economic crisis that wiped out around one-tenth of its GDP per capita between 2014–2016, as well as a series of corruption scandals that have tarnished the reputation of both traditional left and right-wing parties, and an endemic crime wave which has crept up over the course of the decade.41 Caudillismo in Latin America also transcends ideology: Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez was voted in after years of economic mismanagement from the country’s two main center-left/center-right parties which by the late 1990s were virtually indistinguishable from each other. Eastern Europe, arguably the region in the world that has more brazenly embraced far-right populism, can be understood in the context of a search for national identity after decades (arguably centuries) of foreign domination, coupled with a post-2009 crisis of legitimacy in the EU and a refugee crisis in 2015–2016 that hardened the region’s already highly xenophobic attitudes.42 In the end, it must be reemphasized that there is no single, dominant explanation for democracy’s discontents any more than a single indicator like higher life satisfaction can provide any validity to the progress narrative.

Because mixed economies are still fundamentally capitalist, they also retain an economic elite that will have much more bargaining power with the political class. Britain is an excellent example of a comprehensive post-war social democracy that was considerably withered down during the Thatcher era and further still during the age of Tory austerity since 2010. Whereas center-right governments of the post-war era were benevolent enough to accept the social democratic consensus, the increasing polarization of politics across the globe puts every welfare state at risk, not just from the right but from center-left parties that still haven’t detached themselves from the laissez-faire mentality that they broadly embraced since the 1980s.


From Peoples into Nations by John Connelly

Albert Einstein, anti-communist, bank run, Berlin Wall, Cass Sunstein, centre right, collective bargaining, colonial exploitation, colonial rule, crony capitalism, cuban missile crisis, disinformation, facts on the ground, Fall of the Berlin Wall, financial independence, German hyperinflation, Gini coefficient, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, joint-stock company, laissez-faire capitalism, land bank, land reform, land tenure, liberal capitalism, means of production, Mikhail Gorbachev, moral hazard, oil shock, old-boy network, open borders, Panopticon Jeremy Bentham, Peace of Westphalia, profit motive, purchasing power parity, Ronald Reagan, strikebreaker, the built environment, The Chicago School, trade liberalization, Transnistria, union organizing, upwardly mobile, wikimedia commons, women in the workforce

At least that would be the fascists’ compelling argument. But the Linz Program was not simply fascism’s harbinger. What made it a pivot to the future, revealing the centrality of the German-Slavic dispute in Cisleithania, was that a program cooked up by dissenting intellectuals could grow into mass movements of the center right—into pan-Germanism and Christian Socialism—but also Marxian Social Democracy, in each case appealing to fears of decline in wide swaths of the population. The only solution that Habsburg leaders had for the fragmentation of the post-liberal landscape, and the challenges of forming governing coalitions in a mass of new parties, was to broaden the electorate in hopes of creating some whose appeal would stretch across ethnic lines.

Christian Socialist movements had emerged elsewhere in the nineteenth century, from the United States and the United Kingdom to France and Imperial Germany, but they hovered on the margins of politics. The same was true of Christian Socialism in Vienna in the late 1880s, before Lueger came on the scene, looking for a cause that he might make equal to his ambitions. Without Lueger, Christian Socialism would not have seized power in Vienna; there would have been no center-right movement that gathered and led much of the Catholic proletariat as well as clergy, beyond Vienna and into small towns and villages. Lueger gave form to demands that would have remained incoherent, and the early leadership saw in him a figure of providence. When Christian Socialism’s intellectual father, Karl von Vogelsang, heard Lueger address a meeting in 1888, he exclaimed: “Now we have our leader!”

Reflecting local power structures, Piast tended to be conservative, willing to cooperate with the left and right, depending on opportunity, somewhat along the lines of parties in Italy or Romania. By contrast, Wyzwolenie was revolutionary, reflecting the desperate conditions of political life in tsarist Russia. Piast, under former Austrian Reichsrat deputy Wincenty Witos, became a center-right machine party that brokered most of the coalitions of the six years of Polish parliamentary rule. Because of the many Ukrainians in its home base of Galicia, the party did not support land reform that might weaken the “Polish element.” Wyzwolenie by contrast favored radical land reform and sympathized with the interests of ethnic minorities.


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Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House by Michael Wolff

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, barriers to entry, Bernie Sanders, Biosphere 2, Carl Icahn, centre right, disinformation, disintermediation, Donald Trump, drone strike, Edward Snowden, Elon Musk, fake news, false flag, forensic accounting, illegal immigration, impulse control, Jeff Bezos, Jeffrey Epstein, obamacare, open immigration, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, Paris climate accords, Peter Thiel, Renaissance Technologies, ride hailing / ride sharing, Robert Mercer, Ronald Reagan, Russian election interference, Saturday Night Live, self-driving car, Sheryl Sandberg, Silicon Valley, single-payer health, Steve Bannon, Travis Kalanick, WikiLeaks, zero-sum game

Scarborough and Brzezinski lectured him, channeled the concerns of his friends and family, upbraided him, and openly worried about him—that he was getting the wrong advice (Bannon) and, too, that his mental powers were slipping. They also staked a claim at representing the reasonable center-right alternative to the president, and indeed were quite a good barometer of both the center-right’s efforts to deal with him and its day-to-day difficulties of living with him. Trump, believing he had been used and abused by Scarborough and Brzezinski, claimed he’d stopped watching the show. But Hope Hicks, every morning, quaking, had to recount it for him.

For Bannon, the ideologue, Cohn was the exact inverse, a commodities trader doing what traders do—read the room and figure out which way the wind is blowing. “Getting Gary to take a position on something is like nailing butterflies to the wall,” commented Katie Walsh. Cohn started to describe a soon-to-be White House that would be business-focused and committed to advancing center-right to moderate positions. In this new configuration, Bannon would be marginalized and Cohn, who was dismissive of Priebus, would be the chief of staff in waiting. To Cohn, it seemed like easy street. Of course it would work out this way: Priebus was a lightweight and Bannon a slob who couldn’t run anything.


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An Extraordinary Time: The End of the Postwar Boom and the Return of the Ordinary Economy by Marc Levinson

affirmative action, airline deregulation, Alan Greenspan, banking crisis, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Boycotts of Israel, Bretton Woods, business cycle, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, car-free, Carmen Reinhart, central bank independence, centre right, clean water, deindustrialization, endogenous growth, falling living standards, financial deregulation, flag carrier, floating exchange rates, full employment, George Gilder, Gini coefficient, global supply chain, Great Leap Forward, guns versus butter model, high-speed rail, income inequality, income per capita, indoor plumbing, informal economy, intermodal, inverted yield curve, invisible hand, It's morning again in America, Kenneth Rogoff, knowledge economy, late capitalism, Les Trente Glorieuses, linear programming, low interest rates, manufacturing employment, Multi Fibre Arrangement, new economy, Nixon shock, Nixon triggered the end of the Bretton Woods system, North Sea oil, oil shock, Paul Samuelson, pension reform, Phillips curve, price stability, purchasing power parity, refrigerator car, Right to Buy, rising living standards, Robert Gordon, rolodex, Ronald Coase, Ronald Reagan, Simon Kuznets, statistical model, strikebreaker, structural adjustment programs, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, Thomas Malthus, total factor productivity, unorthodox policies, upwardly mobile, War on Poverty, Washington Consensus, Winter of Discontent, Wolfgang Streeck, women in the workforce, working-age population, yield curve, Yom Kippur War, zero-sum game

With their ideas completely discredited by the disastrous effects of Mitterrand’s nationalization program, the Communists went into a tail-spin, becoming only a marginal presence in French political life. Although Mitterrand remained president, the failure of his two very different policies to produce jobs and restore growth led voters to put a center-right coalition in control of the National Assembly in 1986. In an arrangement without precedent in France, Jacques Chirac, the center-right mayor of Paris, became prime minister under a Socialist president. It was Chirac’s campaign for the presidency in 1981 that had split the anti-Socialist vote, depriving Giscard of a second term; Mitterrand’s decision to select him as prime minister over other conservative leaders repaid the favor.

The electorate, which overwhelmingly supported capital punishment and distrusted the Communists, was charmed. In May 1981, with the economy slumping, the unemployment rate headed toward 7 percent, the franc under attack in the currency markets, and the inflation rate stuck in the double digits, voters turned out in record numbers to give the Socialists a chance.4 IN HIS PROLONGED MIGRATION FROM CENTER-RIGHT TO CENTER-LEFT, Mitterrand had never given much thought to economics. Not one of his many ministerial posts had involved economic affairs, and as an opposition deputy in the National Assembly, his attention was devoted mainly to internal party matters. He and his chief economic adviser, Jacques Attali, paid lip service to Karl Marx—the Socialists could succeed at the polls only by pulling in supporters of the Communists, who had yet to lose their fondness for Marxian dogma—but they saw the source of the crisis as declining profits, which, in their understanding, caused businesses to raise prices and cut back on hiring.5 In 1975, Attali had proposed a range of policies to create jobs, such as subsidizing the labor-intensive industries that would be most likely to hire large numbers of workers; taxing capital-intensive industries in the hope that this would prompt them to make greater use of labor instead of replacing workers with machines; nationalizing companies so the state would have direct control over their hiring and investment decisions; and gradually shortening the workweek in the hope that employers would hire additional people to do the same amount of work.


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The Third Industrial Revolution: How Lateral Power Is Transforming Energy, the Economy, and the World by Jeremy Rifkin

3D printing, additive manufacturing, Albert Einstein, American ideology, An Inconvenient Truth, barriers to entry, behavioural economics, bike sharing, borderless world, carbon footprint, centre right, clean tech, collaborative consumption, collaborative economy, Community Supported Agriculture, corporate governance, decarbonisation, deep learning, distributed generation, electricity market, en.wikipedia.org, energy security, energy transition, Ford Model T, global supply chain, Great Leap Forward, high-speed rail, hydrogen economy, income inequality, industrial cluster, informal economy, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invisible hand, Isaac Newton, job automation, knowledge economy, manufacturing employment, marginal employment, Martin Wolf, Masdar, megacity, Mikhail Gorbachev, new economy, off grid, off-the-grid, oil shale / tar sands, oil shock, open borders, peak oil, Ponzi scheme, post-oil, purchasing power parity, Ray Kurzweil, rewilding, Robert Solow, Ronald Reagan, scientific management, scientific worldview, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, Skype, smart grid, smart meter, Spread Networks laid a new fibre optics cable between New York and Chicago, supply-chain management, systems thinking, tech billionaire, the market place, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, too big to fail, transaction costs, trickle-down economics, urban planning, urban renewal, Yom Kippur War, Zipcar

I was already scheduled to be in Rome a few weeks later on September 27 to deliver a speech before members of the Italian Parliament on the need to lay the groundwork for an empathic civilization and biosphere consciousness. Gianfranco Fini, the moderate center-right speaker of the lower house of the Parliament, had read my book, The Empathic Civilization, and was taken by the alternative narrative of the history of human consciousness and anxious to give the book a wider political audience. I decided to combine my visit with a face-to-face meeting with Epifani. So, I spent September 27 with Italy’s center-right parliamentary leader and the leader of the Italian trade union movement—whose political affiliations couldn’t be more different.

ALL NODES CONNECT WITH ROME Prime Minister Zapatero is a socialist and his administration is one of the leading socialist powers in the world today. But the Third Industrial Revolution vision doesn’t belong to any particular political party affiliation. In Rome, Mayor Gianni Alemanno is with the People of Freedom party and part of the center-right Berlusconi coalition government. But his vision of a Third Industrial Revolution for Rome aligns him far more closely with Prime Minister Zapatero’s thinking than with that of his own prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi. The mayor’s attention is focused on two goals: breathing fresh life into the Rome economy by becoming a leader among the world’s great cities in sustainability, and securing the 2020 Olympics games for the city (Rome has not hosted the Olympic games since 1960).


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End This Depression Now! by Paul Krugman

airline deregulation, Alan Greenspan, Asian financial crisis, asset-backed security, bank run, banking crisis, bond market vigilante , Bretton Woods, business cycle, capital asset pricing model, Carmen Reinhart, centre right, correlation does not imply causation, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, currency manipulation / currency intervention, debt deflation, Eugene Fama: efficient market hypothesis, financial deregulation, financial innovation, Financial Instability Hypothesis, full employment, German hyperinflation, Glass-Steagall Act, Gordon Gekko, high-speed rail, Hyman Minsky, income inequality, inflation targeting, invisible hand, it is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it, It's morning again in America, James Carville said: "I would like to be reincarnated as the bond market. You can intimidate everybody.", Joseph Schumpeter, junk bonds, Kenneth Rogoff, liquidationism / Banker’s doctrine / the Treasury view, liquidity trap, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, low skilled workers, Mark Zuckerberg, Minsky moment, Money creation, money market fund, moral hazard, mortgage debt, negative equity, paradox of thrift, Paul Samuelson, price stability, quantitative easing, rent-seeking, Robert Gordon, Ronald Reagan, Savings and loan crisis, Upton Sinclair, We are all Keynesians now, We are the 99%, working poor, Works Progress Administration

Let me start by talking about the possibility of a decisive change in policy direction. Nothing Succeeds like Success Pundits are always making confident statements about what the American electorate wants and believes, and such presumed public views are often used to wave away any suggestion of major policy changes, at least from the left. America is a “center-right country,” we’re told, and that rules out any major initiatives involving new government spending. And to be fair, there are lines, both to the left and to the right, that policy probably can’t cross without inviting electoral disaster. George W. Bush discovered that when he tried to privatize Social Security after the 2004 election: the public hated the idea, and his attempted juggernaut on the issue quickly stalled.

., 153 Treasury bills, 153 Trichet, Jean-Claude, 186, 188, 195, 196 Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), 116 trucking industry, deregulation of, 61 Two-Income Trap, The (Warren and Tyagi), 84 Tyagi, Amelia, 84 UBS, 86 unemployment, 114, 198, 208 austerity policies and, xi, 189, 203–4, 207, 237–38 churning and, 9 college graduates and, 11–12, 16, 37, 144–45 confidence and, 94–96 definitions of, 7–8 demand and, 33, 47 in depression of 2008–, x, 5–12, 24, 110, 117, 119, 210, 212 in Europe, 4, 17, 18, 172, 176, 229, 236 government spending and, 209, 212 in Great Depression, 38 historical patterns of, 128–29 as involuntary, 6 lack of skills and, 35, 36–38 liquidity traps and, 33, 51, 152 Obama administration and, 110, 117 post-2009 decreases in, 4, 210, 211, 211, 229 prosperity and, 9 sense of well-being and, 6 stagflation and, 154 wages and, 52–53, 164–65 among youth, 11, 18, 229 see also job-creation policies unemployment, long-term, 9–10 in Great Depression, 38 health insurance and, 10 loss of skills in, 144 self-esteem and, 10–11 stigma of, 10, 15–16, 144 unemployment insurance, 10, 120, 121, 144, 216, 229 in Europe, 176 unionization, decline in, 82 United Kingdom, 59, 183 austerity programs in, 190, 199–202 depression of 2008– in, 199–202 EEC joined by, 167 government debt as percentage of GDP in, 139, 140, 140, 192 interest rates in, 182–83, 201 lend-lease program and, 39 turn to right in, 83 United States: as “center-right” country, 224 China’s trade with, 221 government debt as percentage of GDP in, 139, 140, 192 net international investment position of, 44 post-2009 recovery in, 4 pre-World War II military buildup in, 35, 38–39 risk of default by, 139 S&P downgrade of, 140 social safety net in, 10, 216 turn to right in, 83 universal health care, 18 Vanity Fair, 71 Very Serious People, xi, 190, 205 wages: devaluation and, 169–70, 180–81 downward nominal rigidity of, 164–65, 181 unemployment and, 52–53, 164–65 Wall Street (film), 80 Wall Street Journal, 134, 138 Warren, Elizabeth, 84 wars, economies and, 233–37 Weill, Sandy, 85 well-being, sense of, 5–6 unemployment and, 6 workers: as lacking skills, 35, 36–38 layoffs of, 41 technology as creating redundancies of, 36 see also unemployment Works Progress Administration, 121 World War II, 50, 107 government spending in, 148, 234–35, 235 lend-lease program in, 39 military buildup prior to U.S. entry into, 35, 38–39 U.S. debt after, 141 Yale University, 93 Yardeni, Ed, 132 Yglesias, Matthew, 87–88, 225 youth, unemployment among, 11, 18, 229 zero lower bound, of interest rates, 33–34, 51, 117, 135–36, 147, 151, 152, 163, 231, 236 Zimbabwe, 150 Zuckerberg, Mark, 78 Zuckerman, Mort, 95 Copyright © 2012 by Melrose Road Partners All rights reserved First Edition For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, W.


pages: 497 words: 123,778

The People vs. Democracy: Why Our Freedom Is in Danger and How to Save It by Yascha Mounk

Abraham Maslow, affirmative action, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, An Inconvenient Truth, Andrew Keen, basic income, battle of ideas, Black Lives Matter, Boris Johnson, Branko Milanovic, Bretton Woods, business cycle, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, carried interest, Cass Sunstein, central bank independence, centre right, classic study, clean water, cognitive bias, conceptual framework, critical race theory, David Brooks, deindustrialization, demographic transition, desegregation, disinformation, Donald Trump, en.wikipedia.org, Evgeny Morozov, fake news, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, gentrification, German hyperinflation, gig economy, Gini coefficient, Herbert Marcuse, Home mortgage interest deduction, housing crisis, income inequality, invention of the printing press, invention of the steam engine, investor state dispute settlement, Jeremy Corbyn, job automation, Joseph Schumpeter, land value tax, low skilled workers, Lyft, manufacturing employment, Mark Zuckerberg, mass immigration, microaggression, mortgage tax deduction, Naomi Klein, new economy, offshore financial centre, open borders, Parag Khanna, plutocrats, post-materialism, price stability, ride hailing / ride sharing, rising living standards, Ronald Reagan, Rosa Parks, Rutger Bregman, secular stagnation, sharing economy, Steve Bannon, Thomas L Friedman, Tyler Cowen, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, universal basic income, upwardly mobile, World Values Survey, zero-sum game

As the political scientists Seymour Martin Lipset and Stein Rokkan observed, for much of the postwar era, the party structure in most Western European and North American countries appeared “frozen.”7 For the latter decades of the twentieth century, the main political movements represented in the parliaments of Bern, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Ottawa, Paris, Stockholm, and Washington barely changed. While their relative strength shifted from election to election, allowing the center-left to win office when the center-right had been in power for a while, and vice versa, the basic shape of the party structure was remarkably stable.8 Then, over the past twenty years, the party system rapidly thawed. In one country after another, political parties that had been marginal or nonexistent until a few short years ago established themselves as firm fixtures on the political scene.9 The first major democracy to go through this process was Italy.

And yet he went on to dominate the country’s politics for the next quarter century.10 At the time, Italy looked like an aberration. Over the past years, as political newcomers have risen to power and influence across Europe, it has become obvious that it was anything but. In Greece, the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK), the major party of the center-left, and New Democracy, the major party of the center-right, traditionally took about 80 percent of the vote between them; but in January 2015, the Coalition of the Radical Left, or Syriza, stormed into office under the leadership of Alexis Tsipras, winning an unexpected majority.11 In Spain, Pablo Iglesias, a young lecturer on political science at the Complutense University of Madrid who spent his days teaching courses like “Cinema, Political Identities, and Hegemony” founded a protest movement in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis; at the 2015 elections, Podemos got 21 percent of the vote, becoming Spain’s third strongest party.12 Even in Italy, a new generation of populists is pulling off the same feat of transformation as the old: Beppe Grillo, a popular comedian, started the Five Star Movement in 2009; as I am writing these lines, it is leading all other parties in the polls.13 The ascent of far-right parties has been even more striking than that of far-left parties like Syriza and Podemos.

In Greece, the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK), the major party of the center-left, and New Democracy, the major party of the center-right, traditionally took about 80 percent of the vote between them; but in January 2015, the Coalition of the Radical Left, or Syriza, stormed into office under the leadership of Alexis Tsipras, winning an unexpected majority.11 In Spain, Pablo Iglesias, a young lecturer on political science at the Complutense University of Madrid who spent his days teaching courses like “Cinema, Political Identities, and Hegemony” founded a protest movement in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis; at the 2015 elections, Podemos got 21 percent of the vote, becoming Spain’s third strongest party.12 Even in Italy, a new generation of populists is pulling off the same feat of transformation as the old: Beppe Grillo, a popular comedian, started the Five Star Movement in 2009; as I am writing these lines, it is leading all other parties in the polls.13 The ascent of far-right parties has been even more striking than that of far-left parties like Syriza and Podemos. In Sweden, the Social Democratic Party has dominated politics for over a century, only occasionally ceding the government to a center-right coalition led by the Moderate Party; but in recent years, the Sweden Democrats, political upstarts with deep roots in the neo-Nazi movement, have risen rapidly, leading in some polls and taking second place in others.14 In France, the Front National has long been a fixture of the political system.


pages: 593 words: 183,240

An Economic History of the Twentieth Century by J. Bradford Delong

affirmative action, Alan Greenspan, Andrei Shleifer, ASML, asset-backed security, Ayatollah Khomeini, banking crisis, Bear Stearns, Bretton Woods, British Empire, business cycle, buy and hold, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, Carmen Reinhart, centre right, collapse of Lehman Brothers, collective bargaining, colonial rule, coronavirus, cotton gin, COVID-19, creative destruction, crowdsourcing, cryptocurrency, cuban missile crisis, deindustrialization, demographic transition, Deng Xiaoping, Donald Trump, en.wikipedia.org, ending welfare as we know it, endogenous growth, Fairchild Semiconductor, fake news, financial deregulation, financial engineering, financial repression, flying shuttle, Ford Model T, Ford paid five dollars a day, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, full employment, general purpose technology, George Gilder, German hyperinflation, global value chain, Great Leap Forward, Gunnar Myrdal, Haber-Bosch Process, Hans Rosling, hedonic treadmill, Henry Ford's grandson gave labor union leader Walter Reuther a tour of the company’s new, automated factory…, housing crisis, Hyman Minsky, income inequality, income per capita, industrial research laboratory, interchangeable parts, Internet Archive, invention of agriculture, invention of the steam engine, It's morning again in America, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Rogoff, labor-force participation, land reform, late capitalism, Les Trente Glorieuses, liberal capitalism, liquidity trap, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, manufacturing employment, market bubble, means of production, megacity, Menlo Park, Mikhail Gorbachev, mortgage debt, mutually assured destruction, Neal Stephenson, occupational segregation, oil shock, open borders, open economy, Paul Samuelson, Pearl River Delta, Phillips curve, plutocrats, price stability, Productivity paradox, profit maximization, public intellectual, quantitative easing, Ralph Waldo Emerson, restrictive zoning, rising living standards, road to serfdom, Robert Gordon, Robert Solow, rolodex, Ronald Coase, Ronald Reagan, savings glut, secular stagnation, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, social intelligence, Stanislav Petrov, strikebreaker, structural adjustment programs, Suez canal 1869, surveillance capitalism, The Bell Curve by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, The Chicago School, The Great Moderation, The Nature of the Firm, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, too big to fail, transaction costs, transatlantic slave trade, transcontinental railway, TSMC, union organizing, vertical integration, W. E. B. Du Bois, Wayback Machine, Yom Kippur War

Luxemburg and Liebknecht were summarily shot and dumped into a canal—without even the pretense that they were trying to escape. The left wing of the Social Democratic Party of Germany split off, never forgave, and never forgot. From then on, their principal adversary was not the monarchists, not the plutocrats, not the center-right, not the fascists, but rather Ebert’s party, the Social Democrats. The Austro-Hungarian emperor, Karl I, likewise abdicated in November 1918. His regime was carved into individual nation-states very, very roughly following extremely blurry ethnolinguistic borders. The last to fall was the Ottoman Empire’s Mehmed VI Vahideddin (Revelation of Faith), sultan, successor of Muhammed, Commander of the Faithful, Caesar of Rome, and Custodian of the Two Holy Places, the last wielder of the sword of imperial dynasty founder Osman (1299–1324).

This is somewhat of a surprise: Why did the Great Depression not push the United States to the right, into reaction, or protofascism, or fascism, as it did in so many other countries, but instead to the left? My guess is that it was sheer luck—Herbert Hoover and the Republicans were in power when the Great Depression started, and they were thrown out of office in 1932. That Franklin Roosevelt was center-left rather than center-right, that the length of the Great Depression meant that institutions were shaped by it in a durable sense, and that the United States was the world’s rising superpower, and the only major power not crippled to some degree by World War II—all these factors made a huge difference. After World War II, the United States had the power and the will to shape the world outside the Iron Curtain.

In a world that still had a very large gap between average returns on safe and risky assets, was it not worthwhile to encourage financial experimentation, to explore what mechanisms might induce more risk-bearing on the part of investors, even if it led to some cowboy-finance excesses?5 “It is only when the tide goes out,” long-term investor Warren Buffett always likes to say, “that you discover who has been swimming naked.”6 Central banks’ confidence that they could manage whatever problems arose, and center-right governments’ enthusiasm for financial nonregulation, meant that a relatively small shock to the global financial system came appallingly close to delivering a repeat of the Great Depression in the years after 2007, and did deliver a lost half decade as far as global north economic progress was concerned.


pages: 283 words: 73,093

Social Democratic America by Lane Kenworthy

affirmative action, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Alan Greenspan, barriers to entry, basic income, benefit corporation, business cycle, carbon tax, Celtic Tiger, centre right, clean water, collective bargaining, corporate governance, David Brooks, desegregation, Edward Glaeser, endogenous growth, full employment, Gini coefficient, hiring and firing, Home mortgage interest deduction, illegal immigration, income inequality, invisible hand, Kenneth Arrow, labor-force participation, manufacturing employment, market bubble, minimum wage unemployment, new economy, off-the-grid, postindustrial economy, purchasing power parity, race to the bottom, rent-seeking, rising living standards, Robert Gordon, Robert Shiller, Ronald Reagan, school choice, shareholder value, sharing economy, Skype, Steve Jobs, too big to fail, Tyler Cowen, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, union organizing, universal basic income, War on Poverty, working poor, zero day

Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein point to another indicator of the rightward shift among Republican legislators: the size of the House GOP’s right-wing caucus, the Republican Study Committee, or RSC. Paul Weyrich and other conservative activists created the committee in 1973 as an informal group to pull the center-right party much further to the right. It had only 10 to 20 percent of Republican representatives as members as recently as the 1980s, a small fringe group. In the 112th Congress [2011–12], the RSC had 166 members, or nearly seven-tenths of the caucus.52 FIGURE 5.7 Voting by Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate Average “dimension 1 DW-nominate” scores for Republican legislators and Democratic legislators in the House of Representatives and the Senate.

If the Tea Party remains vibrant, it will continue to push Republicans toward the extreme.56 The same is true of Grover Norquist and his “taxpayer protection” pledge, which most congressional Republicans have felt obliged to sign. But if history is any guide, these barriers to moderation eventually will be eclipsed or disappear. In the long run, the center of gravity in the Republican Party probably will be similar to that of center-right parties in Western Europe, most of which accept a generous welfare state and relatively high taxes. Veto Points Impede Backsliding In the race to the good society, America is a tortoise.57 We advance slowly, but we do advance. While our veto-point-heavy political system impedes progressive change, it also makes it difficult for opponents of government social programs to dilute or do away with them once they are in place.


pages: 183 words: 17,571

Broken Markets: A User's Guide to the Post-Finance Economy by Kevin Mellyn

Alan Greenspan, banking crisis, banks create money, Basel III, Bear Stearns, Bernie Madoff, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, bond market vigilante , Bonfire of the Vanities, bonus culture, Bretton Woods, BRICs, British Empire, business cycle, buy and hold, call centre, Carmen Reinhart, central bank independence, centre right, cloud computing, collapse of Lehman Brothers, collateralized debt obligation, compensation consultant, corporate governance, corporate raider, creative destruction, credit crunch, crony capitalism, currency manipulation / currency intervention, currency risk, disintermediation, eurozone crisis, fiat currency, financial innovation, financial repression, floating exchange rates, Fractional reserve banking, Glass-Steagall Act, global reserve currency, global supply chain, Home mortgage interest deduction, index fund, information asymmetry, joint-stock company, Joseph Schumpeter, junk bonds, labor-force participation, light touch regulation, liquidity trap, London Interbank Offered Rate, low interest rates, market bubble, market clearing, Martin Wolf, means of production, Michael Milken, mobile money, Money creation, money market fund, moral hazard, mortgage debt, mortgage tax deduction, negative equity, Nixon triggered the end of the Bretton Woods system, Paul Volcker talking about ATMs, Ponzi scheme, profit motive, proprietary trading, prudent man rule, quantitative easing, Real Time Gross Settlement, regulatory arbitrage, reserve currency, rising living standards, Ronald Coase, Savings and loan crisis, seigniorage, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, SoftBank, Solyndra, statistical model, Steve Jobs, The Great Moderation, the payments system, Tobin tax, too big to fail, transaction costs, underbanked, Works Progress Administration, yield curve, Yogi Berra, zero-sum game

What went terribly wrong with finance is that it became too complacent, too complicated, and too concentrated at the same time over the course of the Great Moderation. New, quantitative approaches to managing and pricing risk, elegant computer simulations, and highly liquid global markets to distribute risk promised to move finance out of the dark ages of boom and bust. Governments of both the center-left and center-right embraced the financedriven economy because it delivered the goods in the form of economic growth and job creation.The so-called Anglo-Saxon economies with their dynamic capital markets and global investment banks outpaced other developed economies in Europe and Asia. Bill Clinton and Tony Blair both enjoyed long periods in office and in return delivered “light-touch” regulation to the bankers who were among their largest financial supporters.

The term solidarity is often evoked in Europe as the moral foundation of this economic and social setup. Since 2008, the United States has swung toward the European model for two reasons. The first and probably least important was the election of a government that finds it attractive on grounds of “fairness,” something akin to solidarity. America remains too much of a center-right country for that tendency to go uncontested, as the congressional election of 2010 proved, so the political system remains gridlocked.The second and more intractable reason is that a long, disguised drift toward structural unemployment has become a riptide. The Hollowing Out of America The credit-fueled consumption and growth of the quarter-century leading up to the crisis obscured a profound hollowing out of the American economy.


pages: 319 words: 75,257

Trumpocalypse: Restoring American Democracy by David Frum

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, anti-globalists, Bernie Sanders, carbon tax, centre right, coronavirus, currency manipulation / currency intervention, decarbonisation, deplatforming, disinformation, Donald Trump, Edward Snowden, employer provided health coverage, fake news, green new deal, Greta Thunberg, illegal immigration, immigration reform, labor-force participation, manufacturing employment, mass immigration, microaggression, Mikhail Gorbachev, Nate Silver, obamacare, offshore financial centre, open immigration, Paris climate accords, Peter Thiel, plutocrats, QAnon, rent-seeking, Ronald Reagan, Saturday Night Live, Silicon Valley, Steve Bannon, W. E. B. Du Bois

But the radicalization of conservative politics after the election of Barack Obama opened a terrifying question. Those brain impulses that incline some of us toward authority and in-group loyalty—what happens to those impulses if they cannot find a decent home? Lacking a responsible, moderate-minded center-right, those inclined to be “conservative” will succumb to more sinister influences. After 2008, the sorcerer’s apprentices of the conservative world conjured up demons, intending to control them. But the demons proved too strong for them and knocked them aside, hurling open the door to the sorcerer himself, Donald Trump.

See Britain United Nations, 47, 151 US Army, 92 USA Today, 55 US attorneys, 36, 126 US Congress, 22, 92, 171 DC statehood and, 122 elections of 2018, 109, 117, 182–83 gun safety and, 117 oversight authority of, 3, 37, 125 reforms and, 127 Russia and, 89 Ukraine and, 1, 89, 100 US Constitution, 3, 37, 60, 67, 71, 78, 86, 98–102, 119, 121, 191 Amendments, 71 Article II, 98–100 US House of Representatives, 13, 38, 84–85, 106, 183, 184 Foreign Affairs Committee, 33 Intelligence Committee, 67, 127 United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), 178 US Senate, 38, 71, 77, 81, 120–3, 126 Intelligence Committee, 127 US Supreme Court, 71–72, 79–81, 85, 109, 119, 123–24 US-UK Free Trade Agreement, 173 University of California, 132–33 University of Virginia, 110 Vanity Fair, 25 Venezuela, 67 Vermont, 118, 121, 122 Veterans’ Day, 91 Veterans of Foreign Wars, 170 Vietnam, 51, 160 Vindman, Alexander, 67 Virginia, 81–82, 123, 183–84 Vogtle nuclear complex, 166 Vogue, 19 Votel, Joseph, 94 voting rights, 71, 87, 119, 146 Constitution and, 71 gerrymandering and, 78–79 suppression, 124 Trump claims of “illegal,” 77 voter ID laws, 80–81, 124 voter roll purges, 79–80 voter suppression, 82, 182, 186, 189 voting places and, 124 Washington DC and, 71 Voting Rights Act (1965), 71, 81, 123–24 voting technology, 124 wages, 65, 86, 101, 129, 148, 154 Walker, Scott, 78 Wall Street Journal, 12, 82 Walmart, 112 Warren, Elizabeth, 108, 111, 130 Warsaw Pact, 45 Washington, DC, 71, 91, 118, 121–23 statehood and, 122–23 Washington Post, 17, 21, 29, 42–43, 82, 87, 94, 97 Washington State, 117 waterboarding, 46 Watergate scandal, 1, 85, 99, 118, 125–26, 183 wealth concentration, 154, 188 weather, extreme, 155 Weather Underground, 61 Weinstein, Harvey, 117 West Africa, 22, 45, 145 White House advisory panels, 92 white liberals, 107–8 white nationalism, 6, 49–50, 55–56, 60, 65, 187 white privilege, 110 white voters, 76–77, 111, 141, 182 white women, 14, 109 Wilde, Oscar, 25 Will, George, 196 Williamson, Marianne, 107 Wilmington, Ohio, 82 wind turbines, 42, 164 Winthrop poll, 110 Wintour, Anna, 19 Wisconsin, 76, 78–80, 124 women cost of having children and, 148 elections and, 109–20, 183–84 male sexual anger and, 65–66 political attitudes of, 14 treatment of, 129 voting rights and, 71, 77 Woodward, Bob, 88 World Trade Organization (WTO), 41 World War II, 47, 99, 132, 144–45, 165, 180 Wyoming, 121–22 Yale University, 18 Yang, Andrew, 107 Yemen, 46, 173 Yiannopoulos, Milo, 59, 60 Yoho, Ted, 37–38 young people, 13, 148–49 YouTube, 15, 64, 197 Zelensky, Volodymyr, 89, 126 zero-tolerance, 22 Zito, Salena, 82 About the Author David Frum is a staff writer at the Atlantic. He has written or cowritten nine previous books, three of them New York Times bestsellers. In 2001 and 2002, he served as speechwriter and special assistant to President George W. Bush. From 2014 through 2017, he chaired Policy Exchange, Britain’s leading center-right think tank. He and his wife, Danielle Crittenden Frum, live in Washington, DC, and Wellington, Ontario. They have three children. Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com. Also by David Frum Trumpocracy: The Corruption of the American Republic Patriots: A Novel Why Romney Lost (And What the GOP Can Do About It) Comeback: Conservatism That Can Win Again The Right Man: An Inside Account of the Bush White House An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror (with Richard Perle) How We Got Here: The 70’s, The Decade That Brought You Modern Life (For Better or Worse) What’s Right: The New Conservative Majority and the Remaking of America Dead Right Copyright trumpocalypse.


pages: 211 words: 78,547

How Elites Ate the Social Justice Movement by Fredrik Deboer

2021 United States Capitol attack, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, anti-communist, Bernie Sanders, BIPOC, Black Lives Matter, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, centre right, collective bargaining, coronavirus, COVID-19, data science, David Brooks, defund the police, deindustrialization, delayed gratification, Donald Trump, Edward Snowden, effective altruism, false flag, Ferguson, Missouri, George Floyd, global pandemic, helicopter parent, income inequality, lockdown, obamacare, Occupy movement, open immigration, post-materialism, profit motive, QAnon, Silicon Valley, single-payer health, social distancing, TikTok, upwardly mobile, W. E. B. Du Bois, We are the 99%, working poor, zero-sum game

There are many commonplaces to life on the radical-left spaces; few are more common, or sadder, than the demand for political violence. The psychology of such demands is not hard to understand. To be an American radical is to grow used to failure. The two major parties are, at best, a far-right party and a center-left party. My inclination is to describe the Democrats as a center-right party, at least for most of the past fifty years. The number of members of Congress who can legitimately be called leftist, at present, can be counted on two hands. The labor movement that was for generations the engine of progressive social change is moribund, the victim of a hundred years of vicious conservative attacks and the accumulation of unfavorable state laws.

., 168–174 as pejorative term, 164–165 problems with, 196–197 and right-wing identity politics, 183–187 salience of, 168 class reductionists, 168–174 Clinton, Bill, 27, 28 Clinton, Hillary, 27–31, 152, 165–168, 186 Clough, Alina, 100–101 Coffey, Clare, 140–141 Cohn, Nate, 145–146, 148 Common Dreams, 106 communism, 29, 152, 190 Community Justice Action Fund, 60 Confederate statues, 81–82 Conference on College Composition and Communication, 67 Connecticut United for Peace (CutUP), 2 consensus decision-making, 23–24 conservatism, 114 conservatives as “classical liberals,” 134 Clinton obsession of, 27 Democrats identifying as, 136 focus of, 203 fundamental message of, 186 home field advantage of, 43 King presented as pacifist by, 85 and meritocratic system, 142 Obama as, 17 Republicans identifying as, 136 self-professed, 210–211 and violence among and toward Black people, 37 consistency, in justice, 123–125 conspiracy theories, 204 Cosby, Bill, 120 Cotton, Tom, 56 Covid-19 pandemic, 5, 13–14, 32, 41 crime, 37, 59–62 criminal justice reforms, 7, 49–54 Cuba, 88, 92, 93 Cuomo, Andrew, 122–123 D’Arcy, Stephen, 69 Davis, Angela, 51 Debs, Eugene, 9 decision-making, 19, 21–24 deep state, 114–115 deference politics, 155–163 defunding police, 38, 51–54, 58, 62–64 demands carefully developed and expressed, 117 coherent, 19–20, 43, 172 essential purpose of, 20 following Floyd murder, 38–39 framing of, 181–182 from #MeToo movement, 132 for political violence, 78–79 democracy, American, 92 Democratic National Committee, 41 Democratic Party as center-right party, 78 and education polarization, 148–149 leftist complaints about, 11 as left-leaning party, 135–136 liberals in, 136, 137 (see also liberals) messaging around economic issues in, 197 nonprofits as vehicles for, 107 and Obama’s cult of personality, 17 as overwhelmingly white, 136 as party of elites, 31 Perez appointment influenced by, 41 and political action, 207–209 Sanders’ impact on, 29 2016 primaries of, 27–29, 165–168 in 2020 election, 11, 40–42 2008 primaries of, 27 voters’ disillusionment with, 28 youth in, 79 Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), 29–30, 168, 177–179 Democrats center-left, analyses of, 134–135 and George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, 39 and labor unions, 195 liberals’ votes for, 135 moderates and liberals, 64 and police funding, 52 political positions of, 136, 189, 190 technocratic liberal voice of, 25 denunciation, 154 Depp, Johnny, 40, 120–121 DiAngelo, Robin, 71 direct democracy system, 21, 23–24 disabled people, 173, 178–180, 205–206 Dream Hoarders (Reeves), 150–151 Du Bois, W.


pages: 442 words: 130,526

The Billionaire Raj: A Journey Through India's New Gilded Age by James Crabtree

"World Economic Forum" Davos, accounting loophole / creative accounting, Asian financial crisis, behavioural economics, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Branko Milanovic, business climate, call centre, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, centre right, colonial rule, commodity super cycle, Cornelius Vanderbilt, corporate raider, creative destruction, crony capitalism, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, Deng Xiaoping, Donald Trump, facts on the ground, failed state, fake news, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, global supply chain, Gunnar Myrdal, income inequality, informal economy, Joseph Schumpeter, land bank, liberal capitalism, Mahatma Gandhi, McMansion, megacity, Meghnad Desai, middle-income trap, New Urbanism, offshore financial centre, open economy, Parag Khanna, Pearl River Delta, plutocrats, Ponzi scheme, post-truth, public intellectual, quantitative easing, rent-seeking, Rubik’s Cube, Shenzhen special economic zone , Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, smart cities, special economic zone, spectrum auction, tech billionaire, The Great Moderation, Thomas L Friedman, transaction costs, trickle-down economics, vertical integration, Washington Consensus, WikiLeaks, yellow journalism, young professional

At times during her tenure the Congress seemed to have ditched entirely its socialist heritage and become instead a tawdry, scandal-plagued machine. The same basic problems of political funding identified by Rajan were also true of every other major political party, however, including the more center-right BJP. And lurking behind all these scandals lay the tycoons, the only people with funds sufficient to bankroll India’s increasingly expensive democracy. More than anything, it was public disgust at corruption that lay behind Narendra Modi’s electrifying election victory in 2014. Voters turned to Modi, the self-described son of a poor tea-seller, hoping that his record of clean governance and rapid growth as chief minister of his home state of Gujarat could be transferred quickly to New Delhi.

“Other people used to come, but I don’t remember their names,” Vyas said, recalling the times Modi would turn up to talk at his parents’ house. “He used to be a little different, even then, in the way he carried himself.” Modi’s growing profile saw him drafted into the BJP in the mid-1980s, not long after it had been founded. Established as a broadly center-right alternative to the Congress, the party drew support from conservative upper-caste groups and small business owners, as well as Hindu ideologues. Modi proved adept at organizing, with a particular talent for elections, where he kept tabs on party candidates dotted around his home state. “Between 5 a.m. and 8 a.m. he used to sit at the BJP office and tell four or five young boys to sit on different telephone lines,” Vyas told me, describing Modi’s role in the early 1990s.

“If one was a dictator, you would work on improving public services to break the nexus [between business and politicians] and reduce the level of corruption,” he told me. “And you would also work directly on trying to reduce the concentration of economic power by increasing competition.” This was the same basic point made in 2011 when Ashutosh Varshney and Jayant Sinha, a left-leaning academic and a center-right businessman respectively, cowrote their article about their country’s new Gilded Age. “It is time for India to rein in its robber barons,” they argued. The best part of a decade later, their call for firm action against entrenched corporate power remains largely unanswered. These problems then focus attention on one final critical barrier India faces: government itself.


pages: 497 words: 143,175

Pivotal Decade: How the United States Traded Factories for Finance in the Seventies by Judith Stein

1960s counterculture, accelerated depreciation, activist lawyer, affirmative action, airline deregulation, Alan Greenspan, anti-communist, Ayatollah Khomeini, barriers to entry, Berlin Wall, blue-collar work, Bretton Woods, business cycle, capital controls, centre right, collective bargaining, Credit Default Swap, crony capitalism, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, deindustrialization, desegregation, do well by doing good, Dr. Strangelove, energy security, Fall of the Berlin Wall, falling living standards, feminist movement, financial deregulation, floating exchange rates, full employment, Glass-Steagall Act, Gunnar Myrdal, guns versus butter model, Ida Tarbell, income inequality, income per capita, intermodal, invisible hand, knowledge worker, laissez-faire capitalism, Les Trente Glorieuses, liberal capitalism, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, manufacturing employment, market bubble, Martin Wolf, new economy, Nixon triggered the end of the Bretton Woods system, oil shale / tar sands, oil shock, open economy, Paul Samuelson, payday loans, post-industrial society, post-oil, price mechanism, price stability, Ralph Nader, RAND corporation, reserve currency, Robert Gordon, Robert Solow, Ronald Reagan, Savings and loan crisis, Simon Kuznets, strikebreaker, three-martini lunch, trade liberalization, union organizing, urban planning, urban renewal, War on Poverty, Washington Consensus, working poor, Yom Kippur War

Had that been done, we would probably already be seeing the first signs of frenetic imbalances in the economy and growing threats to the emerging prosperity that we now all see on the horizon.”110 The exuberance of Ford and his advisers was puzzling, considering that all of the participating political leaders—including Ford—were under attack and vulnerable.111 France’s center-right government was challenged by the “Union of the Left,” formed in 1972 by the Socialists, Communists, and Left Radicals, and also from the right by the Gaullists who resisted cooperation with the United States. Germany’s Helmut Schmidt, a Social Democrat, faced strong opposition by a center-right coalition led by Helmut Kohl in the upcoming October 1976 elections. Japan’s prime minister Takeo Miki was an accidental leader, achieving his position in the wake of bribery allegations and the inability of warring factions of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party to resolve their differences.

Germany continued to run a surplus of about $2 billion; Japan’s was huge, $10 billion, while the United States had a $31-billion deficit.28 Why were Germans and Japanese less enamored of demand stimulation or Keynesianism? In neither case were free-market predilections the cause.29 After World War II, the Christian Democrats, a center-right party, shepherded the German miracle under the banner of fiscal orthodoxy, not Keynesianism. German governments of the 1950S ran budget surpluses and maintained high interest rates. These policies depressed demand and forced companies to export. The government practiced austere finance but active microeconomics.


pages: 296 words: 78,112

Devil's Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency by Joshua Green

4chan, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Ayatollah Khomeini, Bernie Sanders, Biosphere 2, Black Lives Matter, business climate, Cambridge Analytica, Carl Icahn, centre right, Charles Lindbergh, coherent worldview, collateralized debt obligation, conceptual framework, corporate raider, crony capitalism, currency manipulation / currency intervention, data science, Donald Trump, Dr. Strangelove, fake news, Fractional reserve banking, Glass-Steagall Act, Goldman Sachs: Vampire Squid, Gordon Gekko, guest worker program, hype cycle, illegal immigration, immigration reform, Jim Simons, junk bonds, liberation theology, low skilled workers, machine translation, Michael Milken, Nate Silver, Nelson Mandela, nuclear winter, obamacare, open immigration, Peace of Westphalia, Peter Thiel, quantitative hedge fund, Renaissance Technologies, Robert Mercer, Ronald Reagan, Silicon Valley, social intelligence, speech recognition, Steve Bannon, urban planning, vertical integration

“Andrew always said, ‘If you look at the mainstream media, they’re all fishing for stories in one pond,’” recalled Breitbart president Larry Solov. “‘But there’s a second pond, and nobody’s fishing there.’” Only by wresting control of the news narrative away from mainstream outlets, Breitbart believed, could this imbalance be rectified. That was what Breitbart News aimed to do. “Our vision—Andrew’s vision—was always to build a global center-right, populist, anti-establishment news site,” said Bannon. Yet Breitbart’s definition of “news” differed markedly from that of the wire services in that it also encompassed political activism: it was news with a purpose. Much of the site’s energy was devoted to skewering liberal hypocrisy and highlighting ostensibly outrageous instances of political correctness.

He seemed to regard it as an unavoidable evil, a kind of way station on the path to populist triumph. “When you look at any kind of revolution—and this is a revolution—you always have some groups that are disparate,” he’d said. “I think that will all burn away over time and you’ll see more of a mainstream center-right populist movement.” Clinton’s speech struck a chord with many members of the media because it helped to explain the torrent of abuse they were experiencing, especially on social-media platforms such as Twitter. The story line that Clinton’s staff hoped her speech would produce did indeed emerge, and the negative coverage of Bannon and Trump and their relationship to the alt-right carried on for weeks.


pages: 324 words: 86,056

The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequality by Bhaskar Sunkara

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, agricultural Revolution, Bernie Sanders, British Empire, business climate, business cycle, capital controls, centre right, Charles Lindbergh, collective bargaining, Deng Xiaoping, deskilling, Donald Trump, equal pay for equal work, fake news, false flag, feminist movement, Ferguson, Missouri, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, full employment, gig economy, Great Leap Forward, Gunnar Myrdal, happiness index / gross national happiness, high-speed rail, Honoré de Balzac, income inequality, inventory management, Jeremy Corbyn, labor-force participation, land reform, land value tax, Mark Zuckerberg, means of production, Meghnad Desai, Mikhail Gorbachev, Neil Kinnock, new economy, Occupy movement, postindustrial economy, precariat, race to the bottom, Ralph Waldo Emerson, self-driving car, Silicon Valley, SimCity, single-payer health, Steve Bannon, telemarketer, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, too big to fail, union organizing, Upton Sinclair, urban renewal, We are all Keynesians now, We are the 99%

The decades pass on, and you eventually retire, cared for by the society that you contributed so much to, while enjoying the love of friends and family. Looking out at the broader world, you see that things are as dynamic as they were in 2036. With more decisions in the hands of ordinary people, civil life is full of political debate and new ideas. Even distributional questions are still not settled: a center-right party advocates for more market incentives and a reduction in the basic income; a center-left party questions traditional metrics of growth, proposing a happiness index instead; an internationalist left calls for more vigorous support for the workers’ movement abroad and more extensive democratic planning at home.

Working-class voters today are generally disillusioned with the ruling-class political consensus. But they and other voters don’t have faith in the potential of politics to change their lives; they don’t turn out to vote, and they’re less active in parties, unions, and civic organizations than they once were. This “crisis of politics” is principally a crisis of the Left. The European center-right doesn’t need a conscious, active base of supporters to carry out their program; they can manage capitalism in the interests of capitalists with the help of just a dozen EU technocrats. In the United States, the Right is very effective at seizing and wielding power as a minority, through its institutions, gerrymandering, and the court system.


pages: 131 words: 22,892

Canvas Pocket Reference: Scripted Graphics for HTML5 by David Flanagan

centre right, Firefox

float miterLimit When the lineJoin property is “miter”, this property specifies the maximum ratio of miter length to half the line width. The default is 10. See the individual reference page for this property for further details. String textAlign Specifies the horizontal alignment of text and the meaning of the X coordinate passed to fillText() and strokeText(). Legal values are “left”, “center”, “right”, “start”, and “end”. The meaning of “start” and “end” depend on the dir (text direction) attribute of the <canvas> tag. The default is “start”. String textBaseline Specifies the vertical alignment of text and the meaning of the Y coordinate passed to fillText() and strokeText(). Legal values are “top”, “middle”, “bottom”, “alphabetic”, “hanging”, and “ideographic”.


pages: 913 words: 219,078

The Marshall Plan: Dawn of the Cold War by Benn Steil

Albert Einstein, Alistair Cooke, An Inconvenient Truth, anti-communist, Berlin Wall, Bretton Woods, Brexit referendum, British Empire, business cycle, Carmen Reinhart, centre right, currency manipulation / currency intervention, deindustrialization, democratizing finance, disintermediation, Dissolution of the Soviet Union, Donald Trump, eurozone crisis, facts on the ground, Fall of the Berlin Wall, foreign exchange controls, full employment, imperial preference, invisible hand, Kenneth Rogoff, kremlinology, land reform, Mikhail Gorbachev, Monroe Doctrine, new economy, open economy, Potemkin village, RAND corporation, Ronald Reagan, scientific management, structural adjustment programs, the market place, trade liberalization, Transnistria, Winter of Discontent, Works Progress Administration, éminence grise

“In my opinion, if it were not for these policies, Soviet Communism would today be in the substantial control of Europe and this would pose the greatest threat to our own national security in the lifetime of the republic.”155 In 1953, Marshall would, in recognition of his efforts to promote European recovery, and in spite of East-West conflict spilling into the Asia-Pacific, receive the Nobel Peace Prize.156 ON AUGUST 14, 1949, IN a historic event Stalin had been determined to prevent, Adenauer’s CDU/CSU center-right coalition narrowly outpolled Schumacher’s SPD in West Germany’s first popular election. Well short of a majority in the new Bundestag, Adenauer refused to accept a grand coalition, thinking it dangerous for both democracy and capitalism in the fledgling state. Determined not to concede the economics ministry to a Socialist, he negotiated a coalition with the free market FDP (Free Democratic Party) and the small agrarian DP (Germany Party).

The French and Italian governments, in return for excluding the Communists, had enormous leeway to pursue their own agendas, within broad confines renegotiated continuously with the United States.39 The contrast between the operation of the Marshall Plan in the two countries illustrates how powerful was the overarching objective of containing the Communists. AFTER THE WAR, FRANCE AND Italy had a similar political complexion. Both saw the formation of tripartite coalitions of Christian Democrats on the center-right, Socialists on the center-left, and Communists on the far left. Both countries suffered from high deficits, inflationary pressure, and scarce goods, and focused political energies on keeping peace with Communist-led labor movements. Under pressure from Washington in the spring of 1947, however, both governments expelled the Communists.40 At this point, their policy paths diverged.

Fiscal and monetary stabilization would take a backseat. Whereas Christian Democrat Georges Bidault remained France’s friendly face to the State Department, he was attacked at home, from the left and the right, for being in bed with the “Anglo-Saxons.” In Italy, the economic agenda of the controlling center-right parties was dominated by the free market liberals, led by deputy prime minister, budget minister, Bank of Italy governor, and later president Luigi Einaudi. Einaudi scoffed at the Keynesian American idea that the country’s underemployment problems were a symptom of insufficient demand that might be revived with government investment.


pages: 263 words: 20,730

Exploring Python by Timothy Budd

c2.com, centre right, duck typing, functional programming, general-purpose programming language, Guido van Rossum, higher-order functions, index card, random walk, sorting algorithm, web application

Accessing Puzzle Data Having decided on the representation of the puzzle, the next step is to define functions that will return an individual row, and individual column, and an individual block. Each of these will return a list containing the indicated data. Both the column and block are converted into a list; for example the center right block of the puzzle is represented by the list [0,0,5,3,4,0,0,0,9]. The methods to compute these values will take the puzzle matrix as argument, since in a moment we will introduce a second matrix and will eventually want to perform the same data access on both. There is a slight complication in that Python indexes lists starting from 0, and so the set of legal index values is 0 through 8, while the set of data values of interest is 1 through 9.

Since values cannot be repeated in any row, column, or block the set of possibles is determined by starting with the values one through nine, then eliminating any value that occurs elsewhere in the row, column or block. We can [1,7,8] [1,6,7] [] once again use a list to represent the set of values. The initial [] [] [1,6] possible sets for the center right block of our Sudoku is [1,2,8] [1,6] [] shown at right. The computation of the possibles matrix illustrates another hallmark of functional program; the creation of general purpose functions that can be mixed and matched with each other to produce a variety of effects. The function missing takes as argument a list, and returns the list containing the values between 1 and 9 that are not in the argument list. def missing (lst): return [x for x in r19 if x not in lst] By separating the computation of the missing data from the collection of the row, column or block data we make it possible to mix these operations, by passing different arguments to the function.


pages: 88 words: 26,706

Against the Web: A Cosmopolitan Answer to the New Right by Michael Brooks

4chan, Anton Chekhov, Ayatollah Khomeini, basic income, Bernie Sanders, capitalist realism, centre right, Community Supported Agriculture, crony capitalism, deindustrialization, Donald Trump, drone strike, Flynn Effect, gun show loophole, invisible hand, Jeremy Corbyn, late capitalism, market fundamentalism, mass incarceration, moral hazard, Nelson Mandela, open borders, Peter Thiel, Philippa Foot, public intellectual, Silicon Valley, Slavoj Žižek, The Bell Curve by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, trolley problem, universal basic income, upwardly mobile

With authoritarian right-wing governments holding power from the United States to Brazil and Hungary to India, the need to understand and overcome these forces is urgent. This book focuses on the Intellectual Dark Web (IDW), a group exercise in collective self-branding that may already be by the wayside. However, the tactics, ideologies, and arguments used by this group remain relevant for understanding the broader center-right and right-wing ecosystem, and the absolutely necessary changes that the left must make to tell its own more appealing and dynamic story. The IDW is a group of men that Bari Weiss introduced to the world in a 2018 New York Times profile titled “Meet the Renegades of the Intellectual Dark Web.” According to Weiss the IDW was a group of maverick intellectuals who, feeling locked out by a relatively new and culturally dominant “political correctness,” came together to speak truth to the power of the liberal consensus.


pages: 934 words: 232,651

Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1945-1956 by Anne Applebaum

active measures, affirmative action, anti-communist, Arthur Marwick, Berlin Wall, centre right, deindustrialization, disinformation, Fall of the Berlin Wall, falling living standards, hiring and firing, illegal immigration, indoor plumbing, Internet Archive, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, land reform, language of flowers, means of production, New Urbanism, Potemkin village, price mechanism, road to serfdom, Ronald Reagan, scientific worldview, Slavoj Žižek, stakhanovite, strikebreaker, union organizing, urban planning, work culture

Only later did he understand why: It was impossible for Stalinism to permit the creation by independent initiative from below of anti-Fascist, Socialist or Communist movements or organizations, because there was the constant danger that such organizations would escape its control and try to resist directives issued from above … It was the first victory of the apparat over the independent stirrings of the anti-Fascist, left-inclined strata of Germany.18 But if Ulbricht and his Soviet partners did not want spontaneous committees, they did want young people to join sanctioned groups that had been properly registered with the Soviet authorities. Because Germany was deemed a “bourgeois” democracy, and noncommunist political parties were still allowed to exist, they did let some noncommunist youth groups register themselves, provided they subjected themselves to full regulation. The center-right Christian democrats were allowed to register an official “youth wing” of the Christian Democratic Party in July. In 1946, Soviet administrators would issue instructions allowing the formation of certain artistic and cultural groups as well.19 The communist party also set up its own youth section, optimistically assuming that many young Germans would want to join.

This is an important point, often overlooked and worth repeating: though the sincerity of this expectation varied from country to country, most of the parties in the region held elections soon after the war’s end because they thought they would win, and they had some good reasons for that belief. In the immediate aftermath of the war, almost all of the political parties operating in Europe advocated policies which, by modern standards, were very left wing. Even the center-right Christian democrats in West Germany and the Conservatives in Britain were willing to accept a heavy role for the state in the economy in the late 1940s, up to and including the nationalization of some industries. Across the continent, just about everyone advocated the creation of extensive welfare states.

The Soviet ambassador in Belgrade praised this exercise effusively, telling Vyacheslav Molotov that these elections had “strengthened” the country. He reckoned them a great success.11 In Bulgaria, the communist party also organized several left-leaning parties into a coalition called the Fatherland Front in November 1945 elections.12 In both countries the genuine opposition—parties of the center and the center-right that refused to join the coalition—called upon their countrymen to boycott the vote, and many did. The communist parties declared victory anyway. Yet despite the best efforts of the NKVD and the local communists, not all of the region’s politicians were willing to enter a unified electoral coalition, and not all of the working class became rapidly conscious of its destiny either.


Necessary Illusions by Noam Chomsky

anti-communist, Ayatollah Khomeini, British Empire, centre right, collective bargaining, colonial rule, cuban missile crisis, disinformation, full employment, Howard Zinn, Khyber Pass, Korean Air Lines Flight 007, land reform, long peace, military-industrial complex, New Journalism, Ronald Reagan, Strategic Defense Initiative, strikebreaker, union organizing

The 1984 elections in Nicaragua were dismissed with derision or ignored, while studies by highly qualified observers and analysts were, and remain, beyond the pale, because they consistently reached the wrong conclusions: for example, the detailed examination by a delegation of the professional association of Latin American scholars (LASA), probably the most careful study of any Third World election, and the supporting conclusions by an Irish Parliamentary delegation drawn primarily from the center-right, among many others, all passing without mention. The media even permitted themselves to be duped by a transparent fraud, the well-timed “discovery” of a shipment of MiG fighter planes to Nicaragua, which predictably turned out to be fanciful and was later attributed to Oliver North’s shenanigans, but which admirably served its purpose of helping to efface the unwanted Nicaraguan elections.

Throughout, Lemann is particularly incensed by attention to fact, as his derisive comments about “tabular lingo” indicate. Thus he writes that we “dismiss the standard sources on the countries they write about,” as in discussing coverage of the Nicaragua election, making use instead of such absurd sources as the report of the Irish Parliamentary Delegation of largely center-right parties and the detailed study of the professional association of Latin American scholars (whom we call “independent observers,” he adds derisively, apparently regarding Latin American scholars as not “independent” if their research does not conform to his prejudices). Asked by Herman to explain why he finds our use of sources inadequate in this or any other case, he writes: “By standard sources, I mean the American press, which usually weighs the government handouts against other sources.”

Alexander Cockburn, Nation, Aug. 27/Sept. 3, 1988, citing a story by journalist Marc Cooper, Los Angeles Weekly, May 27-June 2. After Cockburn’s column appeared, the Times published an “editors’ note” (Sept. 15) stating that the story “fell short of The Times’s reporting and editing standards” because it gave the impression of firsthand interviewing while in fact it “was based on a report in El Mundo, a center-right newspaper, which attributed the information to the Salvadoran military command,” and on “a representative of a leading human rights organization,” unidentified and unmentioned in LeMoyne’s story (and probably nonexistent), who allegedly said she believed the report to be true, later retracting this judgment.


pages: 104 words: 30,990

The Centrist Manifesto by Charles Wheelan

2013 Report for America's Infrastructure - American Society of Civil Engineers - 19 March 2013, affirmative action, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Alan Greenspan, American Society of Civil Engineers: Report Card, Bernie Madoff, Bretton Woods, carbon tax, centre right, clean water, creative destruction, David Brooks, delayed gratification, demand response, high-speed rail, Home mortgage interest deduction, housing crisis, income inequality, invisible hand, obamacare, profit maximization, Ralph Nader, rent-seeking, Report Card for America’s Infrastructure, Ronald Reagan, Ronald Reagan: Tear down this wall, Solyndra, stem cell, the scientific method, transcontinental railway, Walter Mischel

What Slaughter and his coauthor Kenneth Sheve wrote was this: “The notion of more aggressively redistributing income may sound radical, but ensuring that most American workers are benefiting is the best way of saving globalization from a protectionist backlash.”34 Remember, that is coming from a center-right perspective. The crucial point is that a meaningful safety net will ease the backlash against an inherently disruptive system that often upends lives and communities in the process of doing new and better things. Of course there is an economic cost associated with any kind of redistribution. The only way to tighten the safety net without busting the budget is to target programs more finely.


pages: 576 words: 105,655

Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea by Mark Blyth

"there is no alternative" (TINA), accounting loophole / creative accounting, Alan Greenspan, balance sheet recession, bank run, banking crisis, Bear Stearns, Black Swan, book value, Bretton Woods, business cycle, buy and hold, capital controls, Carmen Reinhart, Celtic Tiger, central bank independence, centre right, collateralized debt obligation, correlation does not imply causation, creative destruction, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, credit default swaps / collateralized debt obligations, currency peg, debt deflation, deindustrialization, disintermediation, diversification, en.wikipedia.org, ending welfare as we know it, Eugene Fama: efficient market hypothesis, eurozone crisis, financial engineering, financial repression, fixed income, floating exchange rates, Fractional reserve banking, full employment, German hyperinflation, Gini coefficient, global reserve currency, Greenspan put, Growth in a Time of Debt, high-speed rail, Hyman Minsky, income inequality, information asymmetry, interest rate swap, invisible hand, Irish property bubble, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Rogoff, liberal capitalism, liquidationism / Banker’s doctrine / the Treasury view, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, market bubble, market clearing, Martin Wolf, Minsky moment, money market fund, moral hazard, mortgage debt, mortgage tax deduction, Occupy movement, offshore financial centre, paradox of thrift, Philip Mirowski, Phillips curve, Post-Keynesian economics, price stability, quantitative easing, rent-seeking, reserve currency, road to serfdom, Robert Solow, savings glut, short selling, structural adjustment programs, tail risk, The Great Moderation, The Myth of the Rational Market, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Tobin tax, too big to fail, Two Sigma, unorthodox policies, value at risk, Washington Consensus, zero-sum game

When the crisis hit, the United States may have been on the right ideologically, but it was very much on the left in terms of economic policy. Europe, in contrast, was populated by left-leaning Social Democrats and center-right Christian Democrats who had spent the previous decade building a currency union that viewed monetary stability plus strict debt and deficit controls as the only policies worth bothering about. Thus, when the crisis hit, the European left (with the exception of the British under New Labour) and center-right argued and behaved in ways that we would normally expect from American Republicans: they championed financial stability, inflation control, and budget cutting as the way to get out of the crisis.


pages: 446 words: 109,157

The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth by Jonathan Rauch

2021 United States Capitol attack, 4chan, active measures, affirmative action, Albert Einstein, Ayatollah Khomeini, Black Lives Matter, centre right, classic study, Climategate, company town, coronavirus, COVID-19, critical race theory, deplatforming, disinformation, disintermediation, Donald Trump, experimental subject, facts on the ground, fake news, Filter Bubble, framing effect, hive mind, illegal immigration, information asymmetry, invention of movable type, Isaac Newton, jimmy wales, Jon Ronson, Louis Pasteur, market bubble, meta-analysis, microaggression, mirror neurons, Peace of Westphalia, peer-to-peer, post-truth, profit motive, QAnon, race to the bottom, RAND corporation, Russian election interference, social software, Steve Bannon, Steven Pinker, technoutopianism, TED Talk, the scientific method, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Kuhn: the structure of scientific revolutions, Tragedy of the Commons, yellow journalism, Yochai Benkler, zero-sum game

By 2020, Pew reported, about a fifth of partisans on both sides received political news from only partisan sources; among Republicans who occupied such news bubbles, fully 70 percent reported relying on Fox News—an astonishing level of concentration.54 The sources which conservatives relied on, moreover, tended to be more extreme. “Prominent media on the left are well distributed across the center, center-left, and left,” wrote a team of Harvard University researchers. “The center of attention and influence for conservative media is on the far right. The center-right is of minor importance and is the least represented portion of the media spectrum.”55 In other words, the media were bifurcating, and the conservative portion was spinning off to the right, precisely as Limbaugh had prescribed. Conservatives were also seeing and digesting significantly more fake news.

Mainstream media outlets find themselves under growing pressure from activists and interest groups within their own ranks to bend coverage toward social justice (as defined by the political left, usually) and to deplatform, or at least disfavor, contrary views. Some journalists, especially younger ones, ridicule the idea of objectivity as a “view from nowhere” and call for replacing it with “moral clarity,” by which they seem to mean their own political values.10 As progressive moralism filters through newsrooms, conservative, center-right, and even moderate journalists report self-censoring to stay out of trouble with editors and colleagues. Bringing cancel culture and ideological uniformity into newsrooms can only distort coverage, enlarge blind spots, and further alienate the public. “Any degree of what feels like cancel culture in a newsroom is a terrifying thing,” Tom Rosenstiel, the executive director of the American Press Institute, told me.


pages: 366 words: 105,894

Moon Coastal Oregon by Judy Jewell, W. C. McRae

centre right, crowdsourcing, McMansion, place-making, Ted Nelson, transcontinental railway, Works Progress Administration

In addition to whale-watching, folks congregate on the bridge between the ocean and the harbor to watch boats maneuver into the enclosure.Sights [URL inactive] TOP EXPERIENCE S Whale Watching Center Stop in at the Whale Watching Center (119 SW U.S. 101, 541/765-3304, www.oregonstateparks.org, 10am-4pm daily summer, 10am-4pm Wed.-Sun. winter, free) where volunteers can help you spot whales and answer your questions about them. The center, right on the seawall, is an ideal viewing spot. Peak viewing times are mid-December-January, when whales are migrating south; late March-early June, when they’re traveling north (mothers and babies generally come later in the season); and mid-July-early November, when resident whales feed off the coast.

The north cove trail leads to more tide pools, good spots for fishing, and views of the colonies of seals and sea lions at Shell Island, including the most northerly breeding colony of enormous elephant seals. Their huge pups when just a month old may already weigh 300-400 pounds. Note that the north trail closes March 1-June 30 to protect seal pups. The picnic tables on the headlands command beautiful ocean panoramas and are superbly placed for whale-watching. Charleston Marine Life Center Right on the docks of this fishing town, and directly across the road from the University of Oregon’s Institute of Marine Biology, the Charleston Marine Life Center (63466 Boat Basin Rd., Charleston, 541/888-2581, www.charlestonmarinelifecenter.com, 11am-5pm Wed.-Sat., $5 adults, $4 seniors or AAA) is smaller and more intimate than the Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport.


pages: 1,048 words: 187,324

Atlas Obscura: An Explorer's Guide to the World's Hidden Wonders by Joshua Foer, Dylan Thuras, Ella Morton

anti-communist, Apollo 11, Berlin Wall, British Empire, Buckminster Fuller, centre right, Charles Babbage, Charles Lindbergh, colonial rule, Colonization of Mars, cosmic microwave background, cuban missile crisis, dark matter, Day of the Dead, double helix, East Village, Easter island, Exxon Valdez, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Ford Model T, Frank Gehry, germ theory of disease, Golden Gate Park, Google Earth, Haight Ashbury, horn antenna, Ignaz Semmelweis: hand washing, index card, intentional community, Jacques de Vaucanson, Kowloon Walled City, Louis Pasteur, low cost airline, Mahatma Gandhi, mass immigration, mutually assured destruction, off-the-grid, Panopticon Jeremy Bentham, phenotype, Pluto: dwarf planet, Ronald Reagan, Rubik’s Cube, Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, trade route, transatlantic slave trade, transcontinental railway, Tunguska event, urban sprawl, Vesna Vulović, white picket fence, wikimedia commons, working poor

Atlas Obscura Contributors: Michael Bukowski & Jeanne D’Angelo p. 86 (all); Christine Colby p. 13; Ryan Crutchfield p. 14; Peter Dispensa p. 40; Michelle Enemark pp. 73, 87 (top); Ophelia Holt p. 36 (top); Daniel Kovalsky p. 15 (btm), p. 18; Michael Magdalena p. 49 (top); Roger Noguera i Arnau p. 80; Jaszmina Szendrey, pp. 19, 77 (btm). ASIA age fotostock: Stefan Auth/imageBROKER p. 174; David Beatty p. 133 (btm); Angelo Cavalli p. 176; Deddeda p. 179 (top); Jose Fuste Rage p. 180; Tony Hassler p. 131; JTB Photo p. 149 (center right); Ivonne Peupelmann p. 170; Topic Photo Agency IN p. 167. Alamy Stock Photo: Aflo Co. Ltd p. 162; age fotostock pp. 137 (full page), 168 (btm); Asia Images Group Pte Ltd p. 141; roger askew p. 129; Oliver Benn p. 181 (btm); ColsTravel p. 151; Paul Doyle p. 120 (btm); epa european pressphoto agency b.v. p. 140 (btm); NPC Collection p. 159; Eddie Gerald p. 118; Michelle Gilders p. 166 (btm); Simon Grosset p. 152; Gavin Hellier p. 166 (top); Marc F.

Creative Commons: The following images from Wikimedia Commons are used under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) and belong to the following Wikimedia Commons user: Peter Campbell p. 234. Atlas Obscura Contributors: Jonatan Jansson p. 226; Céline Meyer p.240 (btm); Amanda Olliek p. 235 (top). CANADA Alamy Stock Photo: 914 Collection p. 258 (btm); All Canada Photos pp. 260, 261, 263 (center right), 267; Alt-6 p. 274 (top); blickwinkel p. 265; Yvette Cardozo pp. 262 (btm), 273 (top); Cosmo Condina p. 269; INTERFOTO p. 264 (btm); Andre Jenny pp. 259 (btm), 273 (btm); Lannen/Kelly Photo p. 274 (btm); Ilene MacDonald p. 266; Mary Evans Picture Library p. 268; Susan Montgomery p. 271 (btm); Radharc Images p. 264 (top); Randsc p. 272; Michael Wheatley p. 257.

Alamy Stock Photo: Irene Abdou p. 365; Nathan Allred p. 302–303; Gay Bumgarner p. 367 (btm); Pat Canova p. 340 (top); Danita Delimont pp. 313 (btm), 361; Design Pics Inc p. 380; Don Despain p. 307; dpa picture alliance p. 303 (top); Richard Ellis p. 349; Peter Elvin p. 309 (top); epa european pressphoto agency b.v. pp. 321 (btm), 366 (top); Everett Collection Historical p. 359; Flirt p. 302 (top); Franck Fotos p. 326 (top); joseph s giacalone p. 289; Michelle Gilders p. 311 (top); jay goebel p. 306; Bill Gozansky p. 292; Jeff Greenberg p. 341 (btm); Blaine Harrington III p. 299 (right); Janet Horton p. 294; Independent Picture Service p. 334; Inge Johnsson p. 300; Dan Leeth p. 346; Ilene MacDonald p. 299 (left); Mary Evans Picture Library pp. 345 (top), 374; Luc Novovitch p. 297 (top); Peter Tsai Photography p. 308; Edwin Remsberg p. 356 (top); RGB Ventures/SuperStock p. 293; Philip Scalia p. 354; SCPhotos p. 379; James Taylor p. 286 (top); Washington Imaging p. 328; Jim West p. 314–315 (btm); ZUMA Press, Inc. pp. 277, 305 (btm), 341(top), 355, 371 (btm). Brad Andersohn: p. 288 (top). AP Photo: Wilfredo Lee p. 342; Douglas C. Pizac p. 310. Boston Athenæum: p. 371 (top). Cushing Center, Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Center Library, Yale University: p. 367 (center right). Brendan Donnelly: 280 (illustrations). Zach Fein: p. 333. fotolia: davidevision p. 363; Sean Pavone Photo p. 343; valdezrl p. 301 (btm). Getty Images: John B. Carnett/Bonnier Corporation p. 351; Bryan Chan/Los Angeles Times p. 284; Harry Fisher/Allentown Morning Call/MCT p. 364; Paul Hawthorne p. 326 (btm); Kevin Horan / The LIFE Images Collection p. 327 (btm); Keith Philpott/The LIFE Images Collection p. 330; Joel Sartore/National Geographic p. 352.


pages: 602 words: 177,874

Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations by Thomas L. Friedman

3D printing, additive manufacturing, affirmative action, Airbnb, AltaVista, Amazon Web Services, Anthropocene, Apple Newton, autonomous vehicles, Ayatollah Khomeini, barriers to entry, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, biodiversity loss, bitcoin, blockchain, Bob Noyce, business cycle, business process, call centre, carbon tax, centre right, Chris Wanstrath, Clayton Christensen, clean tech, clean water, cloud computing, cognitive load, corporate social responsibility, creative destruction, CRISPR, crowdsourcing, data science, David Brooks, deep learning, demand response, demographic dividend, demographic transition, Deng Xiaoping, digital divide, disinformation, Donald Trump, dual-use technology, end-to-end encryption, Erik Brynjolfsson, fail fast, failed state, Fairchild Semiconductor, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Ferguson, Missouri, first square of the chessboard / second half of the chessboard, Flash crash, fulfillment center, game design, gig economy, global pandemic, global supply chain, Great Leap Forward, illegal immigration, immigration reform, income inequality, indoor plumbing, intangible asset, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Internet of things, invention of the steam engine, inventory management, Irwin Jacobs: Qualcomm, Jeff Bezos, job automation, John Markoff, John von Neumann, Khan Academy, Kickstarter, knowledge economy, knowledge worker, land tenure, linear programming, Live Aid, low interest rates, low skilled workers, Lyft, Marc Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg, mass immigration, Maui Hawaii, Menlo Park, Mikhail Gorbachev, mutually assured destruction, Neil Armstrong, Nelson Mandela, ocean acidification, PalmPilot, pattern recognition, planetary scale, power law, pull request, Ralph Waldo Emerson, ransomware, Ray Kurzweil, Richard Florida, ride hailing / ride sharing, Robert Gordon, Ronald Reagan, Salesforce, Second Machine Age, self-driving car, shareholder value, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Skype, smart cities, Solyndra, South China Sea, Steve Jobs, subscription business, supercomputer in your pocket, synthetic biology, systems thinking, TaskRabbit, tech worker, TED Talk, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, Thomas L Friedman, Tony Fadell, transaction costs, Transnistria, uber lyft, undersea cable, urban decay, urban planning, Watson beat the top human players on Jeopardy!, WikiLeaks, women in the workforce, Y2K, Yogi Berra, zero-sum game

Into this vacuum, this empty room, stepped populists with easy answers—the Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders promised to make it all right by taking down “the Man,” and Donald Trump promised to make it all right by personally holding back the hurricane of change because he was “the Man.” Neither the center-left nor the center-right in America or Europe had the self-confidence required for the level of radical rethinking and political innovating demanded by the age of accelerations. On May 16, 2016, The New York Times carried a story about a divisive Austrian election, featuring two quotes that spoke for so many voters across the industrialized world.

In safe districts a Republican, most of the time, can lose only to another, more conservative Republican and a Democrat can lose only to a more liberal Democrat. The result is a Congress made up of more people from the far right or far left than the true disposition in the country. With more center-left Democrats and more center-right Republicans, it should be possible to build more legislative coalitions from the center out rather than from the extremes in. She would also introduce ranked-choice voting in all Senate and House elections. In this system, instead of voting for just one candidate, you rank each candidate in order of preference.

First, as I explained at the outset, a column has to combine three things: your own value set, how you think the Machine works, and what you have learned about how the Machine affects people and culture and vice versa. Well, my value set and my affinity for a politics that embraces inclusion, pluralism, and always trying to govern with Mother Nature’s best ideas—a mix of center-left and center-right—was instilled in me by the community where I grew up. And second, because those values seem more relevant today than ever in America as a whole, and in the world at large. At a time of rising racial tensions and political debates tearing at the fabric of our country, I grew hungry to understand what made that little suburb where I came of age politically such a vibrant community, anchoring and propelling me and many others.


pages: 492 words: 70,082

Immigration worldwide: policies, practices, and trends by Uma Anand Segal, Doreen Elliott, Nazneen S. Mayadas

affirmative action, Asian financial crisis, Berlin Wall, borderless world, British Empire, Celtic Tiger, centre right, conceptual framework, credit crunch, demographic transition, deskilling, en.wikipedia.org, European colonialism, export processing zone, Fall of the Berlin Wall, financial independence, full employment, global village, guest worker program, illegal immigration, immigration reform, income inequality, income per capita, informal economy, it's over 9,000, knowledge economy, labor-force participation, labour mobility, language acquisition, longitudinal study, low skilled workers, mass immigration, minimum wage unemployment, moral panic, Nelson Mandela, New Urbanism, open borders, phenotype, scientific management, South China Sea, structural adjustment programs, Suez canal 1869, trade route, transaction costs, upwardly mobile, urban planning, women in the workforce

These early institutional structures against discrimination and racism have repeatedly been criticized for their relative ineffectiveness (Bertossi, 1999; Audebrand et al., 2001; IGAS, 2000). While many critics expected the new center-right government to abandon what is called in France ‘‘the fight against discrimination’’ (la lutte contre les discriminations) this turned out not to be the case. Instead, the center-right government set up the High Authority for the Fight against Discrimination (HALDE) as required by the European directives. In addition, Nicolas Sarkozy turned out to be open toward measures of affirmative action as well as other measures to increase diversity and repeatedly started a national debate on the issue, which many French consider to be in complete contradiction with the republican ideals.

Studies on the voting behavior of migrant groups with Maghrebian and Caribbean background showed that these groups have lower turnout rates, especially if they live in disadvantaged urban areas (Maxwell, 2009), while a study of the political attitudes and activities of naturalized French with Maghrebian, other African, and Turkish origin had shown very little if any difference compared to other French citizens (Brouard & Tiberj, 2005). The question of attributing voting rights to third country nationals in local elections has been brought up many times, even by center-right politician Yves Jego (UMP) but these initiatives were always blocked by the argument that in order to get voting rights, immigrants should acquire French citizenship. Statistics from the INSEE (National Institute for Statistics and Economic Studies) showed that in 2007 the unemployment rate among the active immigrant population was about twice as high as for the active nonimmigrant population, namely 15.2% compared to 7.3%.

A couple of other studies followed since 2004, but because of this initial intervention of the extremist right FN, these studies always have to confront doubts about their underlying motifs and are not commissioned by the government as 91 it is the case in neighboring countries such as Germany and the Netherlands. With the arrival of the center-right administration led by Nicolas Sarkozy such analyses might return to more neutral grounds although even the government-commissioned studies in the neighboring countries have shown that cost-and-benefit analyses are more than most other studies in the field of immigration subject to the political opinion of the author.


EuroTragedy: A Drama in Nine Acts by Ashoka Mody

Alan Greenspan, Andrei Shleifer, asset-backed security, availability heuristic, bank run, banking crisis, Basel III, Bear Stearns, Berlin Wall, book scanning, book value, Bretton Woods, Brexit referendum, call centre, capital controls, Carmen Reinhart, Celtic Tiger, central bank independence, centre right, credit crunch, currency risk, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, debt deflation, Donald Trump, eurozone crisis, Fall of the Berlin Wall, fear index, financial intermediation, floating exchange rates, forward guidance, George Akerlof, German hyperinflation, global macro, global supply chain, global value chain, hiring and firing, Home mortgage interest deduction, income inequality, inflation targeting, Irish property bubble, Isaac Newton, job automation, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Johannes Kepler, Kenneth Rogoff, Kickstarter, land bank, liberal capitalism, light touch regulation, liquidity trap, loadsamoney, London Interbank Offered Rate, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, low-wage service sector, Mikhail Gorbachev, mittelstand, money market fund, moral hazard, mortgage tax deduction, neoliberal agenda, offshore financial centre, oil shock, open borders, pension reform, precautionary principle, premature optimization, price stability, public intellectual, purchasing power parity, quantitative easing, rent-seeking, Republic of Letters, Robert Gordon, Robert Shiller, Robert Solow, short selling, Silicon Valley, subprime mortgage crisis, The Great Moderation, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, too big to fail, total factor productivity, trade liberalization, transaction costs, urban renewal, working-age population, Yogi Berra

The government disregarded the conditions for reform that accompanied the loan. European authorities just made it easier for the Greek government to go on a spending splurge, which fed Greece’s corruption machine. In June 1989, Papandreou’s PASOK lost its majority in the parliament. After repeated elections, a government finally formed in April 1990 under the center-​right New Democracy Party leader Konstantinos Mitsotakis. The challenge for the incoming government was daunting. In its annual survey of the Greek economy that year, the IMF dryly stated: “Greece’s economic performance in the 1980s compared unfavorably with that of its EC partners and with its own earlier experience.”

He promised to continue with Monti’s domestic reform agenda while working to build a “United States of Europe.”202 Monti and Bersani remained wedded to the idea that a European constraint on Italian politicians—​perhaps a softer European constraint than the one applied recently—​was essential to guide Italy’s economy and people into the future. Arrayed against Monti and Bersani were the anti-​Europe forces. The perennial Berlusconi, who led the center-right People of Freedom party, stoked the public’s resentment against Merkel. He asked at one of his rallies: “Who got us into this recessionary spiral? Do you want a government that is subject to the diktats of (German Chancellor Angela) Merkel?” “Nooooo,” his charged supporters replied.203 Meanwhile, comedian and blogger Beppe Grillo emerged as the dramatic new player on the scene.204 His Five Star Movement drew younger Italians who faced a bleak future.

It would alienate the population, fan more populism, and, thus, push the European project “over the edge.”154 During the March 2017 Dutch parliamentary election campaign, Rutte fought back the challenge from far-right, ultra-​nationalist Geert Wilders by co-​opting elements of Wilders’s anti-​immigrant language; Rutte offered “his own, gentler version of anti-​immigrant populism.”155 In the final days of the campaign, Rutte said, “If you don’t like it here, you can leave.”156 Most observers interpreted that remark as a threat to immigrants and even to second-​and third-​generation descendants of immigrants. Although Rutte’s center-​right, conservative party lost vote share compared to the previous election (held in September 2012), his “soft” nationalism seemed to have worked in the limited sense that Wilders’s electoral gains fell short of the large advances predicted by the polls. Rutte defensively declared that he had halted the “wrong kind of populism,” implying that he was now the standard bearer of “good populism.”157 The “pro-​European,” social democratic Labor party was crushed.


pages: 1,066 words: 273,703

Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World by Adam Tooze

"there is no alternative" (TINA), "World Economic Forum" Davos, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Alan Greenspan, Apple's 1984 Super Bowl advert, Asian financial crisis, asset-backed security, bank run, banking crisis, Basel III, Bear Stearns, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, bond market vigilante , book value, Boris Johnson, bread and circuses, break the buck, Bretton Woods, Brexit referendum, BRICs, British Empire, business cycle, business logic, capital controls, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, Carmen Reinhart, Celtic Tiger, central bank independence, centre right, collateralized debt obligation, company town, corporate governance, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, credit default swaps / collateralized debt obligations, currency manipulation / currency intervention, currency peg, currency risk, dark matter, deindustrialization, desegregation, Detroit bankruptcy, Dissolution of the Soviet Union, diversification, Doha Development Round, Donald Trump, Edward Glaeser, Edward Snowden, en.wikipedia.org, energy security, eurozone crisis, Fall of the Berlin Wall, family office, financial engineering, financial intermediation, fixed income, Flash crash, forward guidance, friendly fire, full employment, global reserve currency, global supply chain, global value chain, Goldman Sachs: Vampire Squid, Growth in a Time of Debt, high-speed rail, housing crisis, Hyman Minsky, illegal immigration, immigration reform, income inequality, interest rate derivative, interest rate swap, inverted yield curve, junk bonds, Kenneth Rogoff, large denomination, light touch regulation, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, margin call, Martin Wolf, McMansion, Mexican peso crisis / tequila crisis, military-industrial complex, mittelstand, money market fund, moral hazard, mortgage debt, mutually assured destruction, negative equity, new economy, Nixon triggered the end of the Bretton Woods system, Northern Rock, obamacare, Occupy movement, offshore financial centre, oil shale / tar sands, old-boy network, open economy, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, paradox of thrift, Peter Thiel, Ponzi scheme, Post-Keynesian economics, post-truth, predatory finance, price stability, private sector deleveraging, proprietary trading, purchasing power parity, quantitative easing, race to the bottom, reserve currency, risk tolerance, Ronald Reagan, Savings and loan crisis, savings glut, secular stagnation, Silicon Valley, South China Sea, sovereign wealth fund, special drawing rights, Steve Bannon, structural adjustment programs, tail risk, The Great Moderation, Tim Cook: Apple, too big to fail, trade liberalization, upwardly mobile, Washington Consensus, We are the 99%, white flight, WikiLeaks, women in the workforce, Works Progress Administration, yield curve, éminence grise

In response to the crisis, the conservative New Democracy government abandoned all fiscal restraint, and at the same time, interest rates for Greece as a weaker sovereign borrower surged. In July 2009 Athens alerted the Eurogroup to the fact that its deficit might be heading toward 10 percent of GDP or more. But at that point neither side thought it convenient to go public. The break came on October 4, when the Greek electorate turfed out the center-right New Democracy party and gave a large majority to a reform-minded PASOK government. Two weeks later George Papandreou’s administration broke the silence.5 Athens announced to Eurostat, the European statistical agency, that its deficit would exceed 12.7 percent. At a stroke the budget revisions for 2009 took Greece’s debt burden from 99 to 115 percent of GDP.

I am not going to take such a big risk without getting anything from Italy.”55 Behind closed doors there was no more talk of globalization, democracy and markets, the abstractions that Merkel had bandied about with the pope. What defined the parameters of an acceptable solution to the eurozone crisis was the constitution of the Federal Republic, the autonomy of its central bank and the political interests of the German center-right. If the Americans found this frustrating, Merkel expostulated, they had no one to blame but themselves. It was they who had created the embryo of the Bundesbank in 1948 as the founding institution of West Germany. At Cannes in November 2011, it was as if the entire transatlantic settlement since World War II were being put in play.

With its economy limping back from the dead, Spain, like Ireland, would be celebrated as the poster child for austerity adjustment policies. In Portugal the economic recovery was slower. Unlike Spain, it had borne the brunt of a full-blown troika program. In 2015 its youth unemployment rate was just shy of 60 percent and long-term unemployment hovered around 40 percent. The PàF center-right coalition headed by Pedro Passos Coelho, who had taken office in June 2011, had fought the long fight for eurozone stabilization. When the election campaign began it had seemed as though PàF would be roundly defeated. But the turmoil in Greece and the protection offered by the ECB’s QE contributed to swinging the result.


pages: 126 words: 37,081

Men Without Work by Nicholas Eberstadt

business cycle, Carmen Reinhart, centre right, deindustrialization, financial innovation, full employment, illegal immigration, jobless men, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, Kenneth Rogoff, labor-force participation, low skilled workers, mass immigration, moral hazard, post-work, Ronald Reagan, secular stagnation, Simon Kuznets, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, War on Poverty, women in the workforce, working-age population

His many books and monographs include A Nation of Takers: America’s Entitlement Epidemic (Templeton Press, 2012). Eberstadt earned his AB, MPA, and PhD at Harvard and his MSc at the London School of Economics. In 2012, he was awarded the Bradley Prize. HENRY OLSEN, currently a Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, has worked in senior executive positions at many center-right think tanks. He most recently served from 2006 to 2013 as vice president and director of the National Research Initiative at the American Enterprise Institute. He previously worked as vice president of programs at the Manhattan Institute and president of the Commonwealth Foundation. Mr. Olsen’s work has been featured in many prominent publications, including the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, National Review, and the Weekly Standard.


pages: 442 words: 112,155

The Great Experiment: Why Diverse Democracies Fall Apart and How They Can Endure by Yascha Mounk

23andMe, affirmative action, basic income, centre right, coronavirus, COVID-19, critical race theory, Donald Trump, failed state, global pandemic, illegal immigration, income inequality, language acquisition, Mahatma Gandhi, meta-analysis, Milgram experiment, Peter Singer: altruism, phenotype, Republic of Letters, Ronald Reagan, Steven Pinker, theory of mind, transatlantic slave trade, universal basic income, unpaid internship, World Values Survey

Alba, The Great Demographic Illusion: Majority, Minority, and the Expanding American Mainstream (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2020). GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT In Germany, a recent poll showed: Bojan Pancevski, “Immigrants and Their Children Shift towards Center-Right in Germany,” Wall Street Journal, February 9, 2021, https://www.wsj.com/articles/immigrants-and-their-children-shift-toward-center-right-in-germany-11612872336. GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT And in the United Kingdom, a conservative: DiversityUK, “Britain’s most ethnically diverse Cabinet Ever,” July 25, 2019, https://diversityuk.org/britains-most-ethnically-diverse-cabinet-ever.


pages: 439 words: 131,081

The Chaos Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Minds and Our World by Max Fisher

2021 United States Capitol attack, 4chan, A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace, Airbnb, Bellingcat, Ben Horowitz, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, Bill Gates: Altair 8800, bitcoin, Black Lives Matter, call centre, centre right, cloud computing, Comet Ping Pong, Computer Lib, coronavirus, COVID-19, crisis actor, crowdsourcing, dark pattern, data science, deep learning, deliberate practice, desegregation, disinformation, domesticated silver fox, Donald Trump, Douglas Engelbart, Douglas Engelbart, end-to-end encryption, fake news, Filter Bubble, Future Shock, game design, gamification, George Floyd, growth hacking, Hacker Conference 1984, Hacker News, hive mind, illegal immigration, Jeff Bezos, John Perry Barlow, Jon Ronson, Joseph Schumpeter, Julian Assange, Kevin Roose, lockdown, Lyft, Marc Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg, Max Levchin, military-industrial complex, Oklahoma City bombing, Parler "social media", pattern recognition, Paul Graham, Peter Thiel, profit maximization, public intellectual, QAnon, recommendation engine, ride hailing / ride sharing, Rutger Bregman, Saturday Night Live, Sheryl Sandberg, side project, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley ideology, Silicon Valley startup, Snapchat, social distancing, Social Justice Warrior, social web, Startup school, Stephen Hawking, Steve Bannon, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Steven Levy, Stewart Brand, Susan Wojcicki, tech billionaire, tech worker, Ted Nelson, TED Talk, TikTok, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, Whole Earth Catalog, WikiLeaks, Y Combinator

The system had formed a supercluster—it looked like a storm system on a weather map—out of several communities that Kaiser and Rauchfleisch had expected to see separated. Alternative-news outlets, center-right commentary, far-right extremists, college-kid neo-racists, and tinfoil-hatted conspiracy theorists were all connected. With the goal of testing whether this supercluster affected users’ behavior, the pair scraped every comment on the videos over a three-year period, two million in all, then tracked the commenters’ activity (anonymized for privacy) across the site. The results were as they’d feared. Users who started off commenting on only a subset of videos—say, center-right news channels—eventually began commenting on channels across the supercluster.


pages: 828 words: 232,188

Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalization of Democracy by Francis Fukuyama

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Andrei Shleifer, Asian financial crisis, Atahualpa, banking crisis, barriers to entry, Berlin Wall, blood diamond, British Empire, centre right, classic study, clean water, collapse of Lehman Brothers, colonial rule, conceptual framework, Cornelius Vanderbilt, cotton gin, crony capitalism, Day of the Dead, deindustrialization, Deng Xiaoping, disruptive innovation, double entry bookkeeping, Edward Snowden, Erik Brynjolfsson, European colonialism, facts on the ground, failed state, Fall of the Berlin Wall, first-past-the-post, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, Francisco Pizarro, Frederick Winslow Taylor, full employment, Gini coefficient, Glass-Steagall Act, Great Leap Forward, Hernando de Soto, high-speed rail, Home mortgage interest deduction, household responsibility system, income inequality, information asymmetry, invention of the printing press, iterative process, Kickstarter, knowledge worker, labour management system, land reform, land tenure, life extension, low interest rates, low skilled workers, manufacturing employment, means of production, Menlo Park, Mohammed Bouazizi, Monroe Doctrine, moral hazard, Nelson Mandela, new economy, open economy, out of africa, Peace of Westphalia, Port of Oakland, post-industrial society, post-materialism, price discrimination, quantitative easing, RAND corporation, rent-seeking, road to serfdom, Ronald Reagan, scientific management, Scientific racism, Scramble for Africa, Second Machine Age, Silicon Valley, special economic zone, stem cell, subprime mortgage crisis, the scientific method, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas L Friedman, Thomas Malthus, too big to fail, trade route, transaction costs, Twitter Arab Spring, Tyler Cowen, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, Vilfredo Pareto, women in the workforce, work culture , World Values Survey, zero-sum game

These social conflicts left deep divisions within Greek society and increased the overall level of distrust.20 What is notable about the evolution of Greek political institutions is that economic modernization did not, as in the case of Britain and the United States, lead to a middle-class coalition whose object was reform of the state itself and elimination of the pervasive system of clientelism. Rather, the emergence of a stable electoral democracy after 1974 led to the rollback of merit-based bureaucracy and the steady widening of a more sophisticated form of clientelism by the two dominant parties, the center-right New Democracy (ND) and the Pan-Hellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK). The restoration of formal democracy in Greece after the fall of the colonels has been rightly celebrated as an opening move in Huntington’s Third Wave of democratizations. But insufficient attention has been paid to the quality of democratic government in Greece, the fact that Greece never created a truly modern, impersonal public sector.

By 1945, Europe’s exhausted elites were ready to concede both liberal democracy and redistributive welfare states to ensure social peace. While Latin America’s elites faced the threat of social upheaval, especially after the Cuban Revolution, it was never severe enough to promote either state building or redistribution on a European scale. There was no European-style social consensus built around moderate center-left and center-right parties, but rather sharp polarizations between rich and poor. Only in the 2000s does a more European type of political order appear to be emerging in Chile and Brazil. Geography, climate, and colonial legacies do not explain present-day outcomes across the board. Argentina, whose climate and colonial history freed it from the inequality and slow growth of the rest of the continent during the nineteenth century, should have continued to flourish.

The working classes through unionization and political struggle won greater privileges for themselves and became middle class in political outlook. Fascism discredited the extreme Right, and the emerging cold war and threat from Stalinist Russia discredited the Communist Left. This left politics to be played out among center-Right and center-Left parties that largely agreed on a liberal democratic framework. The median voter—a favorite concept of political scientists—was no longer a poor person demanding systemic changes to the social order but a middle-class individual with a stake in the existing system. Other regions were not so lucky.


Central America by Carolyn McCarthy, Greg Benchwick, Joshua Samuel Brown, Alex Egerton, Matthew Firestone, Kevin Raub, Tom Spurling, Lucas Vidgen

airport security, Bartolomé de las Casas, California gold rush, call centre, centre right, clean water, cognitive dissonance, company town, currency manipulation / currency intervention, Day of the Dead, digital map, Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, failed state, Francisco Pizarro, Frank Gehry, haute cuisine, illegal immigration, Joan Didion, land reform, liberation theology, low cost airline, Mahatma Gandhi, megaproject, Monroe Doctrine, off-the-grid, Ronald Reagan, Skype, Suez canal 1869, sustainable-tourism, the long tail, trade route, transcontinental railway, urban renewal, urban sprawl, women in the workforce

Accused of treason and abuse of office, Zelaya had also forged a cozy alliance with Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez that made many fear a permanent power kick. While tensions simmered, Honduras held transparent democratic elections in November 2009, electing Nationalist party candidate Porfirio ‘Pepe’ Lobo, a center-right conservative considered the polar opposite of Zelaya. Panama had already bucked the Latin American leftist trend by electing conservative supermarket-magnate Ricardo Martinelli president in May 2009. But the biggest news in Panama has been the US$5 billion project to expand the canal. This massive makeover (slated for 2014) should bring on more canal traffic and allow larger vessels for a much-needed boost to the economy

Three months after his removal, Zelaya made good on his promise, clandestinely entering the country and making his way to the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa. Meanwhile, Honduras held transparent democratic elections in November 2009, electing Nationalist party candidate Porfirio ‘Pepe’ Lobo, a center-right conservative (the polar opposite of Zelaya). In a controversial move, Lobo signed a letter of safe passage for Zelaya days before his inauguration, allowing the ousted president to travel hassle-free to the Dominican Republic as a ‘distinguished guest,’ ending a three-month standoff at the Brazilian embassy.

There used to be a notion that shops and restaurants were better or worse depending on the direction you turned from the pier, but that is completely irrelevant now – you’ll find good (and not so good) places in all directions. Besides, the town is so small, you can check out literally every shop and hotel in less than an hour. Captain Morgan’s Dive Center, right at the intersection, will watch your backpack while you go to look for a place to stay. Supermarkets, the post office, Hondutel and a Spanish school are on the main road. Information The website www.aboututila.com has general info and news about Utila. Most dive shops and many hotels accept lempira, US dollars, traveler’s checks and credit cards (usually with service fee).


pages: 371 words: 36,271

Libertarian Idea by Jan Narveson

centre right, invisible hand, means of production, Menlo Park, night-watchman state, Pareto efficiency, Peter Singer: altruism, prisoner's dilemma, psychological pricing, rent-seeking, zero-sum game

...................................................... 1 PROLOGUE: The Knock at the Door ........................................................ 2 CHAPTER 1: Liberalism, Conservatism, Libertarianism .......................... 6 A Preliminary Definition ........................................................................ 6 Liberal/Conservative............................................................................... 6 Left, Center, Right .................................................................................. 9 Liberal Individualism as One Kind of Conservatism ............................. 9 CHAPTER 2: Liberty ............................................................................... 12 Another Preliminary Definition ............................................................ 12 The Subject of Liberty .......................................................................... 12 Liberty and Autonomy .......................................................................... 14 The Nonatomic Individual .................................................................... 16 What Is Liberty?

The liberal need not deny the truth of liberalism in that or any context: but her liberalism requires her to move over and accommodate the conservative and the radical nevertheless—not because their views are true, nor even because they are “just as true as one‟s own” (they aren‟t, after all); but rather, because the conservative and the radical are entitled to hold them; their right to hold their views is to be respected just because the views are theirs. Further implicit attachment to and explicit articulation of this outlook will be found throughout these pages. But the reader is referred to Nagel‟s brilliant essay for an insightful account of the issue in its own right. Left, Center, Right This is a good place to enter an initial complaint about the use of the terms „left‟, „right‟, and „center‟ in current political discussions. The usage implies that there is a single spectrum along which any particular packet of political views may be located. Are you in favor of free trade and against high import duties?


pages: 530 words: 154,505

Bibi: The Turbulent Life and Times of Benjamin Netanyahu by Anshel Pfeffer

Ayatollah Khomeini, British Empire, centre right, different worldview, Donald Trump, fake news, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, friendly fire, full employment, high net worth, illegal immigration, Mikhail Gorbachev, Mount Scopus, Occupy movement, offshore financial centre, pre–internet, Ronald Reagan, Silicon Valley, Steve Bannon, Stuxnet, Thomas L Friedman, uranium enrichment, Yom Kippur War

Ambitious young generals retiring from service, such as Dayan and Rabin, had in the past routinely joined Mapai on the fast track to a cabinet post. In 1972, former air force commander Ezer Weizman joined Herut. The next year, the Paratroopers Brigade founder, General Ariel Sharon, resigned from the army and set about trying to unite the parties of the center-right. Both Weizman and Sharon believed they would soon oust Begin and lead the party to power. Sharon aggressively brokered an alliance between Herut, the Liberals, and smaller parties from the center and the right. On September 13, 1973, the Likud party came into being. In addition to Begin’s Herut and the Liberals, it included the Free Center, a party of the rebels who had broken with Herut eight years earlier; the State List, which had been Ben-Gurion’s last political vehicle, before his final retirement from politics in 1970; and the far right Greater Eretz Yisrael List.

Whether it was a rekindling of the social protests of 2011, or simply Netanyahu-fatigue, there was an “Anyone but Bibi” dynamic. Parties from left and right barely spoke about the issues; it was all about replacing Netanyahu. Likud was hemorrhaging votes in all directions, in particular to Bennett’s Jewish Home and to Kulanu (All of Us), a new center-right party led by Moshe Kahlon, a popular Likud minister who, like so many others, had fallen out with Bibi. Kahlon presented himself as the “real Likud” of the working classes. By the time Netanyahu left for Washington, Likud was down to nineteen seats in the polls. Returning to Israel on March 4, thirteen days before the election, Bibi was dismayed to discover that his speech to the US Congress had failed to deliver a bounce in the polls.


pages: 225 words: 55,458

Back to School: Why Everyone Deserves a Second Chance at Education by Mike Rose

blue-collar work, centre right, confounding variable, creative destruction, delayed gratification, digital divide, George Santayana, income inequality, MITM: man-in-the-middle, moral panic, new economy, Ronald Reagan, The Bell Curve by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, the built environment, urban renewal, War on Poverty

What we lack in the reports is the blending of the statistical table with the portrait of a life. Without 53 BAC K TO S C HO OL both, we’ll get one-dimensional policy fixes driven by numerical data removed from the daily lives of the people from whom the data are abstracted. Along the top of the north wall of the Independent Learning Center, right over a row of computer terminals, Maria has written out in big script her five goals for the program: Each student will be a lifelong learner . . . and a critical thinker . . . ending with a new goal that she is trying to enact through public events—a clothes drive, visiting senior centers—put on by the adult school: Each student will be able to participate and contribute as a citizen of his/her community.


Global Financial Crisis by Noah Berlatsky

"World Economic Forum" Davos, accounting loophole / creative accounting, Alan Greenspan, asset-backed security, banking crisis, Bear Stearns, Bretton Woods, capital controls, Celtic Tiger, centre right, circulation of elites, collapse of Lehman Brothers, collateralized debt obligation, corporate raider, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, credit default swaps / collateralized debt obligations, deindustrialization, Doha Development Round, energy security, eurozone crisis, financial innovation, Food sovereignty, George Akerlof, Glass-Steagall Act, God and Mammon, Gordon Gekko, housing crisis, illegal immigration, income inequality, low interest rates, market bubble, market fundamentalism, mass immigration, Money creation, moral hazard, new economy, Northern Rock, purchasing power parity, quantitative easing, race to the bottom, regulatory arbitrage, reserve currency, Robert Shiller, Ronald Reagan, Savings and loan crisis, shareholder value, social contagion, South China Sea, structural adjustment programs, subprime mortgage crisis, too big to fail, trade liberalization, transfer pricing, working poor

The motley alliance of protesting professors, nurses, steel workers and students lacked a shared list of economic and political demands. Their banners made a case for wage increases, purchasing power parity or the repeal of tax reforms for the rich. At the same time, however, the protests revealed a deep-seated malaise that penetrates deeply into the conservative electorate of the governing UMP [Union for a Popular Movement, a center-right political party]. The overwhelming majority of the French are plagued by fears of unemployment, lower incomes and shrinking savings. The galloping decline in the economy has further damaged the president’s standing. Now that his approval rating has dropped to only 39 percent, Sarkozy is very much on edge.


pages: 231 words: 61,172

Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delany

centre right, East Village, index card

In her cabin she grabbed up her translation. Her eyes fled down the pages. She banged the button for the Navigators. Ron, wiping whipped-cream from his mouth, said, "Yes, Captain? What do you want?" "A watch," said Rydra, "and a—bag of marbles!" "Huh?" asked Calli. "You can finish your shortcake later. Meet me in G-center right now." "Mar-bles?" articulated Mollya wonderingly. "Marbles?" "One of the kids in the platoon must have brought along a bag of marbles. Get it and meet me in G-center." She jumped over the ruined skin of the bubble seat and leapt up the hatchway, turned off at the radial shaft seven, and launched down the cylindrical corridor toward the hollow spherical chamber of G-center.


pages: 239 words: 62,005

Don't Burn This Book: Thinking for Yourself in an Age of Unreason by Dave Rubin

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, An Inconvenient Truth, battle of ideas, Bernie Sanders, Black Lives Matter, Burning Man, butterfly effect, centre right, cognitive dissonance, Columbine, deplatforming, Donald Trump, failed state, fake news, gender pay gap, green new deal, Greta Thunberg, illegal immigration, immigration reform, job automation, Kevin Roose, low skilled workers, mutually assured destruction, obamacare, off-the-grid, Peter Thiel, pre–internet, Ronald Reagan, Saturday Night Live, school choice, Silicon Valley, Social Justice Warrior, Steven Pinker, Susan Wojcicki, Tim Cook: Apple, unpaid internship, War on Poverty, women in the workforce, zero-sum game

The scars of that time reverberated throughout all of their lives and even into the generations that came after them. Yet, with total disrespect for such horrifying lived experiences, which involved real Nazis—as opposed to the ones people imagine—the media’s far-right inference continues. In March 2019, The Economist—a center-right, respectable publication based in London—ran an in-depth article on Shapiro that called him “a pop idol of the alt right.” Yet again, editors were forced to retract their comments and publicly apologize, but only after he went on a Twitter rampage and forced them to do their job responsibly. Then, in the same month, noted feminist Christina Hoff Sommers was branded “white supremacy-adjacent” by feminist Roxane Gay.


pages: 195 words: 63,455

Damsel in Distressed: My Life in the Golden Age of Hedge Funds by Dominique Mielle

"RICO laws" OR "Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations", activist fund / activist shareholder / activist investor, airline deregulation, Alan Greenspan, banking crisis, Bear Stearns, Black Monday: stock market crash in 1987, blood diamond, Boris Johnson, British Empire, call centre, capital asset pricing model, Carl Icahn, centre right, collateralized debt obligation, Cornelius Vanderbilt, coronavirus, COVID-19, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, credit default swaps / collateralized debt obligations, diversification, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Eugene Fama: efficient market hypothesis, family office, fear of failure, financial innovation, fixed income, full employment, glass ceiling, high net worth, hockey-stick growth, index fund, intangible asset, interest rate swap, John Meriwether, junk bonds, Larry Ellison, lateral thinking, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, managed futures, mega-rich, merger arbitrage, Michael Milken, Myron Scholes, Northpointe / Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions, offshore financial centre, Paul Samuelson, profit maximization, Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, risk free rate, risk tolerance, risk-adjusted returns, satellite internet, Savings and loan crisis, Sharpe ratio, Sheryl Sandberg, SoftBank, survivorship bias, Tesla Model S, too big to fail, tulip mania, union organizing

The core would rally and stay together. Several other topics were similarly divisive. Any discussion of taxes and healthcare made my blood boil. I swear, I am not the female Che Guevara of Wall Street. I do not believe everybody should be working for publicly owned capital. In fact, I vote center-right in France. However, I do believe in the government playing a pivotal role in society, particularly in wealth redistribution. I believe in paying taxes and using that money for public good (whether that happens more or less efficiently is of course up for debate). I believe that money is self-reinforcing, not self-propagating.


Lonely Planet Nicaragua (Travel Guide) by Lonely Planet, Alex Egerton, Greg Benchwick

agricultural Revolution, British Empire, car-free, carbon footprint, centre right, clean water, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Day of the Dead, land reform, liberation theology, Multics, off grid, off-the-grid, place-making, race to the bottom, Ralph Nader, Ronald Reagan, sustainable-tourism, the long tail, traveling salesman

Chamorro faced a tricky balancing act in trying to reunify the country and satisfy all interests. Economic recovery was slow; growth was sluggish and unemployment remained stubbornly high. Nevertheless, in 1996, when Nicaragua went to the polls again, the people rejected the FSLN’s Ortega and opted for former Managua mayor Arnoldo Alemán of the PLC, a center-right liberal alliance. Alemán invested heavily in infrastructure and reduced the size of the army by a factor of 10, but his administration was plagued by scandal, as corruption soared and Alemán amassed a personal fortune from the state’s coffers, earning himself a place on Transparency International’s list of the top 10 corrupt public officials of all time.

Ortega promises to lift press censorship, enforce a ceasefire and hold free elections as a sign of the Sandinistas’ commitment to democracy. 1990 Violeta Barrios de Chamorro beats Daniel Ortega in presidential elections. The process of national reconciliation begins as the Contra War and US-led economic embargo end. 1996 Voters go to the polls again, once more rejecting the FSLN’s Ortega, opting instead for former Managua mayor Arnoldo Alemán of the PLC, a center-right liberal alliance. 2001 Enrique Bolaños is elected president by a small margin. After 11 years of trying to make a comeback, it is Ortega’s third defeat. 2006 After three failed bids, Ortega regains the presidency with 38% of the vote. He seeks closer ties with left-wing governments in Venezuela, Bolivia and Cuba. 2008 The Electoral Council bans two opposition parties.


pages: 222 words: 50,318

The Option of Urbanism: Investing in a New American Dream by Christopher B. Leinberger

addicted to oil, American Society of Civil Engineers: Report Card, asset allocation, big-box store, centre right, commoditize, credit crunch, David Brooks, desegregation, Donald Shoup, Donald Trump, drive until you qualify, edge city, Ford Model T, full employment, General Motors Futurama, gentrification, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Jane Jacobs, knowledge economy, Lewis Mumford, McMansion, mortgage tax deduction, new economy, New Urbanism, peak oil, Ponzi scheme, postindustrial economy, RAND corporation, Report Card for America’s Infrastructure, reserve currency, Richard Florida, Savings and loan crisis, Seaside, Florida, the built environment, transit-oriented development, urban planning, urban renewal, urban sprawl, value engineering, walkable city, white flight

The broad variety inherent in these two patterns of development is discussed below, but in the end, the two represent stark alternatives, each with different implications for the future of growth in the United States.3 These two development patterns do not function in isolation. In fact, walkable urbanism and drivable sub-urbanism can be and almost always are immediately adjacent to one another. Witness the small-lot, single-family homes next to thriving downtown Birmingham, Michigan; a big-box power center right next to Reston Town Center, Virginia; and low-density neighborhoods a few blocks from downtown Palo Alto, California. The edge between drivable sub-urbanism and walkable urbanism is where the great battles over development will increasingly be fought as the demand for more walkable urbanism continues to change the character of the places where it can best be built.


pages: 247 words: 68,918

The End of the Free Market: Who Wins the War Between States and Corporations? by Ian Bremmer

"World Economic Forum" Davos, affirmative action, Asian financial crisis, banking crisis, Berlin Wall, BRICs, British Empire, centre right, collective bargaining, corporate governance, creative destruction, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, cuban missile crisis, Deng Xiaoping, diversified portfolio, Doha Development Round, Exxon Valdez, failed state, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, Glass-Steagall Act, global reserve currency, global supply chain, household responsibility system, invisible hand, joint-stock company, Joseph Schumpeter, Kickstarter, laissez-faire capitalism, low skilled workers, mass immigration, means of production, megacity, Mikhail Gorbachev, military-industrial complex, mutually assured destruction, Naomi Klein, Nelson Mandela, new economy, offshore financial centre, open economy, race to the bottom, reserve currency, risk tolerance, Savings and loan crisis, shareholder value, Shenzhen special economic zone , South Sea Bubble, sovereign wealth fund, special economic zone, spice trade, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, too big to fail, trade liberalization, trade route, tulip mania, uranium enrichment, Washington Consensus, Yom Kippur War, zero-sum game

Since the dawn of the industrial revolution, in all but the most extreme circumstances (like the onset of depression in the 1930s), wealth creation within the United States and other capitalist democracies has depended on government’s willingness to allow free markets to flourish. Even the most severe economic downturns have served as commas, not periods, in a longer-term growth story. Over time, political power within industrialized democracies tends to alternate between center-left social-democratic parties that favor relatively more activist government and center-right conservative parties that favor a smaller, less interventionist model. Their acrimonious debates, particularly during election campaigns, hide the extent to which they agree on fundamental free-market principles. Growing public unease with globalization’s progress and its effects on middle-class livelihoods leaves politicians of all stripes more willing to defend a free lunch than a free market—and more eager to build barriers meant to protect their constituents.


pages: 247 words: 64,986

Hive Mind: How Your Nation’s IQ Matters So Much More Than Your Own by Garett Jones

behavioural economics, centre right, classic study, clean water, corporate governance, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, en.wikipedia.org, experimental economics, Flynn Effect, Gordon Gekko, greed is good, hive mind, invisible hand, Kenneth Arrow, law of one price, meta-analysis, prediction markets, Robert Gordon, Ronald Coase, Saturday Night Live, social intelligence, The Bell Curve by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thorstein Veblen, Tyler Cowen, wikimedia commons, zero-sum game

And in a review of some recent studies, psychologists Rindermann, Flores-Mendoza, and Woodley conclude, [H]igher intelligence leads to more rational worldviews, less intense religiosity, less stereotyped thinking and less dogmatism.12 With data from Brazil, the same authors find that people who did better on the Raven’s IQ test were overall more likely to hold center or center-right political attitudes, even after differences in income, education, and other factors were taken into account. Therefore, in Brazil at least, higher-IQ individuals were more likely to avoid extremes of both left and right. Without studies from other countries one should be cautious in making generalizations, but the theory that IQ predicts a general tendency toward liberalism—in the traditional sense of the Enlightenment, a cautious blend of social tolerance and market orientation—looks like a reasonable starting point.


pages: 227 words: 71,675

Rules for Revolutionaries: How Big Organizing Can Change Everything by Becky Bond, Zack Exley

battle of ideas, Bernie Sanders, Black Lives Matter, call centre, centre right, cognitive dissonance, crowdsourcing, declining real wages, digital rights, Donald Trump, family office, fixed income, full employment, hiring and firing, hydraulic fracturing, immigration reform, income inequality, Kickstarter, mass incarceration, Naomi Klein, Occupy movement, oil shale / tar sands, plutocrats, randomized controlled trial, Skype, telemarketer, union organizing

Even though campaigners and policy makers are the drivers of this process, they experience it as proof of the apathy of the people. The result is that too many elected officials are basing important decisions not on what would be best for all Americans but on what they imagine would appeal to a small number of swing voters usually at the center-right of the political debate. On the road back to big organizing, there have been some earnest attempts, fascinating experiments, and false starts. We thought we had seen big organizing emerge via digital advocacy groups that emerged in the decade following the (stolen) election of George W. Bush.


pages: 226 words: 75,783

In the Land of Invented Languages: Adventures in Linguistic Creativity, Madness, and Genius by Arika Okrent

British Empire, centre right, global village, Johannes Kepler, PalmPilot, Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, slashdot, software patent, Stephen Hawking

All of these adjustments infuriated Bliss, because he thought he had invented a universal language. After the OCCC administration told Bliss he was not welcome anymore, his level of interference increased tenfold, and he started threatening lawsuits. Twice, legal agreements were reached where he granted the center rights to use his symbols (under the terms of one agreement, the center was required to mark all symbols in its publications that he had not personally approved with a ), but he always found an excuse to break the agreements and begin fresh attacks on its progress. He sent an open letter to all institutions in Europe that worked with disabled children in order to “voice my flaming protest against the machinations and perversions of my work by an irresponsible and irrational woman, Mrs.


pages: 225 words: 71,912

So Close to Being the Sh*t, Y'all Don't Even Know by Retta

centre right, Downton Abbey, lock screen, McMansion, messenger bag, pink-collar, retail therapy, Skype, Snapchat

And with a parade comes traffic, which means planning travel routes. 13. Rerouting takes effort, and I think we all know where I stand on that front. And I’m not driving anywhere if the parking situation stresses me out. I’m jealous of the handicapped. Because they get all the great parking. Up-front and center, right at the mall entrance. No doing laps in the parking deck on Black Friday. No stalking that slow-ass couple whose look of trepidation should’ve clued you in that they have no earthly idea of where they parked their Chevy Malibu. And why is it that the handicapped get to park so close? It’s not like they have to hike the never-ending trek that is the parking structure.


pages: 264 words: 76,643

The Growth Delusion: Wealth, Poverty, and the Well-Being of Nations by David Pilling

Airbnb, Alan Greenspan, banking crisis, Bernie Sanders, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Branko Milanovic, call centre, carbon tax, centre right, clean tech, clean water, collapse of Lehman Brothers, collateralized debt obligation, commoditize, Credit Default Swap, credit default swaps / collateralized debt obligations, dark matter, Deng Xiaoping, Diane Coyle, Donald Trump, double entry bookkeeping, Easter island, Erik Brynjolfsson, falling living standards, financial deregulation, financial engineering, financial intermediation, financial repression, Gini coefficient, Glass-Steagall Act, Goldman Sachs: Vampire Squid, Google Hangouts, Great Leap Forward, Hans Rosling, happiness index / gross national happiness, Higgs boson, high-speed rail, income inequality, income per capita, informal economy, invisible hand, Jeremy Corbyn, job satisfaction, Mahatma Gandhi, Mahbub ul Haq, market fundamentalism, Martin Wolf, means of production, military-industrial complex, Monkeys Reject Unequal Pay, mortgage debt, off grid, old-boy network, Panopticon Jeremy Bentham, peak oil, performance metric, pez dispenser, profit motive, purchasing power parity, race to the bottom, rent-seeking, Robert Gordon, Ronald Reagan, Rory Sutherland, science of happiness, shareholder value, sharing economy, Simon Kuznets, sovereign wealth fund, TED Talk, The Great Moderation, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, total factor productivity, Tragedy of the Commons, transaction costs, transfer pricing, trickle-down economics, urban sprawl, women in the workforce, World Values Survey

The stock market fell 85 percent and every Icelandic man, woman, and child was on the hook for their $330,000 share of the $100 billion in losses racked up by reckless banks. * * * — I strolled over to the annex of Iceland’s parliament, a modestly proportioned building that resembles a modern art gallery, to see Birgir Armannsson. A neatly dressed man in a soft gray suit, Armannsson is a senior member of the center-right Independence Party, which was part of the ruling coalition when Iceland was leaping, lemming-like, off the financial cliff. As a young lawyer in the 1990s, he had noticed attitudes to finance change. “Icelandic business people became richer than ever before and started to lose all connection with the Icelandic people, with the Icelandic community,” he said.


pages: 267 words: 71,941

How to Predict the Unpredictable by William Poundstone

accounting loophole / creative accounting, Albert Einstein, Bernie Madoff, Brownian motion, business cycle, butter production in bangladesh, buy and hold, buy low sell high, call centre, centre right, Claude Shannon: information theory, computer age, crowdsourcing, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, Edward Thorp, Firefox, fixed income, forensic accounting, high net worth, index card, index fund, Jim Simons, John von Neumann, market bubble, money market fund, pattern recognition, Paul Samuelson, Ponzi scheme, power law, prediction markets, proprietary trading, random walk, Richard Thaler, risk-adjusted returns, Robert Shiller, Rubik’s Cube, statistical model, Steven Pinker, subprime mortgage crisis, transaction costs

The region of light-shaded cells on the left, in the topmost row, and at upper far right shows strategies that would have returned less than a buy-and-hold S&P 500 portfolio. The white cells are strategies that beat the market by up to a percentage point a year, and the medium-shaded cells at upper and center right outperformed the S&P index by at least 1 percent a year. The highest return was 7.62 percent, the result of buying at 6 and selling at 32. Would it be wise to adopt a policy of trading at 6 and 32? No, not unless you can replay the last century. The chart’s returns are noisy. There is much cell-to-cell variation, owing to luck in trading at a particular crest or trough in the historic record.


pages: 232

Planet of Slums by Mike Davis

barriers to entry, Branko Milanovic, Bretton Woods, British Empire, Brownian motion, centre right, clean water, company town, conceptual framework, crony capitalism, declining real wages, deindustrialization, Deng Xiaoping, disinformation, Dr. Strangelove, edge city, European colonialism, failed state, gentrification, Gini coefficient, Hernando de Soto, housing crisis, illegal immigration, income inequality, informal economy, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Internet Archive, jitney, jobless men, Kibera, labor-force participation, land reform, land tenure, Lewis Mumford, liberation theology, low-wage service sector, mandelbrot fractal, market bubble, megacity, microcredit, Nelson Mandela, New Urbanism, Pearl River Delta, Ponzi scheme, RAND corporation, rent control, structural adjustment programs, surplus humans, upwardly mobile, urban planning, urban renewal, War on Poverty, Washington Consensus, working poor

After the ouster of Perez Jimenez and before the election of Romulo Betancourt, the governing provisional junta suspended evictions in the barrios and offered public relief to the unemployed; as a result, 400,000 mosdy poor people moved to Caracas in little more than a year. Afterward, the intense competition for votes between the two major political parties, the center-left Accion Democratica and the center-right COPEI, opened the floodgates (which Perez Jimenez had tried to close) to the explosive expansion of informal barrios in the hills around the city. Caracas and other Venezuelan cities consequently grew at African velocity: during the 1960s, the country went from being 30 percent urban to 30 percent rural.31 In Mexico City, Uruchurtu's anti-slum, controlled-growth strategy proved ultimately incompatible with the needs of industrialists and foreign investors for cheap labor, as well as workers' demands for cheap housing.


Microsoft Office Outlook 2010 QuickSteps by Malestrom

centre right, Firefox, functional programming, macro virus, mail merge, New Journalism

To apply formatting, select the text and click any of the formatting buttons in the toolbar. You can even insert a business card, picture, or hyperlink. Use the tips found earlier in the “Formatting Messages” QuickSteps. Plain text messages, by definition, cannot be formatted. 8 NOTE See Chapter 10 on how to create and use electronic Font Bold, italics, underline Left-align, center, right-align Insert a picture 9 business cards and insert them within a signature. Font size Font color 10 6. Click OK twice to close the dialog boxes. 64 64 Microsoft Office Outlook 2010 PC QuickSteps Getting to QuickSteps Know Your PCCreating and Sending E-mail Insert a business card Insert a hyperlink 1 UICKSTEPS 2 USING SIGNATURES You can use certain signatures for certain accounts, and you can still pick a different one for a particular message.


Hands-On Machine Learning With Scikit-Learn, Keras, and TensorFlow: Concepts, Tools, and Techniques to Build Intelligent Systems by Aurelien Geron

AlphaGo, Amazon Mechanical Turk, Bayesian statistics, centre right, combinatorial explosion, constrained optimization, correlation coefficient, crowdsourcing, data science, deep learning, DeepMind, duck typing, en.wikipedia.org, Geoffrey Hinton, iterative process, Netflix Prize, NP-complete, optical character recognition, P = NP, p-value, pattern recognition, performance metric, recommendation engine, self-driving car, SpamAssassin, speech recognition, statistical model

The algorithm is guaranteed to converge in a finite number of steps (usually quite small), it will not oscillate foreverfootenote:[This can be proven by pointing out that the mean squared distance between the instances and their closest centroid can only go down at each step.]. You can see the algorithm in action in Figure 9-4: the centroids are initialized randomly (top left), then the instances are labeled (top right), then the centroids are updated (center left), the instances are relabeled (center right), and so on. As you can see, in just 3 iterations the algorithm has reached a clustering that seems close to optimal. Figure 9-4. The K-Means algorithm Note The computational complexity of the algorithm is generally linear with regards to the number of instances m, the number of clusters k and the number of dimensions n.


pages: 257 words: 76,785

Shorter: Work Better, Smarter, and Less Here's How by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang

8-hour work day, airport security, Albert Einstein, behavioural economics, Bertrand Russell: In Praise of Idleness, Brexit referendum, business process, call centre, carbon footprint, centre right, classic study, cloud computing, colonial rule, death from overwork, disruptive innovation, Erik Brynjolfsson, future of work, game design, gig economy, Henri Poincaré, IKEA effect, iterative process, job automation, job satisfaction, job-hopping, Johannes Kepler, karōshi / gwarosa / guolaosi, Kickstarter, labor-force participation, longitudinal study, means of production, neurotypical, PalmPilot, performance metric, race to the bottom, remote work: asynchronous communication, remote working, Rutger Bregman, Salesforce, Second Machine Age, side project, Silicon Valley, Steve Jobs, tech worker, TED Talk, telemarketer, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, women in the workforce, work culture , young professional, zero-sum game

Similar experiments have been conducted in other countries. In Gothenburg, Sweden, the government-run Svartedalens nursing home conducted a two-year trial in which assistant nurses’ shifts were reduced from eight to six hours with no reduction in pay. (The trial was ended by a new, more fiscally conservative center-right government.) They had to hire fifteen more nurses, and labor costs went up by 20 percent, or €700,000 (about $735,000) during the trial; roughly half of that increase, though, was offset by savings that came with a 15 percent decline in sick days and call outs, and by taxes paid by newly employed workers who no longer drew state benefits.


pages: 264 words: 74,688

Imperial Legacies by Jeremy Black;

affirmative action, British Empire, centre right, colonial rule, Donald Trump, European colonialism, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, Great Leap Forward, imperial preference, Jeremy Corbyn, Khartoum Gordon, mass immigration, Monroe Doctrine, out of africa, Scramble for Africa, Suez crisis 1956, transatlantic slave trade

This clashed with the decision, made just days earlier, by Helen Clark, the prime minister, that the word “holocaust” must never again be used in a New Zealand context. In turn, the Indigenous Peoples Conference held a few days later in Wellington endorsed both the Waitangi Tribunal statement and Taria Turia. In the general election of 2005, the unsuccessful center-right opposing National Party attacked what its leader termed the “grievance industry” centered on Maori land claims. He promised an end to the numerous claims and the reversal of any legislation granting special privileges to Maoris. The Maori themselves had markedly expansionist tendencies in the early nineteenth century, as, at the expense of non-Maori, in the Chatham Islands, but, more particularly, at the expense of other Maori.


pages: 278 words: 82,069

Meltdown: How Greed and Corruption Shattered Our Financial System and How We Can Recover by Katrina Vanden Heuvel, William Greider

Alan Greenspan, Asian financial crisis, banking crisis, Bear Stearns, Bretton Woods, business cycle, buy and hold, capital controls, carried interest, central bank independence, centre right, collateralized debt obligation, conceptual framework, corporate governance, creative destruction, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, credit default swaps / collateralized debt obligations, declining real wages, deindustrialization, Exxon Valdez, falling living standards, financial deregulation, financial innovation, Financial Instability Hypothesis, fixed income, floating exchange rates, full employment, Glass-Steagall Act, green new deal, guns versus butter model, housing crisis, Howard Zinn, Hyman Minsky, income inequality, information asymmetry, It's morning again in America, John Meriwether, junk bonds, kremlinology, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, margin call, market bubble, market fundamentalism, McMansion, Michael Milken, Minsky moment, money market fund, mortgage debt, Naomi Klein, new economy, Nixon triggered the end of the Bretton Woods system, offshore financial centre, payday loans, pets.com, plutocrats, Ponzi scheme, price stability, pushing on a string, race to the bottom, Ralph Nader, rent control, Robert Shiller, Ronald Reagan, Savings and loan crisis, savings glut, sovereign wealth fund, structural adjustment programs, subprime mortgage crisis, The Great Moderation, too big to fail, trade liberalization, transcontinental railway, trickle-down economics, union organizing, wage slave, Washington Consensus, women in the workforce, working poor, Y2K

A photo op Obama arranged with his economic advisers a few weeks before the election tells the story. Arrayed on either side were policy leaders from the old order. Former Federal Reserve chair Paul Volcker collaborated in the initial deregulation of banking in 1980 and presided over the initial bail-outs of banks deemed “too big to fail.” Robert Rubin was the architect of Clinton’s center-right economic strategy and is now senior counselor at Citigroup, itself endangered and the recipient of $25 billion in public aid. Lawrence Summers, disgraced as president of Harvard, is now managing partner of D. E. Shaw, a $39 billion private-equity firm and hedge fund that specializes in es-oteric mathematical investing strategies.


pages: 316 words: 87,486

Listen, Liberal: Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People? by Thomas Frank

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Airbnb, Alan Greenspan, Amazon Mechanical Turk, American ideology, antiwork, barriers to entry, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Black Lives Matter, blue-collar work, Burning Man, centre right, circulation of elites, Clayton Christensen, collective bargaining, Credit Default Swap, David Brooks, deindustrialization, disruptive innovation, Donald Trump, driverless car, Edward Snowden, Evgeny Morozov, Fall of the Berlin Wall, financial engineering, financial innovation, Frank Gehry, fulfillment center, full employment, George Gilder, gig economy, Gini coefficient, Glass-Steagall Act, high-speed rail, income inequality, independent contractor, Jaron Lanier, Jeff Bezos, knowledge economy, knowledge worker, Lean Startup, mandatory minimum, Marc Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg, market bubble, mass immigration, mass incarceration, McMansion, microcredit, mobile money, moral panic, mortgage debt, Nelson Mandela, new economy, obamacare, payday loans, Peter Thiel, plutocrats, Ponzi scheme, post-industrial society, postindustrial economy, pre–internet, profit maximization, profit motive, race to the bottom, Republic of Letters, Richard Florida, ride hailing / ride sharing, Ronald Reagan, Savings and loan crisis, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Steve Jobs, Steven Levy, TaskRabbit, tech worker, TED Talk, Thorstein Veblen, too big to fail, Travis Kalanick, Uber for X, union organizing, urban decay, WeWork, women in the workforce, Works Progress Administration, young professional

Like the New Democrats in our story, Gingrich claimed this was the right thing to do because of change: “We were trying to think through the necessary reforms to modernize America to move into the twenty-first century,” he told the historian.4 The two leaders knew this would mean building “a new center/right political coalition” to get the deed done, because many Democrats could be counted on to oppose the deal. Indeed, as Gillon notes, on numerous issues “the president was closer to Gingrich than he was to the leadership of his own party,” a description that could have been accurately applied to each of Clinton’s great accomplishments—NAFTA, welfare reform, and bank deregulation, all of them made into law by cooperation between the Democratic president and the Republicans in Congress.


pages: 268 words: 81,811

Flash Crash: A Trading Savant, a Global Manhunt, and the Most Mysterious Market Crash in History by Liam Vaughan

algorithmic trading, backtesting, bank run, barriers to entry, Bernie Madoff, Black Monday: stock market crash in 1987, Black Swan, Bob Geldof, centre right, collapse of Lehman Brothers, data science, Donald Trump, Elliott wave, eurozone crisis, family office, financial engineering, Flash crash, Great Grain Robbery, high net worth, High speed trading, information asymmetry, Jeff Bezos, Kickstarter, land bank, margin call, market design, market microstructure, Market Wizards by Jack D. Schwager, Navinder Sarao, Nick Leeson, offshore financial centre, pattern recognition, Ponzi scheme, proprietary trading, Ralph Nelson Elliott, Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, Ronald Reagan, selling pickaxes during a gold rush, sovereign wealth fund, spectrum auction, Stephen Hawking, the market place, Timothy McVeigh, Tobin tax, tulip mania, yield curve, zero-sum game

Outside, in the real world, it was a general election day, and residents made their way to polling stations to cast their vote. Britain was in tumult after the financial crisis. Unemployment was up 50 percent, banks like RBS and Lloyds had been nationalized, and the economy remained on life support. The left-leaning Labour Party, which had swept to power on a wave of optimism in 1997, was facing defeat by the center-right Conservatives. Nav didn’t care too much either way. As far as he was concerned, all politicians were equally bad. But political uncertainty fed into the markets, which was good for trading. Nav’s trading strategy depended on volatility, and he monitored conditions closely, like a surfer waiting for the perfect swell.


pages: 343 words: 89,057

Artemis by Andy Weir

accounting loophole / creative accounting, Apollo 11, centre right, low earth orbit, Neil Armstrong, orbital mechanics / astrodynamics, pneumatic tube, Ponzi scheme

Oh wait, my mistake. That never happened.” “I hear you failed the EVA exam today.” He tsked in mock disappointment. “Tough break. I passed on my first try, but we can’t all be me, can we?” “Fuck off.” “Yeah, I got to tell you, tourists pay good money to go outside. Hell, I’m headed to the Visitor Center right now to give some tours. I’ll be raking it in.” “Make sure to hop on the really sharp rocks while you’re out there.” “Nah,” he said. “People who passed the exam know better than to do that.” “It was just a lark,” I said nonchalantly. “It’s not like EVA work is a real job.” “Yeah, you’re right.


pages: 262 words: 73,439

Roads: An Anthropology of Infrastructure and Expertise (Expertise: Cultures and Technologies of Knowledge) by Penny Harvey, Hannah Knox

BRICs, centre right, classic study, dematerialisation, informal economy, Kickstarter, land reform, new economy, the built environment, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, trade route, urban renewal

Anthropologists have long been interested by the social entailments and effects of gossip and rumor. For an orientation to work in this field, see, for example, Gluckman 1963; Brenneis and Myers 1984; Rapport 1996; Pels 1997; Das 1998; Stewart and Strathern 2004. 3. See Strathern 2000a. 4. Gonzales Reategui was elected senator of the Center-Right Christian democratic party, the Partido Popular Cristiano, in the 1990 Fujimori government. He supported Fujimori following the auto-coup of 1992 and was rewarded with the presidency of one of the newly formed transitory councils of regional administration (CTAR), that of Loreto. 5. Dominic Boyer’s discussion of conspiratorial knowledge in East German politics and history makes a similar point about how such knowledge does not necessarily work to make visible what is otherwise obscure, but rather to provide shelter, “to emancipate one’s sense of self, however fleetingly, from history and identity” (Boyer 2006, 336). 6.


pages: 324 words: 92,805

The Impulse Society: America in the Age of Instant Gratification by Paul Roberts

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", 2013 Report for America's Infrastructure - American Society of Civil Engineers - 19 March 2013, 3D printing, Abraham Maslow, accounting loophole / creative accounting, activist fund / activist shareholder / activist investor, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Alan Greenspan, American Society of Civil Engineers: Report Card, AOL-Time Warner, asset allocation, business cycle, business process, carbon tax, Carl Icahn, Cass Sunstein, centre right, choice architecture, classic study, collateralized debt obligation, collective bargaining, computerized trading, corporate governance, corporate raider, corporate social responsibility, creative destruction, crony capitalism, David Brooks, delayed gratification, disruptive innovation, double helix, Evgeny Morozov, factory automation, financial deregulation, financial engineering, financial innovation, fixed income, Ford Model T, full employment, game design, Glass-Steagall Act, greed is good, If something cannot go on forever, it will stop - Herbert Stein's Law, impulse control, income inequality, inflation targeting, insecure affluence, invisible hand, It's morning again in America, job automation, John Markoff, Joseph Schumpeter, junk bonds, knowledge worker, late fees, Long Term Capital Management, loss aversion, low interest rates, low skilled workers, mass immigration, Michael Shellenberger, new economy, Nicholas Carr, obamacare, Occupy movement, oil shale / tar sands, performance metric, postindustrial economy, profit maximization, Report Card for America’s Infrastructure, reshoring, Richard Thaler, rising living standards, Robert Shiller, Rodney Brooks, Ronald Reagan, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, speech recognition, Steve Jobs, stock buybacks, technological determinism, technological solutionism, technoutopianism, Ted Nordhaus, the built environment, the long tail, The Predators' Ball, the scientific method, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thorstein Veblen, too big to fail, total factor productivity, Tyler Cowen, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, value engineering, Walter Mischel, winner-take-all economy

23 What is interesting is that, in the wake of the Tea Party meltdown, we’re already seeing conservative thought leaders shifting toward the center—and away from the brand conservatism of Impulse politics. As Ross Douthat, one of The New York Times’ conservative columnists, has pointed out, a pragmatic, solutions-oriented “reform conservatism” has recently been emerging from center-right think tanks and from pragmatic conservative politicians concerned with the movement’s currently suicidal trajectory. Reform conservatism’s ideas—promoting early childhood education, for example, allowing states to manage their own transportation projects with their own fuel taxes—emphasize the brass tacks realism of traditional conservatism that has always appealed to Middle America.


pages: 344 words: 93,858

The Post-American World: Release 2.0 by Fareed Zakaria

"World Economic Forum" Davos, affirmative action, agricultural Revolution, airport security, Alan Greenspan, anti-communist, Asian financial crisis, battle of ideas, Bear Stearns, Berlin Wall, Bretton Woods, BRICs, British Empire, call centre, capital controls, central bank independence, centre right, collapse of Lehman Brothers, conceptual framework, Credit Default Swap, currency manipulation / currency intervention, delayed gratification, Deng Xiaoping, double entry bookkeeping, failed state, Fall of the Berlin Wall, financial innovation, global reserve currency, global supply chain, Great Leap Forward, illegal immigration, interest rate derivative, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), knowledge economy, low interest rates, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Wolf, mutually assured destruction, National Debt Clock, new economy, no-fly zone, oil shock, open economy, out of africa, Parag Khanna, postindustrial economy, purchasing power parity, race to the bottom, reserve currency, Ronald Reagan, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, South China Sea, Steven Pinker, Suez crisis 1956, The future is already here, The Great Moderation, Thomas L Friedman, Thomas Malthus, three-masted sailing ship, trade route, Washington Consensus, working-age population, young professional, zero-sum game

The percentage of people holding a favorable view of the United States has gone up considerably since the election of Barack Obama, but in many countries it is still below the levels seen in 2000. Josef Joffe, one of Germany’s leading international affairs commentators, observes that, during the Cold War, anti-Americanism was a left-wing phenomenon. “In contrast to it, there was always a center-right that was anti-communist and thus pro-American,” he explains. “The numbers waxed and waned, but you always had a solid base of support for the United States.” In short, the Cold War kept Europe pro-American. The year 1968, for example, saw mass protests against American policies in Vietnam, but it was also the year of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.


pages: 322 words: 87,181

Straight Talk on Trade: Ideas for a Sane World Economy by Dani Rodrik

3D printing, airline deregulation, Asian financial crisis, bank run, barriers to entry, behavioural economics, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, blue-collar work, Bretton Woods, BRICs, business cycle, call centre, capital controls, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, carbon tax, Carmen Reinhart, carried interest, central bank independence, centre right, collective bargaining, conceptual framework, continuous integration, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, currency manipulation / currency intervention, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, deindustrialization, Donald Trump, endogenous growth, Eugene Fama: efficient market hypothesis, eurozone crisis, export processing zone, failed state, financial deregulation, financial innovation, financial intermediation, financial repression, floating exchange rates, full employment, future of work, general purpose technology, George Akerlof, global value chain, income inequality, inflation targeting, information asymmetry, investor state dispute settlement, invisible hand, Jean Tirole, Kenneth Rogoff, low interest rates, low skilled workers, manufacturing employment, market clearing, market fundamentalism, meta-analysis, moral hazard, Nelson Mandela, new economy, offshore financial centre, open borders, open economy, open immigration, Pareto efficiency, postindustrial economy, precautionary principle, price stability, public intellectual, pushing on a string, race to the bottom, randomized controlled trial, regulatory arbitrage, rent control, rent-seeking, Richard Thaler, Robert Gordon, Robert Shiller, Ronald Reagan, Sam Peltzman, Silicon Valley, Solyndra, special economic zone, spectrum auction, Steven Pinker, tacit knowledge, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, the scientific method, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas L Friedman, too big to fail, total factor productivity, trade liberalization, transaction costs, Tyler Cowen, unorthodox policies, Washington Consensus, World Values Survey, zero-sum game, éminence grise

And it is as well the reality that his economic policies don’t add up to a coherent vision of how the United States and an open world economy can prosper side by side. The critical challenge facing mainstream political parties in the advanced economies today is to devise such a vision, along with a narrative that steals the populists’ thunder. These center-right and center-left parties should not be asked to save hyperglobalization at all costs. Trade advocates should be understanding if they adopt unorthodox policies to buy political support. We should look instead at whether their policies are driven by a desire for equity and social inclusion or by nativist and racist impulses, whether they want to enhance or weaken the rule of law and democratic deliberation, and whether they are trying to save the open world economy—albeit with different ground rules—rather than undermine it.


pages: 292 words: 92,588

The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, and the Remaking of the Civilized World by Jeff Goodell

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Airbnb, Anthropocene, carbon footprint, centre right, clean water, climate change refugee, creative destruction, data science, desegregation, Donald Trump, Dr. Strangelove, Elon Musk, failed state, fixed income, Frank Gehry, global pandemic, Google Earth, Higgs boson, illegal immigration, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Large Hadron Collider, megacity, Murano, Venice glass, negative emissions, New Urbanism, ocean acidification, Paris climate accords, Pearl River Delta, Peter Thiel, planetary scale, Ray Kurzweil, Richard Florida, risk tolerance, Ronald Reagan, Silicon Valley, smart cities, South China Sea, space junk, urban planning, urban renewal, wikimedia commons

Engineers gave it the name Modulo Sperimentale Elettromeccanico, better known as MOSE, an acronym deliberately designed to invoke Moses, the Bible’s great parter of the waves. Consorzio Venezia Nuova was awarded the contract to build the barriers without opening the process to bidding from other firms (a move that many Venetians were later to regret). Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, the brash media tycoon and center-right leader who later was convicted of tax fraud, pushed hard for the barriers and laid the first stone for the project in 2003. The MOSE barrier is an ambitious and sophisticated piece of engineering. It’s actually three separate flood barriers, one at each of the three inlets of the lagoon. Each barrier is made up of about twenty individual gates, which are bound by a hinge on the floor of the lagoon and are hollow, allowing them to fill with water.


pages: 474 words: 87,687

Stealth by Peter Westwick

Berlin Wall, centre right, computer age, cuban missile crisis, Dr. Strangelove, fixed-gear, friendly fire, Haight Ashbury, Isaac Newton, John Markoff, knowledge economy, machine translation, Mikhail Gorbachev, military-industrial complex, mutually assured destruction, Neil Armstrong, Norman Mailer, RAND corporation, risk tolerance, Ronald Reagan, Silicon Valley, Strategic Defense Initiative, Teledyne, Vladimir Vetrov: Farewell Dossier, white flight

Also, the first airplane had been built by production managers, aided by some design engineers, during the strike; for the second plane the regular shop-floor crew was back from the strike, and to Dyson the tolerances seemed a bit tighter.38 figure 7.2 Have Blue in flight, viewed from below. The retractable antenna at center right is in the extended position. The slight gap in the landing gear doors, less than a quarter inch, was caused by differential pressure from altitude changes. The gap increased the nose-on radar cross section by a factor of three and sparked a redesign for the F-117. Source: Lockheed Martin Skunk Works.


pages: 314 words: 88,524

American Marxism by Mark R. Levin

"RICO laws" OR "Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations", 2021 United States Capitol attack, affirmative action, American ideology, belling the cat, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, BIPOC, Black Lives Matter, British Empire, carbon tax, centre right, clean water, collective bargaining, colonial exploitation, conceptual framework, coronavirus, COVID-19, creative destruction, critical race theory, crony capitalism, data science, defund the police, degrowth, deindustrialization, deplatforming, disinformation, Donald Trump, energy security, Food sovereignty, George Floyd, green new deal, Herbert Marcuse, high-speed rail, illegal immigration, income inequality, liberal capitalism, lockdown, Mark Zuckerberg, means of production, Michael Shellenberger, microaggression, New Journalism, open borders, Parler "social media", planned obsolescence, rolling blackouts, Ronald Reagan, school choice, school vouchers, single-payer health, tech billionaire, the market place, urban sprawl, yellow journalism

Have you ever taken any actions against a channel for using your platform to disseminate any disinformation? If yes, please describe each action and when it was taken. Are you planning to continue carrying Fox News, Newsmax, and OANN… both now and beyond any contract renewal date? If so, why?80 This is an extraordinarily appalling letter, intended to intimidate and threaten targeted center-right broadcast and media organizations, for the sole purpose of silencing their speech. And virtually none of the other media and news organizations wrote or spoke against it. The reason: they agree with it. Even more, many news groups, journalists, and opinion writers were the first to propose de-platforming Fox, OANN, and Newsmax and are campaigning for government regulators and these platform companies to shut them down—as with Parler; which brings me back to the American media, where I started this chapter.


pages: 840 words: 224,391

Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel by Max Blumenthal

airport security, Albert Einstein, anti-communist, Berlin Wall, Boycotts of Israel, centre right, cognitive dissonance, corporate raider, crony capitalism, European colonialism, facts on the ground, gentrification, ghettoisation, housing crisis, intentional community, knowledge economy, megacity, moral panic, Mount Scopus, nuclear ambiguity, open borders, plutocrats, surplus humans, unit 8200, upwardly mobile, urban planning, WikiLeaks, Yom Kippur War, young professional, zero-sum game

With Alterman’s backing, Toubi’s position was secure in the young parliament, even if he remained an object of scorn and resentment by many of his colleagues. In the days after the mob attack on Zoabi in the summer of 2010, no Nathan Alterman emerged. Indeed, the incident in the Knesset was on the front page of every Israeli newspaper and broadcast at the top of the evening news, but with the exception of Amnon Levy, a columnist for the center-right Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, almost no one with any standing expended a scintilla of energy in condemning it. Even Tzipi Livni, the opposition leader who once told of a personal feminist awakening in which she realized, “I’m part of a wider system, and that some of my struggles are because I’m a woman,” said nothing about the nearly all-male mob that bullied Zoabi, taunting her over her status as a single Arab woman.

A young woman from the neighborhood added, “What Israeli would want her? She wants a nigger!” In modern day Israel, the African refugee occupied a similar role as the devious Jew in Weimar-era Nazi propaganda and the criminal “nigra” constantly invoked by racist Dixiecrats such as Strom Thurmond in the Jim Crow South. According to opinion writers in center-right papers like Yedioth Ahronoth, the country’s burgeoning anti-miscegenation movement, and elements in Netanyahu’s governing coalition, the African male’s crimes were legion, but his greatest danger was his propensity for violating the sexual dignity of Jewish women, and by extension, of the Jewish nation.


pages: 809 words: 237,921

The Narrow Corridor: States, Societies, and the Fate of Liberty by Daron Acemoglu, James A. Robinson

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, agricultural Revolution, AltaVista, Andrei Shleifer, bank run, Berlin Wall, British Empire, California gold rush, central bank independence, centre right, classic study, collateralized debt obligation, collective bargaining, colonial rule, Computer Numeric Control, conceptual framework, Corn Laws, Cornelius Vanderbilt, corporate governance, creative destruction, Credit Default Swap, credit default swaps / collateralized debt obligations, crony capitalism, Dava Sobel, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, Deng Xiaoping, discovery of the americas, double entry bookkeeping, Edward Snowden, en.wikipedia.org, equal pay for equal work, European colonialism, export processing zone, Ferguson, Missouri, financial deregulation, financial innovation, flying shuttle, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, full employment, Glass-Steagall Act, Great Leap Forward, high-speed rail, income inequality, income per capita, industrial robot, information asymmetry, interest rate swap, invention of movable type, Isaac Newton, it's over 9,000, James Watt: steam engine, John Harrison: Longitude, joint-stock company, Kula ring, labor-force participation, land reform, Mahatma Gandhi, manufacturing employment, mass incarceration, Maui Hawaii, means of production, megacity, Mikhail Gorbachev, military-industrial complex, Nelson Mandela, obamacare, openstreetmap, out of africa, PageRank, pattern recognition, road to serfdom, Ronald Reagan, seminal paper, Skype, spinning jenny, Steven Pinker, the market place, transcontinental railway, War on Poverty, WikiLeaks

When the military perceived its grip loosening or society mobilizing, it intervened via coups in 1960, 1971, 1980, and 1997. The military and civilian governments, though often secular, were quite willing to use religion for societal control too, and did move in and out of coalitions with religious groups. In the aftermath of the 1980 military coup, the military junta and the subsequent center-right governments strengthened the role of religion in daily life and in schools as a counterweight to left-wing forces. Emboldened by these social changes, the more conservative, religious, and poorer segments living in provincial cities or in less-well-off neighborhoods of major cities such as Istanbul started to feel disempowered and demanded greater recognition from the military and bureaucratic elites, whom they viewed as westernized and unrepresentative of their concerns.

The main threat that the business community and conservative elites feared was from the left of the political spectrum, but this was easily controlled by consolidating the right under the auspices of the Liberal Democratic Party. In Turkey, the AKP was already powerful enough to win the election in 2002 and kept getting stronger. The collapse of two other center-right parties, implicated in the mismanagement and endemic corruption of the 1990s, suddenly made the AKP dominant at the polls, granting it much greater political power than even its founders could have dreamed of. So the cards swiftly became stacked against a balance of power in Turkey. The shepherding role that General MacArthur and American forces played in Japan was at first partially filled by the EU accession process, motivating reforms to improve human and civil rights, including Kurdish rights, and constitutional reforms to rein in the overweening power of the military in civilian affairs.


pages: 360 words: 100,063

Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee

centre right, death from overwork, Future Shock, game design, transaction costs

This time she was in the dueling hall, and Kel Nerevor was saluting her with that fierce yellow calendrical sword. There were at least three things wrong with the scenario, but she didn’t want to leave. “Cheris,” Jedao said again. “General. Either get some fucking drugs or get out of the fucking command center. Right now you’re a menace to the swarm.” “It’s 2.9 hours until the operation begins,” Cheris said. Nerevor was trying to tell her something, but she spoke in words of fracture, seizure, cooling ash. Cheris couldn’t decipher the words. “I have to –” “Cheris, most generals have aides for this sort of thing.


pages: 391 words: 102,301

Zero-Sum Future: American Power in an Age of Anxiety by Gideon Rachman

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Alan Greenspan, Asian financial crisis, bank run, battle of ideas, Berlin Wall, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Bonfire of the Vanities, borderless world, Bretton Woods, BRICs, capital controls, carbon tax, centre right, clean water, collapse of Lehman Brothers, colonial rule, currency manipulation / currency intervention, deindustrialization, Deng Xiaoping, Doha Development Round, energy security, failed state, Fall of the Berlin Wall, financial deregulation, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, full employment, Glass-Steagall Act, global reserve currency, Global Witness, Golden arches theory, Great Leap Forward, greed is good, Greenspan put, Hernando de Soto, illegal immigration, income inequality, invisible hand, It's morning again in America, Jeff Bezos, laissez-faire capitalism, Live Aid, low interest rates, market fundamentalism, Martin Wolf, mass immigration, Mexican peso crisis / tequila crisis, Mikhail Gorbachev, moral hazard, mutually assured destruction, Naomi Klein, Nelson Mandela, offshore financial centre, Oklahoma City bombing, open borders, open economy, Peace of Westphalia, peak oil, pension reform, plutocrats, popular capitalism, price stability, RAND corporation, reserve currency, rising living standards, road to serfdom, Ronald Reagan, Savings and loan crisis, shareholder value, Sinatra Doctrine, sovereign wealth fund, special economic zone, Steve Jobs, Stewart Brand, Tax Reform Act of 1986, The Chicago School, The Great Moderation, The Myth of the Rational Market, Thomas Malthus, Timothy McVeigh, trickle-down economics, Washington Consensus, Winter of Discontent, zero-sum game

So, for example, the Green Revolution in agriculture had confounded the neo-Malthusians of the twentieth century. The magazine continued: “Today the mother of all scares is global warming. Here the jury is still out.” But it was pretty clear what the Economist expected the eventual verdict to be: “Every other environmental scare has been either wrong or badly exaggerated,” it argued.14 If even a center-right magazine published in Europe took this position, American conservatives could be expected to be even more skeptical about global warming and bullish about the prospects for new technology cracking the problem. President George W. Bush typified both trends. In his first term in office he was notably reluctant to make a fuss about global warming.


pages: 322 words: 99,066

The End of Secrecy: The Rise and Fall of WikiLeaks by The "Guardian", David Leigh, Luke Harding

"World Economic Forum" Davos, 4chan, air gap, banking crisis, centre right, Chelsea Manning, citizen journalism, Climategate, cloud computing, credit crunch, crowdsourcing, Downton Abbey, drone strike, end-to-end encryption, eurozone crisis, Evgeny Morozov, friendly fire, global village, Hacker Ethic, impulse control, Jacob Appelbaum, Julian Assange, knowledge economy, machine readable, military-industrial complex, Mohammed Bouazizi, Nelson Mandela, offshore financial centre, operational security, post-work, rolodex, Seymour Hersh, Silicon Valley, Skype, Steven Levy, sugar pill, uranium enrichment, WikiLeaks

With high-profile events like the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) prep-com next spring, and Sarkozy preparing to lead France’s chairmanship of the G-8/G-20 in 2011, we believe we can best secure our interests across a broad front through continued close consultations with our French partners (including, and perhaps especially, at the highest levels), with an eye to leveraging Sarkozy’s strong political standing, desire for action, and willingness to make difficult decisions into force multipliers for our foreign policy interests. End Summary. DOMESTIC DRAMA BUT NO DOMESTIC OPPOSITION 2. (C/NF) Sarkozy’s domestic standing is virtually unchallenged despite lagging opinion polls which place his personal approval ratings at 39 percent. His center-right UMP party controls both houses of parliament, and opposition leaders in France have spent the past two years fighting among themselves rather than mounting any serious political challenge to the incumbent president. Sarkozy’s policy of “openness” in appointing opposition politicians to high-profile positions has contributed to the leadership drain on the left.


pages: 329 words: 102,469

Free World: America, Europe, and the Surprising Future of the West by Timothy Garton Ash

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Albert Einstein, battle of ideas, Berlin Wall, BRICs, British Empire, call centre, centre right, clean water, Columbine, continuation of politics by other means, cuban missile crisis, demographic transition, Deng Xiaoping, Doha Development Round, Eratosthenes, European colonialism, failed state, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, illegal immigration, income inequality, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), James Watt: steam engine, Kickstarter, Mikhail Gorbachev, Nelson Mandela, Peace of Westphalia, postnationalism / post nation state, Project for a New American Century, purchasing power parity, reserve currency, Ronald Reagan, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, Suez crisis 1956, Thomas Malthus, trade liberalization, Washington Consensus, working poor, working-age population, World Values Survey

In the French case, as in the British, an overall approach to international relations was inextricably bound up with a national diplomatic strategy to preserve as much as possible of a former world power’s dwindling status and influence. The relation of Gaullisms to the historical Charles de Gaulle is as complex as that of Churchillisms to the real Churchill. We need to distinguish sharply between Gaullism at home and abroad. The former is a domestic political tendency of the center-right, the latter an approach that can count on much wider support. Nor can we ever know what de Gaulle himself would have done. For all his pursuit of independence from the Americans, de Gaulle showed unstinting solidarity with the administration of John F. Kennedy during the Cuban missile crisis. Perhaps, contemplating Chirac’s defiance of the United States, de Gaulle might have muttered “surtout, je ne suis pas Gaulliste.”


pages: 344 words: 96,690

Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies by Charlene Li, Josh Bernoff

business process, call centre, centre right, citizen journalism, crowdsourcing, demand response, Donald Trump, estate planning, Firefox, folksonomy, John Markoff, Kickstarter, knowledge worker, off-the-grid, Parler "social media", Salesforce, Silicon Valley, skunkworks, social bookmarking, social intelligence, Streisand effect, the long tail, Tony Hsieh

(One patient reported that when she brought up information she found online, her doctor responded, “Stay off the Internet!”) But it’s now abundantly clear to doctors at NCCN cancer centers that they must have an Internet strategy, and the Communispace community is helping them figure it out. Ellen Sonet is helping build Web resources for her cancer center right now. She knows that patients go to cancer organizations like the American Cancer Society more, WebMD a little less, and cancer center Web sites even less than that. She even knows (since Communispace asked) which search terms people use—you could guess that it makes sense for her to buy “breast cancer” keywords on Google, but would you have guessed that lots of people search on “metastatic”?


pages: 407 words: 103,501

The Digital Divide: Arguments for and Against Facebook, Google, Texting, and the Age of Social Netwo Rking by Mark Bauerlein

Alvin Toffler, Amazon Mechanical Turk, Andrew Keen, business cycle, centre right, citizen journalism, collaborative editing, computer age, computer vision, corporate governance, crowdsourcing, David Brooks, digital divide, disintermediation, folksonomy, Frederick Winslow Taylor, Future Shock, Hacker News, Herbert Marcuse, Howard Rheingold, invention of movable type, invention of the steam engine, invention of the telephone, Jaron Lanier, Jeff Bezos, jimmy wales, Kevin Kelly, knowledge worker, late fees, Lewis Mumford, Mark Zuckerberg, Marshall McLuhan, means of production, meta-analysis, moral panic, Network effects, new economy, Nicholas Carr, PageRank, PalmPilot, peer-to-peer, pets.com, radical decentralization, Results Only Work Environment, Saturday Night Live, scientific management, search engine result page, semantic web, Silicon Valley, slashdot, social graph, social web, software as a service, speech recognition, Steve Jobs, Stewart Brand, technology bubble, Ted Nelson, the long tail, the strength of weak ties, The Wisdom of Crowds, Thorstein Veblen, web application, Yochai Benkler

“It’s not healthy for us if there are certain decisions that are simply removed from the democratic realm and are just ‘the Supreme Court says so,’ ” he argues. “I would even say this about abortion, although I’m a big pro-choice guy. It’s not clear to me that it’s such a great thing to have removed it completely from politics.” Politically, Wales cops to various libertarian positions but prefers to call his views “center-right.” By that he means that he sees himself as part of a silent majority of socially liberal, fiscally conservative people who value liberty—“people who vote Republican but who worry about right-wingers.” The Libertarian Party, he says, is full of “lunatics.” But even as he outlines all the reasons why he prefers to stay close to the American political mainstream, Wales delicately parses the various libertarian positions on intellectual property and other points of dispute without breaking a sweat.


pages: 366 words: 100,602

Sextant: A Young Man's Daring Sea Voyage and the Men Who ... by David Barrie

centre right, colonial exploitation, Easter island, Edmond Halley, Eratosthenes, Fellow of the Royal Society, GPS: selective availability, Isaac Newton, Johannes Kepler, John Harrison: Longitude, lone genius, Maui Hawaii, Neil Armstrong, Nicholas Carr, polynesian navigation, South China Sea, three-masted sailing ship, trade route

It is also unusual in having a pole that fits into a socket on the observer’s belt to help support its weight. A page from a journal showing Charles Green’s lunar distance observations taken aboard the Endeavour off the Great Barrier Reef (box, center left). The latitude is prominently recorded (center right) and beneath it Green notes the unusual circumstances: “These Obs[ervations] very good the Limbs very distinct, a good Horizon. We were about a 100 yards from a Reef where we expected the Ship to strike every minute it being Calm & no soundings the swell heaving us right on.” Louis-Antoine de Bougainville.


pages: 420 words: 100,811

We Are Data: Algorithms and the Making of Our Digital Selves by John Cheney-Lippold

algorithmic bias, bioinformatics, business logic, Cass Sunstein, centre right, computer vision, critical race theory, dark matter, data science, digital capitalism, drone strike, Edward Snowden, Evgeny Morozov, Filter Bubble, Google Chrome, Google Earth, Hans Moravec, Ian Bogost, informal economy, iterative process, James Bridle, Jaron Lanier, Julian Assange, Kevin Kelly, late capitalism, Laura Poitras, lifelogging, Lyft, machine readable, machine translation, Mark Zuckerberg, Marshall McLuhan, mass incarceration, Mercator projection, meta-analysis, Nick Bostrom, Norbert Wiener, offshore financial centre, pattern recognition, price discrimination, RAND corporation, Ray Kurzweil, Richard Thaler, ride hailing / ride sharing, Rosa Parks, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, Skype, Snapchat, software studies, statistical model, Steven Levy, technological singularity, technoutopianism, the scientific method, Thomas Bayes, Toyota Production System, Turing machine, uber lyft, web application, WikiLeaks, Zimmermann PGP

See National Security Agency (NSA) prisons, 23, 97, 101–2, 171 privacy, 7, 35, 203–4, 247; dataveillance and, 20–22, 166–67, 205, 208, 217, 220, 223–26, 229, 235–36, 257; dividual, 36, 206–7, 209, 212–46; Facebook and, 25, 155, 185, 207, 241, 244–46, 255–56; Google and, 207, 222–23, 238; liberal, 22, 208–15, 218–19, 221–22, 225, 231, 233, 237; metadata and, 3, 230, 237, 239–40; privatization and, 254–57; race/gender/class/disability and, 208–9; rights, ix–xii, 3, 165, 169, 205–6. See also anonymization (of data); breathing spaces to survive; Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA); Electronic Privacy Information Center; right not to be identified; right to be forgotten; right to be let alone; take-down requests; terms of service agreements privatization, 241–42, 254–57 procedural data due process, 222–27, 234–35, 243 profilization, 87, 115 Proudhon, Pierre-Joseph, 93 psychographics, 75. See also segmentation; Values and Lifestyles (VALS) Puar, Jasbir, 42, 77, 79 Quantcast, 92, 147–48, 240–41; identity construction, 6, 22, 66, 76, 109–10, 114–15, 132–38, 141–44, 226, 229–30, 253, 257 Quantified Self community (QS), 118–20 queer theory, 25, 42, 60, 196, 220 race, xiii, 42, 52, 54, 67, 163, 177–79, 184, 191, 209, 215, 257, 272n49, 272n52, 278n60, 292n73; algorithms producing, 29, 30, 33–34, 80, 84–85, 135, 138–39, 237, 242–43, 252; critical race theory, 196; digital epidermalization, 12, 15–16; facial recognition and, 15–19, 33, 71–72, 265; intersectionality and, 84, 86–87, 141, 220; as macrostate, 27; marketing and, 76; postracial optimism, 17, 72; as social construction, 45, 77, 242; tech industry statistics, 18.


pages: 338 words: 101,967

Israel: A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth by Noa Tishby

An Inconvenient Truth, Ayatollah Khomeini, Bernie Sanders, Black Lives Matter, Boycotts of Israel, British Empire, Burning Man, centre right, COVID-19, disinformation, epigenetics, European colonialism, failed state, fake news, Ferguson, Missouri, financial engineering, George Floyd, haute couture, if you build it, they will come, it's over 9,000, Jeremy Corbyn, lockdown, post-work, psychological pricing, RAND corporation, Silicon Valley, Social Justice Warrior, Suez canal 1869, Suez crisis 1956, women in the workforce, Yom Kippur War

The Knesset passes laws, elects the prime minister and president, and supervises the work of the Israeli government. Lehi —The paramilitary organization that sought to use force and violence to push the British out of Mandatory Palestine; also known as the “Stern Gang.” Likud —Also known by its full name, the National Liberal Party. The Likud is a center-right to right-leaning party founded in 1973. It won the election in 1977 and has been the dominant political party in Israel ever since. Ma’abarot —Refugee absorption camps established to provide accommodation for the influx of refugees arriving in Israel at the early days of the state. Mahmoud Abbas —Also known as Abu Mazen, the president of the State of Palestine and the Palestinian Authority since 2005.


Forward: Notes on the Future of Our Democracy by Andrew Yang

2013 Report for America's Infrastructure - American Society of Civil Engineers - 19 March 2013, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Amazon Web Services, American Society of Civil Engineers: Report Card, basic income, benefit corporation, Bernie Sanders, blockchain, blue-collar work, call centre, centre right, clean water, contact tracing, coronavirus, correlation does not imply causation, COVID-19, data is the new oil, data science, deepfake, disinformation, Donald Trump, facts on the ground, fake news, forensic accounting, future of work, George Floyd, gig economy, global pandemic, income inequality, independent contractor, Jaron Lanier, Jeff Bezos, job automation, Kevin Roose, labor-force participation, Marc Benioff, Mark Zuckerberg, medical bankruptcy, new economy, obamacare, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, pez dispenser, QAnon, recommendation engine, risk tolerance, rolodex, Ronald Reagan, Rutger Bregman, Sam Altman, Saturday Night Live, shareholder value, Shoshana Zuboff, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, single-payer health, Snapchat, social distancing, SoftBank, surveillance capitalism, systematic bias, tech billionaire, TED Talk, The Day the Music Died, the long tail, TikTok, universal basic income, winner-take-all economy, working poor

We are facing a situation in which there will be fewer and fewer human workers capable of paying income taxes over time. Take the example of Google’s AI doing the work of call center workers, which was announced in mid-2020. How much will Google pay in taxes? Certainly much less than the more than two million Americans working in call centers right now making between $10 and $15 an hour. The same will be true of self-driving trucks and the more than three million Americans who currently drive a truck for a living. If we truly want to use our economic prosperity to build a stronger country, we need to harvest these kinds of productivity gains in order to fund real changes.


pages: 289 words: 95,046

Chaos Kings: How Wall Street Traders Make Billions in the New Age of Crisis by Scott Patterson

"World Economic Forum" Davos, 2021 United States Capitol attack, 4chan, Alan Greenspan, Albert Einstein, asset allocation, backtesting, Bear Stearns, beat the dealer, behavioural economics, Benoit Mandelbrot, Bernie Madoff, Bernie Sanders, bitcoin, Bitcoin "FTX", Black Lives Matter, Black Monday: stock market crash in 1987, Black Swan, Black Swan Protection Protocol, Black-Scholes formula, blockchain, Bob Litterman, Boris Johnson, Brownian motion, butterfly effect, carbon footprint, carbon tax, Carl Icahn, centre right, clean tech, clean water, collapse of Lehman Brothers, Colonization of Mars, commodity super cycle, complexity theory, contact tracing, coronavirus, correlation does not imply causation, COVID-19, Credit Default Swap, cryptocurrency, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, decarbonisation, disinformation, diversification, Donald Trump, Doomsday Clock, Edward Lloyd's coffeehouse, effective altruism, Elliott wave, Elon Musk, energy transition, Eugene Fama: efficient market hypothesis, Extinction Rebellion, fear index, financial engineering, fixed income, Flash crash, Gail Bradbrook, George Floyd, global pandemic, global supply chain, Gordon Gekko, Greenspan put, Greta Thunberg, hindsight bias, index fund, interest rate derivative, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Jeff Bezos, Jeffrey Epstein, Joan Didion, John von Neumann, junk bonds, Just-in-time delivery, lockdown, Long Term Capital Management, Louis Bachelier, mandelbrot fractal, Mark Spitznagel, Mark Zuckerberg, market fundamentalism, mass immigration, megacity, Mikhail Gorbachev, Mohammed Bouazizi, money market fund, moral hazard, Murray Gell-Mann, Nick Bostrom, off-the-grid, panic early, Pershing Square Capital Management, Peter Singer: altruism, Ponzi scheme, power law, precautionary principle, prediction markets, proprietary trading, public intellectual, QAnon, quantitative easing, quantitative hedge fund, quantitative trading / quantitative finance, Ralph Nader, Ralph Nelson Elliott, random walk, Renaissance Technologies, rewilding, Richard Thaler, risk/return, road to serfdom, Ronald Reagan, Ronald Reagan: Tear down this wall, Rory Sutherland, Rupert Read, Sam Bankman-Fried, Silicon Valley, six sigma, smart contracts, social distancing, sovereign wealth fund, statistical arbitrage, statistical model, stem cell, Stephen Hawking, Steve Jobs, Steven Pinker, Stewart Brand, systematic trading, tail risk, technoutopianism, The Chicago School, The Great Moderation, the scientific method, too big to fail, transaction costs, University of East Anglia, value at risk, Vanguard fund, We are as Gods, Whole Earth Catalog

He joined the boards of Ceres (which pushes companies to disclose emissions and other environmental risks), Climate Central, Resources for the Future, the Woodwell Climate Research Center, the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, and the Stanford Natural Capital Project. He also chaired the board of a Washington D.C. center-right think tank, the Niskanen Center, which advocates for a tax on carbon emissions. As Litterman was boning up on the nuts and bolts of climate-change economics, he realized the field had a big problem. No one had figured out how to price the risks posed by global warming. Those who’d tried had done an amazingly bad job of it, he believed.


Antonio-s-Gun-and-Delfino-s-Dream-True-Tales-of-Mexican-Migration by Unknown

Berlin Wall, centre right, Fall of the Berlin Wall, fear of failure, ghettoisation, illegal immigration, In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, low skilled workers, Mahatma Gandhi, trade route

Many of the people he’s brought are from Xocotla, for the exodus has not diminished. On the contrary, Xocotla is on its way to becoming yet another Mexican village of empty houses, one which belongs to Delfino Juárez. The Tomato King In , Andrés Bermúdez ran again for mayor of Jerez, Zacatecas. He ran with the center-right National Action Party (PAN), won again, and this time his election was not annulled. Midway through his three-year term, however, Bermúdez had achieved few of the changes he hoped an immigrant could bring to Mexico. 311 312 / STORY UPDATES “His administration was a disaster due to his own lack of preparation,” said Zacatecas immigration scholar Rodolfo García, “but also because of the consistent attacks on him by the PRD and the PRI.


pages: 431 words: 106,435

How the Post Office Created America: A History by Winifred Gallagher

British Empire, California gold rush, centre right, Charles Lindbergh, City Beautiful movement, clean water, collective bargaining, cotton gin, financial engineering, Ford Model T, glass ceiling, hiring and firing, indoor plumbing, military-industrial complex, Monroe Doctrine, New Urbanism, off-the-grid, pneumatic tube, public intellectual, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Republic of Letters, Silicon Valley, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, transcontinental railway, traveling salesman, upwardly mobile, white flight, wikimedia commons, women in the workforce, Works Progress Administration

To make a major investment in America’s telecommunications infrastructure, the legislators would also have to bet on the equivalent of the tremendous return on bipartisan funding for interstate highways and rural electrification in the 1950s and ’60s. On one hand, the timing is currently favorable for such a step, because the government could borrow the money at low long-term interest rates; on the other, the nation’s current center-right politics constrains federal spending. • • • THE POST’S MORE conservative supporters believe that, like the federal government in general, it is simply too big and ambitious. Like postmasters general Benjamin Franklin, Ebenezer Hazard, Albert Burleson, and Walter Brown before them, they narrow their eyes on the bottom line.


pages: 267 words: 106,340

Europe old and new: transnationalism, belonging, xenophobia by Ray Taras

affirmative action, anti-communist, Ayatollah Khomeini, Berlin Wall, British Empire, carbon footprint, centre right, collective bargaining, Danilo Kiš, energy security, full employment, Gunnar Myrdal, illegal immigration, immigration reform, Kickstarter, low skilled workers, mass immigration, Mikhail Gorbachev, military-industrial complex, Naomi Klein, North Sea oil, open economy, postnationalism / post nation state, Potemkin village, public intellectual, Ronald Reagan, World Values Survey

But unlike in the Iberian state, even though Islam is the next-largest faith in Italy it does not receive any state support. By contrast, other religions, such as Judaism and small Protestant denominations, have concluded agreements with the state making them eligible to receive a percentage of revenues from the national religion tax. From 2001 to 2006, Silvio Berlusconi, founder of the center-right movement Forza Italia, served at the head of a coalition government. One of his coalition partners was the Northern League (Lega Nord), which regularly engaged in anti-Muslim discourse. The Lega even sponsored a bill to restrict the building of mosques. One of its leaders inveighed that mosques “aren’t simple places of prayer” but sometimes serve as “centers of recruitment for terrorists and for propagation of hatred for the West.”12 As in other countries in old Europe, headscarves and burkas worn by Muslim women also became a lightning rod in Italy’s politics.


pages: 451 words: 103,606

Machine Learning for Hackers by Drew Conway, John Myles White

call centre, centre right, correlation does not imply causation, data science, Debian, Erdős number, Nate Silver, natural language processing, Netflix Prize, off-by-one error, p-value, pattern recognition, Paul Erdős, recommendation engine, social graph, SpamAssassin, statistical model, text mining, the scientific method, traveling salesman

We are only interested in scaling our distance data into two dimensions, so in the following code block we use the default settings and plot the results using R’s base graphics. ex.mds <- cmdscale(ex.dist) plot(ex.mds, type='n') text(ex.mds, c('A','B','C','D')) Figure 9-2. MDS of simulated customer product review data From Figure 9-2 we can see that customers A and D do cluster together in the center-right of the plot. Customers B and C, however, do not cluster at all. From our data, then, we can see that customers A and D have somewhat similar tastes, but we would need to acquire much more data and/or customers before we could hope to understand how customers B and C cluster. It is also important to note that although we can see how A and D cluster, and likewise how B and C do not, we cannot say anything substantive about how to interpret these distances.


pages: 688 words: 107,867

Python Data Analytics: With Pandas, NumPy, and Matplotlib by Fabio Nelli

Amazon Web Services, backpropagation, centre right, computer vision, data science, Debian, deep learning, DevOps, functional programming, Google Earth, Guido van Rossum, Internet of things, optical character recognition, pattern recognition, sentiment analysis, speech recognition, statistical model, web application

In the next example, you will move the legend in the upper-left corner so it will not overlap with the points represented in the plot.Table 7-1The Possible Values for the loc Keyword Location Code Location String 0 best 1 upper-right 2 upper-left 3 lower-right 4 lower-left 5 right 6 center-left 7 center-right 8 lower-center 9 upper-center 10 center Before you begin to modify the code to move the legend, I want to add a small notice. Generally, the legends are used to indicate the definition of a series to the reader via a label associated with a color and/or a marker that distinguishes it in the plot.


Amazing Stories of the Space Age by Rod Pyle

Apollo 11, Apollo 13, built by the lowest bidder, centre right, desegregation, Elon Musk, Gene Kranz, James Webb Space Telescope, Jeff Bezos, low earth orbit, Mars Rover, Neil Armstrong, Richard Feynman, Richard Feynman: Challenger O-ring, Ronald Reagan, space junk, SpaceShipOne, Strategic Defense Initiative, Virgin Galactic

These units would provide long-duration rocket engines that would use a fission reactor and hydrogen fuel to propel the spacecraft after it reached orbit, using conventional rockets (not an atomic sendoff like the Orion program had envisioned). Fig. 7.1. Schematic comparison of Ford Aeronutronic's designs for a Mars/Venus flyby spacecraft. The center right version, labeled “Nuclear Symmetric,” was by far the lightest and most efficient version. Image from NASA. In the introduction to one of the two plans submitted by Aeronutronic, “The EMPIRE Dual Planet Flyby Mission,” the authors said of NASA, “Much credit must be given to the forward thinking approach given to the NASA on this program in 1962.


pages: 378 words: 107,957

Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything About Race, Gender, and Identity―and Why This Harms Everybody by Helen Pluckrose, James A. Lindsay

"hyperreality Baudrillard"~20 OR "Baudrillard hyperreality", affirmative action, Albert Einstein, barriers to entry, battle of ideas, centre right, cognitive dissonance, colonial rule, conceptual framework, critical race theory, deplatforming, desegregation, Donald Trump, equal pay for equal work, European colonialism, fake news, feminist movement, gentrification, germ theory of disease, Isaac Newton, late capitalism, meta-analysis, microaggression, moral panic, neurotypical, phenotype, sexual politics, Social Justice Warrior, Stephen Hawking, Steven Pinker, the scientific method, transatlantic slave trade, W. E. B. Du Bois, white flight, women in the workforce

This leaves only those with the most extreme voices to speak up against Social Justice, and to the degree they can be perceived as speaking an obvious truth that no one else will say, they will gain support they would not otherwise have been able to garner. In this way, through the systematic and near-total silencing of reasonable and moderate voices from the left, center, and center-right, Social Justice opens itself and our society up most precariously and certainly to an authoritarian far-right backlash. (This, it will then uselessly interpret, of course, as more proof that our society is as degenerate and bigoted as they’ve always insisted it is—a self-fulfilling prophesy none of us has to suffer, if we’re willing to speak up while we can.)


pages: 461 words: 106,027

Zero to Sold: How to Start, Run, and Sell a Bootstrapped Business by Arvid Kahl

business logic, business process, centre right, Chuck Templeton: OpenTable:, cognitive load, content marketing, continuous integration, coronavirus, COVID-19, crowdsourcing, domain-specific language, financial independence, functional programming, Google Chrome, hockey-stick growth, if you build it, they will come, information asymmetry, information retrieval, inventory management, Jeff Bezos, job automation, Kanban, Kubernetes, machine readable, minimum viable product, Network effects, performance metric, post-work, premature optimization, risk tolerance, Ruby on Rails, sentiment analysis, side hustle, Silicon Valley, single source of truth, software as a service, solopreneur, source of truth, statistical model, subscription business, sunk-cost fallacy, supply-chain management, the long tail, trickle-down economics, value engineering, web application

Check for Problem/Solution Alignment Every few months, determine if your business is still solving the problem it set out to solve. Most products are engineered for particular use cases. Those use cases could transform over time. Industries adopt new practices, and workflows change. Your tool may be front and center right now, but a change to the business process or a regulatory requirement may make your product less effective. Talk to your customers and see if they find friction where there was none before: Do they still deal with the problem frequently? Does the product provide as much value as it used to a few months ago?


pages: 729 words: 111,640

The Lighthouse of Stalingrad: The Hidden Truth at the Centre of WWII's Greatest Battle by Iain MacGregor

Berlin Wall, Bletchley Park, centre right, clean water, Fall of the Berlin Wall, friendly fire, too big to fail

Roske’s final letter to his wife, which was flown out of the German encirclement on January 22, 1943, read: “I trust in God, in our strength, and determined fighting community here—we will survive the fight well. Don’t let yourself be too influenced by the reports from the Wehrmacht!” Roske, a trained architect, sketched the floor plan of his room (a cell) within I.R. 194’s quarters within the GPU prison complex. His bed center right (with a “shabby carpet” around it on the floor) and clockwise: a bookcase, a desk at the bottom of the drawing (separated from the bed by a curtain), his orderly Berndl sleeping in the corridor separated by an iron door. There was a barrel vault near the space where Berndl lived outside the room.


pages: 982 words: 221,145

Ajax: The Definitive Guide by Anthony T. Holdener

AltaVista, Amazon Web Services, business logic, business process, centre right, Citizen Lab, Colossal Cave Adventure, create, read, update, delete, database schema, David Heinemeier Hansson, en.wikipedia.org, Firefox, full text search, game design, general-purpose programming language, Guido van Rossum, information retrieval, loose coupling, machine readable, MVC pattern, Necker cube, p-value, Ruby on Rails, SimCity, slashdot, social bookmarking, sorting algorithm, SQL injection, Wayback Machine, web application

CSS2 properties and their JavaScript equivalents CSS2.1 property name JavaScript property name Values azimuth azimuth angle | left-side | far-left | left | center-left | center | center-right | right | farright | right-side | behind | leftwards | rightwards background background background-color | background-image | background-repeat | background-attachment | background-position background-attachment backgroundAttachment scroll | fixed background-color backgroundColor color | transparent background-image backgroundImage URL | none background-position backgroundPosition top left | top center | top right | center left | center center | center right | bottom left | bottom center | bottom right | x-percent y-percent | x-pos y-pos background-repeat backgroundRepeat repeat | repeat-x | repeat-y | no-repeat Change That Style | 119 Table 5-10.


pages: 571 words: 111,306

The Design and Engineering of Curiosity: How the Mars Rover Performs Its Job by Emily Lakdawalla

3D printing, active measures, centre right, data acquisition, Kuiper Belt, Mars Rover, Maui Hawaii, Teledyne

Each camera has some (but very few) bad pixels: hot pixels that make bright spots, dead pixels that make dark spots, and gray pixels that don’t respond as well as others around them to incoming light. Occasionally, a new hot pixel appears on a camera detector, likely caused by an energetic particle flying from the MMRTG or from space. One such hot pixel appeared on the center right of the right Mastcam on sol 392, and had disappeared again by sol 710. A particularly bright one appeared near the top right of the left Mastcam on sol 834 and has remained ever since (Figure 7.7). Figure 7.7. How hot pixels, shutter smear, and JPEG compression can reduce Mastcam image quality.


pages: 407 words: 117,763

In the City of Bikes: The Story of the Amsterdam Cyclist by Pete Jordan

active transport: walking or cycling, bike sharing, business process, car-free, centre right, fixed-gear, German hyperinflation, Golden Gate Park, Haight Ashbury, post-work, Suez crisis 1956, urban planning

Despite the overwhelmingly popular sentiment in the Netherlands that theirs was the better team, the Dutch side lost to West Germany. This bitter defeat did nothing to alleviate the animosity toward the Germans. The following year, the Dutch soccer club F.C. Amsterdam traveled to Cologne, Germany, to play F.C. Cologne. While the Amsterdam team bus drove through the city center, right back Frits Flinkevleugel—a noted jokester who was born and raised in Amsterdam—led the other players in singing, “I want my bicycle back.” Then, upon seeing a parked bike, Flinkevleugel instructed the driver to stop the bus. As he hauled the bike aboard, Flinkevleugel reportedly quipped, “My grandpa asked me to retrieve his bike.”


pages: 380 words: 118,675

The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon by Brad Stone

airport security, Amazon Mechanical Turk, Amazon Web Services, AOL-Time Warner, Apollo 11, bank run, Bear Stearns, Bernie Madoff, big-box store, Black Swan, book scanning, Brewster Kahle, buy and hold, call centre, centre right, Chuck Templeton: OpenTable:, Clayton Christensen, cloud computing, collapse of Lehman Brothers, crowdsourcing, cuban missile crisis, Danny Hillis, deal flow, Douglas Hofstadter, drop ship, Elon Musk, facts on the ground, fulfillment center, game design, housing crisis, invention of movable type, inventory management, James Dyson, Jeff Bezos, John Markoff, junk bonds, Kevin Kelly, Kiva Systems, Kodak vs Instagram, Larry Ellison, late fees, loose coupling, low skilled workers, Maui Hawaii, Menlo Park, Neal Stephenson, Network effects, new economy, off-the-grid, optical character recognition, PalmPilot, pets.com, Ponzi scheme, proprietary trading, quantitative hedge fund, reality distortion field, recommendation engine, Renaissance Technologies, RFID, Rodney Brooks, search inside the book, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, six sigma, skunkworks, Skype, SoftBank, statistical arbitrage, Steve Ballmer, Steve Jobs, Steven Levy, Stewart Brand, the long tail, Thomas L Friedman, Tony Hsieh, two-pizza team, Virgin Galactic, Whole Earth Catalog, why are manhole covers round?, zero-sum game

* * * When you have fit yourself snugly into Jeff Bezos’s worldview and then evaluated both the successes and failures of Amazon over the past two decades, the future of the company becomes easy to predict. The answer to almost every conceivable question is yes. Will Amazon move to free next-day and same-day delivery for Prime members? Yes, eventually, when Amazon has so many customers in each urban area that placing a fulfillment center right outside every city becomes practical. Bezos’s goal is and always has been to take all the inconvenience out of online shopping and deliver products and services to customers in the most efficient manner possible. Will Amazon one day own its own delivery trucks? Yes, eventually, because controlling the so-called last-mile delivery to its customers can help fulfill that vision and improve the company’s ability to meet the precise delivery promises it relishes making to customers.


The Fugitive Game: Online With Kevin Mitnick by Jonathan Littman

Apple's 1984 Super Bowl advert, centre right, computer age, disinformation, game design, Hacker Ethic, Howard Rheingold, information security, John Markoff, John Perry Barlow, Kevin Kelly, Menlo Park, Michael Milken, Mitch Kapor, power law, profit motive, Silicon Valley, Steven Levy, telemarketer

I knew it'd work. I was right." "Why don't they do more?" "I think probably soon, like the year 2010, they'll probably have it where you might have to get a full set of prints," Mitnick prophesizes. "And then when you get stopped by Mo Jo Cop, he scans it and it checks NCIC [the National Crime Information Center] right away. Wouldn't that be scary? And how about when the government decides we don't want cash. We want to put it all on a plastic card. Your net worth. Then whenever the IRS wants to tax you, they just take it out. "Hold on a sec, this guy's gonna take my stuff." Mitnick's talking to somebody else.


pages: 411 words: 114,717

Breakout Nations: In Pursuit of the Next Economic Miracles by Ruchir Sharma

"World Economic Forum" Davos, 3D printing, affirmative action, Alan Greenspan, Albert Einstein, American energy revolution, anti-communist, Asian financial crisis, banking crisis, Berlin Wall, book value, BRICs, British Empire, business climate, business cycle, business process, business process outsourcing, call centre, capital controls, Carmen Reinhart, central bank independence, centre right, cloud computing, collective bargaining, colonial rule, commodity super cycle, corporate governance, creative destruction, crony capitalism, deindustrialization, demographic dividend, Deng Xiaoping, eurozone crisis, financial engineering, Gini coefficient, global macro, global supply chain, Goodhart's law, high-speed rail, housing crisis, income inequality, indoor plumbing, inflation targeting, informal economy, junk bonds, Kenneth Rogoff, knowledge economy, labor-force participation, land reform, low interest rates, M-Pesa, Mahatma Gandhi, Marc Andreessen, market bubble, Masayoshi Son, mass immigration, megacity, Mexican peso crisis / tequila crisis, middle-income trap, Nelson Mandela, new economy, no-fly zone, oil shale / tar sands, oil shock, open economy, Peter Thiel, planetary scale, public intellectual, quantitative easing, reserve currency, Robert Gordon, rolling blackouts, Shenzhen was a fishing village, Silicon Valley, software is eating the world, sovereign wealth fund, The Great Moderation, Thomas L Friedman, trade liberalization, Tyler Cowen, Watson beat the top human players on Jeopardy!, working-age population, zero-sum game

But its foreign debts were manageable, in large part owing to its solid domestic banks and well-managed government. The core of Czech banking and bureaucracy is so sound that the economy has grown steadily through long years of political turmoil, with weak coalition governments ever since the Velvet Revolution overthrew the Communist regime in 1989. A victory by center-right parties in the 2010 elections raised the prospect of a strong legislative majority for the first time, but at this point Czech society has such sturdy permanent institutions that it can thrive even with weak elected governments. These former Soviet satellites also have a much greater chance than Russia does to emerge as impact players in global industrial competition.


pages: 393 words: 115,263

Planet Ponzi by Mitch Feierstein

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Alan Greenspan, Albert Einstein, Asian financial crisis, asset-backed security, bank run, banking crisis, barriers to entry, Bear Stearns, Bernie Madoff, book value, break the buck, centre right, collapse of Lehman Brothers, collateralized debt obligation, commoditize, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, credit default swaps / collateralized debt obligations, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, disintermediation, diversification, Donald Trump, energy security, eurozone crisis, financial innovation, financial intermediation, fixed income, Flash crash, floating exchange rates, frictionless, frictionless market, Future Shock, Glass-Steagall Act, government statistician, high net worth, High speed trading, illegal immigration, income inequality, interest rate swap, invention of agriculture, junk bonds, light touch regulation, Long Term Capital Management, low earth orbit, low interest rates, mega-rich, money market fund, moral hazard, mortgage debt, negative equity, Neil Armstrong, Northern Rock, obamacare, offshore financial centre, oil shock, pensions crisis, plutocrats, Ponzi scheme, price anchoring, price stability, proprietary trading, purchasing power parity, quantitative easing, risk tolerance, Robert Shiller, Ronald Reagan, tail risk, too big to fail, trickle-down economics, value at risk, yield curve

François Hollande wants to create 300,000 public sector jobs. And French voters appear to be partial to this nonsense. Almost three-fifths of the population want higher trade barriers to be erected unilaterally. The same number think trade with India and China has been bad for the country.14 Nicolas Sarkozy, supposedly a politician of the center-right, came to power promising sweeping structural reform and has delivered almost nothing. His popularity at home is bumping along the seafloor, yet from a bond market perspective he still looks like the least bad of the possible leaders.15 In Spain, the political dangers come from the street. In May 2011, tens of thousands of Spaniards, mostly young ones, took over central squares in sixty cities across the country.


pages: 378 words: 120,490

Roads to Berlin by Cees Nooteboom, Laura Watkinson

Berlin Wall, centre right, Deng Xiaoping, Fall of the Berlin Wall, job satisfaction, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Martin Wolf, means of production, Mikhail Gorbachev, Peace of Westphalia, Plato's cave, Potemkin village, Prenzlauer Berg, rent control

GLOSSARY INCLUDING BIOGRAPHICAL AND OTHER EXPLANATORY NOTES Adenauer, Konrad (1876–1967)—First chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, or West Germany. Adenauer had excellent democratic credentials, having been mayor of Cologne from 1917 until 1933, when the Nazis removed him from that post. Chairman of the center-right Christian Democratic Union party (C.D.U.), Adenauer remained as chancellor for fourteen years, until he was eighty-seven. Adorno, Theodor (1903–69)—A leading figure of the Frankfurt School of critical theory, which also included Walter Benjamin. Baader, Andreas (1943–77)—A leading member of the Rote Armee Fraktion (Red Army Faction, R.A.F., commonly known as the Baader-Meinhof gang), a militant left-wing organization chiefly active in the 1970s in West Germany and responsible for a number of high-profile bombings and assassinations.


pages: 342 words: 115,769

Raising Cubby: A Father and Son's Adventures With Asperger's, Trains, Tractors, and High Explosives by John Elder Robison

Asperger Syndrome, centre right, intermodal, Mason jar, neurotypical, Oklahoma City bombing, pre–internet, sealed-bid auction, theory of mind

“I can’t say what will happen, but at this moment I am not seeing any reason to arrest your son. He has cooperated with us all along, and everything he’s told us has proven to be true.” I walked to the house, but the cops at the door shooed me away. As I turned around, a huge ten-wheel truck appeared, and it morphed into a Mobile State Police Command Center right before my eyes. They were taking over the neighborhood. I felt a new flash of fear. Could Cubby have a lot more explosives than I realized? Leading him away from the others, I asked him again how much explosive material was inside. “A few hundred grams,” he said. “There’s about as much explosive as a bag of fireworks.


The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America by Timothy Snyder

active measures, affirmative action, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, American ideology, anti-globalists, Bellingcat, Bernie Sanders, Brexit referendum, centre right, Charles Lindbergh, crony capitalism, disinformation, Dissolution of the Soviet Union, Donald Trump, fake news, gentrification, hiring and firing, income inequality, Jeremy Corbyn, John Markoff, means of production, Mikhail Gorbachev, military-industrial complex, New Journalism, obamacare, offshore financial centre, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, pill mill, Robert Mercer, sexual politics, Steve Bannon, Transnistria, W. E. B. Du Bois, WikiLeaks, women in the workforce, zero-sum game

Yet such an option was emerging in Germany and would benefit from Russian support: a new German right-wing party called the AfD (Alternative für Deutschland, Alternative for Germany). Standing somewhere between the radicals at Yalta and more traditional parties, it would become Moscow’s darling. Its leader, Alexander Gauland, a former member of the center-right Christian Democratic Union, accepted Russia’s line on Crimea and positioned his party as a pro-Russian alternative—even as Moscow attacked the German establishment. In autumn 2014, Russia undertook cyberattacks against the German parliament and German security institutions. In May 2015, the Bundestag was attacked again.


pages: 395 words: 110,994

The Phoenix Project: A Novel About IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win by Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, George Spafford

air freight, anti-work, antiwork, Apollo 13, business intelligence, business process, centre right, cloud computing, continuous integration, dark matter, database schema, DevOps, fail fast, friendly fire, Gene Kranz, index card, information security, inventory management, Kanban, Lean Startup, shareholder value, systems thinking, Toyota Production System

He points at a desk near the loading docks closest to us. “See that desk over there?” I nod but also look pointedly at my watch: 4:45 p.m. Oblivious to my impatience, he says, “Let me tell you a story. Decades ago, there used to be a guy named Mark. He was the supervisor for that first work center, right down there by that desk. Those racks hold the folders for incoming jobs. Isn’t it amazing that those folders look exactly like they did back then? “At any rate,” he continues, “one day I see Mark picking up a folder to start some job. I ask him, ‘On what basis did you choose that job, versus any of the others?’


pages: 342 words: 114,118

After the Fall: Being American in the World We've Made by Ben Rhodes

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Alan Greenspan, Asian financial crisis, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, British Empire, centre right, COVID-19, Deng Xiaoping, disinformation, Dissolution of the Soviet Union, Donald Trump, drone strike, Edward Snowden, fake news, Fall of the Berlin Wall, gentrification, geopolitical risk, George Floyd, Glass-Steagall Act, global pandemic, global supply chain, Great Leap Forward, illegal immigration, independent contractor, invisible hand, late capitalism, lockdown, Mark Zuckerberg, Mikhail Gorbachev, Nelson Mandela, new economy, obamacare, open economy, Ponzi scheme, profit motive, QAnon, quantitative easing, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ronald Reagan, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley ideology, Silicon Valley startup, social distancing, South China Sea, the long tail, too big to fail, trade route, Washington Consensus, young professional, zero-sum game

* * * — As Sandor moved through school, Viktor Orban began his transformation from liberal firebrand to reactionary. There was a crowded slate of parties on the left, and Orban’s own party—Fidesz—performed poorly in elections. So he pulled his party to the right, embracing—at first—a conventional form of center-right politics: smaller government, market-friendly, socially conservative. He served an unremarkable term as prime minister from 1998 to 2002 and was then voted out. Over the next eight years, Orban turned his political party into a social movement, organizing “civic circles” across the country.


pages: 393 words: 115,178

The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program That Shaped Our World by Vincent Bevins

Albert Einstein, American ideology, anti-communist, Berlin Wall, Branko Milanovic, British Empire, capitalist realism, centre right, colonial rule, crony capitalism, cuban missile crisis, Deng Xiaoping, disinformation, European colonialism, Fall of the Berlin Wall, feminist movement, Gini coefficient, Great Leap Forward, income inequality, land reform, market fundamentalism, megacity, military-industrial complex, Nelson Mandela, RAND corporation, Ronald Reagan, sexual politics, South China Sea, structural adjustment programs, union organizing

She’s still in the Communist Party, which has eight members in the Cámara de Diputados, led by a young former student leader, Camila Vallejo. When I tell Indonesian victims of 1965–66 that it’s sort of OK to be a communist now in parts of Latin America, or even that former guerrillas, once imprisoned, became presidents, they can’t believe it. But reconciliation did happen, of some kind, in much of South America. Chile as a center-right capitalist country is far from perfect. It’s certainly not what Carmen thought the world would be like back in 1970, when she and her friends believed they were on their way to building a world without poverty or exploitation. Santiago has a powerful monument to the victims of the Pinochet regime, called the Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos.


pages: 451 words: 115,720

Green Tyranny: Exposing the Totalitarian Roots of the Climate Industrial Complex by Rupert Darwall

1960s counterculture, active measures, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Albert Einstein, Bakken shale, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, California energy crisis, carbon credits, carbon footprint, centre right, clean tech, collapse of Lehman Brothers, creative destruction, decarbonisation, deindustrialization, dematerialisation, disinformation, Donald Trump, electricity market, Elon Musk, energy security, energy transition, facts on the ground, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Garrett Hardin, gigafactory, Gunnar Myrdal, Herbert Marcuse, hydraulic fracturing, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invisible hand, it's over 9,000, James Watt: steam engine, John Elkington, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Rogoff, Kickstarter, liberal capitalism, market design, means of production, megaproject, Mikhail Gorbachev, mittelstand, Murray Bookchin, Neil Armstrong, nuclear winter, obamacare, oil shale / tar sands, Paris climate accords, Peace of Westphalia, peak oil, plutocrats, postindustrial economy, precautionary principle, pre–internet, recommendation engine, renewable energy transition, rent-seeking, road to serfdom, rolling blackouts, Ronald Reagan, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley billionaire, Solyndra, Strategic Defense Initiative, subprime mortgage crisis, tech baron, tech billionaire, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Tragedy of the Commons, women in the workforce, young professional

Nobody really questions the kind of society we have, that’s what I dislike so much about Sweden. Indoctrination is what you would call it.29 Intimidation too. In 2015, Nilson was sacked and branded a racist. Deep State intimidation and a media blackout did not prevent the Sweden Democrats from becoming Sweden’s third-largest party, but in a postelection stitch-up, the center-right opposition parties agreed to support the new Red–Green government as a loyal opposition, the parties switching roles after the 2018 election. The Sweden Democrats weren’t the only ones who’d been locked out until 2022. Sweden’s voters had been as well. Sweden’s short-circuiting of democracy produced hardly a ripple—testament, perhaps, to the success of a schools system that, as related to Roland Huntford in The New Totalitarians, promoted the concept of the “freedom to give up freedom” (Chapter 6).


pages: 350 words: 115,802

Pegasus: How a Spy in Your Pocket Threatens the End of Privacy, Dignity, and Democracy by Laurent Richard, Sandrine Rigaud

activist lawyer, Airbnb, Amazon Web Services, centre right, Charlie Hebdo massacre, Chelsea Manning, citizen journalism, Citizen Lab, corporate governance, COVID-19, David Vincenzetti, Donald Trump, double helix, Edward Snowden, food desert, Jeff Bezos, Julian Assange, Kevin Kelly, knowledge worker, lockdown, Mohammed Bouazizi, NSO Group, offshore financial centre, operational security, Stuxnet, Tim Cook: Apple, unit 8200, WikiLeaks, Yom Kippur War, zero day

His chosen user name alias, a hacker must, was “Palladium,” which is both a chemical element (atomic number 46) often used as catalyst—Donncha had just been accepted into the medicinal chemistry program at Trinity College Dublin—and a religious icon or relic with protective powers. The name also had a hint of the underdog. St. Palladius was the first bishop of Ireland, who actually beat St. Patrick to the Emerald Isle but never got the credit, or the parades. Donncha’s first real hack was a prank on Fine Gael, the mushy, center-right Irish political party that had ballyhooed its intent to take campaigning into the digital age for the election of 2011. The party hired a hotshot American consultant who had embellished his role in the digital campaign revolution that helped elect Barack Obama president. Donncha and a friend shut down the political technician’s sparkly new Fine Gael site for a full twenty-four hours in the run-up to the election.


pages: 410 words: 119,823

Radical Technologies: The Design of Everyday Life by Adam Greenfield

3D printing, Airbnb, algorithmic bias, algorithmic management, AlphaGo, augmented reality, autonomous vehicles, bank run, barriers to entry, basic income, bitcoin, Black Lives Matter, blockchain, Boston Dynamics, business intelligence, business process, Californian Ideology, call centre, cellular automata, centralized clearinghouse, centre right, Chuck Templeton: OpenTable:, circular economy, cloud computing, Cody Wilson, collective bargaining, combinatorial explosion, Computer Numeric Control, computer vision, Conway's Game of Life, CRISPR, cryptocurrency, David Graeber, deep learning, DeepMind, dematerialisation, digital map, disruptive innovation, distributed ledger, driverless car, drone strike, Elon Musk, Ethereum, ethereum blockchain, facts on the ground, fiat currency, fulfillment center, gentrification, global supply chain, global village, Goodhart's law, Google Glasses, Herman Kahn, Ian Bogost, IBM and the Holocaust, industrial robot, informal economy, information retrieval, Internet of things, Jacob Silverman, James Watt: steam engine, Jane Jacobs, Jeff Bezos, Jeff Hawkins, job automation, jobs below the API, John Conway, John Markoff, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, John Perry Barlow, John von Neumann, joint-stock company, Kevin Kelly, Kickstarter, Kiva Systems, late capitalism, Leo Hollis, license plate recognition, lifelogging, M-Pesa, Mark Zuckerberg, means of production, megacity, megastructure, minimum viable product, money: store of value / unit of account / medium of exchange, natural language processing, Network effects, New Urbanism, Nick Bostrom, Occupy movement, Oculus Rift, off-the-grid, PalmPilot, Pareto efficiency, pattern recognition, Pearl River Delta, performance metric, Peter Eisenman, Peter Thiel, planetary scale, Ponzi scheme, post scarcity, post-work, printed gun, proprietary trading, RAND corporation, recommendation engine, RFID, rolodex, Rutger Bregman, Satoshi Nakamoto, self-driving car, sentiment analysis, shareholder value, sharing economy, Shenzhen special economic zone , Sidewalk Labs, Silicon Valley, smart cities, smart contracts, social intelligence, sorting algorithm, special economic zone, speech recognition, stakhanovite, statistical model, stem cell, technoutopianism, Tesla Model S, the built environment, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, The Future of Employment, Tony Fadell, transaction costs, Uber for X, undersea cable, universal basic income, urban planning, urban sprawl, vertical integration, Vitalik Buterin, warehouse robotics, When a measure becomes a target, Whole Earth Review, WikiLeaks, women in the workforce

Indeed, the terminology “basic income” itself is a market-friendly reframing of something that Fabian socialists used to think of as the “social dividend.”49 In the United States, no guaranteed annual income initiative has ever gone further than the Nixon Administration’s 1969 experiments with the unfortunately named Family Assistance Plan (FAP).50 More recently, the Dutch city of Utrecht and the Finnish national government have recently trialled similar measures under the market-liberal VVD party and Juha Sipilä’s center-right coalition, respectively.51 (A June 2016 Swiss UBI initiative failed, with 76.9 percent of voters opposed.) With support across the conventional political spectrum, it may seem like some kind of UBI is far and away the most cogent response to widespread automation we have available, a cushion to buffer those who might otherwise plummet to Earth.


pages: 394 words: 124,743

Overhaul: An Insider's Account of the Obama Administration's Emergency Rescue of the Auto Industry by Steven Rattner

activist fund / activist shareholder / activist investor, affirmative action, Alan Greenspan, bank run, banking crisis, Bear Stearns, business cycle, Carl Icahn, centre right, collapse of Lehman Brothers, collective bargaining, corporate governance, corporate raider, creative destruction, credit crunch, David Brooks, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, declining real wages, Ford Model T, friendly fire, hiring and firing, income inequality, Joseph Schumpeter, low skilled workers, McMansion, Mikhail Gorbachev, moral hazard, Ronald Reagan, Saturday Night Live, shareholder value, subprime mortgage crisis, supply-chain management, too big to fail

Jay Malin/Bloomberg News/Getty Images; AP Images/Susan Walsh America's biggest, fastest industrial restructuring depended on Harry Wilson, who quarterbacked the overhaul of GM; Matt Feldman, our resident genius of bankruptcy law (the image is from American Lawyer magazine—the 363 on the tire refers to the section of the bankruptcy code whose application by Matt was groundbreaking); and Brian Deese, who secured for Team Auto a foothold in the White House (that's the entrance to the West Wing behind him) and contributed his policy expertise. Courtesy of Harry Wilson; Paul Godwin; Stephen Crowley/The New York Times/Redux Team Auto's whirlwind tour of Detroit on March 9, 2009, included a visit to a Dodge Ram assembly plant. That's Diana Farrell of the task force at right, Ron Bloom (center, right) shaking hands with a Chrysler official, and me (left) fretting that we were running late. Seeing the assembly workers whose jobs were in jeopardy was a sobering reminder of the gravity of our task; I thought of them often in the ensuing months. Marcin Szczepanski/Detroit Free Press/MCT/Landov; AP Images/Carlos Osorio General Motors world headquarters in Detroit's Renaissance Center, seen from a mostly abandoned warehouse district.


pages: 414 words: 121,243

What's Left?: How Liberals Lost Their Way by Nick Cohen

"hyperreality Baudrillard"~20 OR "Baudrillard hyperreality", anti-communist, Ayatollah Khomeini, Berlin Wall, Boycotts of Israel, British Empire, centre right, critical race theory, DeepMind, disinformation, Etonian, failed state, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Farzad Bazoft, feminist movement, government statistician, Great Leap Forward, haute couture, kremlinology, liberal world order, light touch regulation, mass immigration, military-industrial complex, moral hazard, Naomi Klein, no-fly zone, plutocrats, post-industrial society, profit motive, public intellectual, Ralph Nader, road to serfdom, Ronald Reagan, Scientific racism, sensible shoes, the scientific method, union organizing, upwardly mobile, Yom Kippur War

PART TWO Raging Fevers Only one faction in American politics has found itself able to make excuses for the kind of religious fanaticism that immediately menaces us in the here and now. And that faction, I am sorry and furious to say, is the Left. From the first day of the immolation of the World Trade Center, right down to the present moment, a gallery of pseudo-intellectuals has been willing to represent the worst face of Islam as the voice of the oppressed. How can these people bear to reread their own propaganda? Suicide murderers in Palestine – disowned and denounced by the new leader of the PLO – described as the victims of ‘despair’.


pages: 353 words: 355

The Long Boom: A Vision for the Coming Age of Prosperity by Peter Schwartz, Peter Leyden, Joel Hyatt

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Alan Greenspan, Alvin Toffler, American ideology, Asian financial crisis, Berlin Wall, business cycle, centre right, classic study, clean water, complexity theory, computer age, crony capitalism, cross-subsidies, Danny Hillis, dark matter, dematerialisation, Deng Xiaoping, Dissolution of the Soviet Union, double helix, edge city, Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, European colonialism, Fall of the Berlin Wall, financial innovation, George Gilder, glass ceiling, global village, Gregor Mendel, Herman Kahn, hydrogen economy, industrial cluster, informal economy, intangible asset, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Isaac Newton, It's morning again in America, junk bonds, Just-in-time delivery, Kevin Kelly, knowledge economy, knowledge worker, life extension, market bubble, mass immigration, megacity, Mikhail Gorbachev, Neal Stephenson, Nelson Mandela, new economy, oil shock, open borders, out of africa, Productivity paradox, QR code, Richard Feynman, Ronald Reagan, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, stem cell, Steve Jobs, Stewart Brand, The Hackers Conference, the scientific method, Thomas L Friedman, upwardly mobile, Washington Consensus, We are as Gods, Whole Earth Catalog, women in the workforce, Y2K, zero-sum game

They were the parties associated with the average worker rather than the business class, with labor rather than capital. In Britain the shift came in the spring of 1997 with the transition from John Major's Tories to Tony Blair's Labour Party. By that summer in France, Lionel Jospin's Socialists had swept out the center-right government led by the Gaullist Party. By the fall of 1998 in Germany, Gerhard Schroeder was leading the Social Democrats and Greens to power by ousting Helmut Kohl and the conservative Christian Democrats. Italy even followed the trend that fall when a government was formed by Massimo D'Alema, head of the former Communist Party, now renamed the Democrats of the Left.


pages: 637 words: 128,673

Democracy Incorporated by Sheldon S. Wolin

affirmative action, Berlin Wall, British Empire, centre right, coherent worldview, collective bargaining, colonial rule, corporate governance, creative destruction, cuban missile crisis, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, dematerialisation, Donald Trump, Fall of the Berlin Wall, full employment, illegal immigration, invisible hand, It's morning again in America, mass incarceration, money market fund, mutually assured destruction, new economy, offshore financial centre, Plato's cave, public intellectual, radical decentralization, Ralph Nader, Ronald Reagan, school vouchers, single-payer health, stem cell, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Kuhn: the structure of scientific revolutions, Thorstein Veblen

Midway through the 2004 Democratic presidential primary elections the New York Times suggested that all of the candidates except the two front-runners should abandon the race. This would have meant that the viewpoints represented by the left wing of the party would lack a public forum, and that the electorate would be denied the opportunity to hear views other than those of the party establishment. It was only after the center-right candidate of the Times, Senator Lieberman, withdrew for lack of support that the paper issued its call for the Left to commit hari-kari. 32. For an illuminating discussion of the various political roles played by ordinary people, slaves, and Indians in the years leading up to and including the revolution of 1776, see Gary Nash, The Unknown American Revolution: The Unruly Birth of Democracy and the Struggle to Create America (New York: Viking, 2005). 33.


pages: 400 words: 121,378

Red Platoon: A True Story of American Valor by Clinton Romesha

Berlin Wall, centre right, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Kickstarter, Skype, WikiLeaks

Keep your M-4 on a three-round burst and work to your right while I go left. Anybody who’s inside dies. Got it?” He nodded. With that, Raz kicked in the door, then me and Dannelley entered and dropped to waist level, kneeling shoulder-to-shoulder. I took the center left, he took the center right. We opened up and took the room apart with our guns, destroying everything, including the TV. There was no one inside. “Clear!” yelled Dannelley. Phase one of our assault was in the bag. • • • BEFORE TURNING to phase two, we needed to set up a security team by placing our two machine-gunners in positions that would enable them to cover as many sectors of fire as possible.


pages: 432 words: 124,635

Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design by Charles Montgomery

2013 Report for America's Infrastructure - American Society of Civil Engineers - 19 March 2013, Abraham Maslow, accelerated depreciation, agricultural Revolution, American Society of Civil Engineers: Report Card, Apollo 11, behavioural economics, Bernie Madoff, Boeing 747, British Empire, Buckminster Fuller, car-free, carbon credits, carbon footprint, centre right, City Beautiful movement, clean water, congestion charging, correlation does not imply causation, data science, Donald Shoup, East Village, edge city, energy security, Enrique Peñalosa, experimental subject, food desert, Frank Gehry, General Motors Futurama, gentrification, Google Earth, happiness index / gross national happiness, hedonic treadmill, Home mortgage interest deduction, housing crisis, income inequality, income per capita, Induced demand, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invisible hand, Jane Jacobs, license plate recognition, McMansion, means of production, megacity, Menlo Park, meta-analysis, mortgage tax deduction, New Urbanism, Panopticon Jeremy Bentham, peak oil, Ponzi scheme, power law, rent control, restrictive zoning, ride hailing / ride sharing, risk tolerance, science of happiness, Seaside, Florida, Silicon Valley, starchitect, streetcar suburb, the built environment, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, the High Line, The Spirit Level, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, trade route, transit-oriented development, upwardly mobile, urban planning, urban sprawl, wage slave, white flight, World Values Survey, zero-sum game, Zipcar

Every destination in Mableton was an island, isolated by those formidable swaths of asphalt and grass. Everywhere we looked, parking space exceeded building footprints by at least three to one. You’d be crazy to walk from the post office to the library behind the gas station, or the shopping plaza beyond that, or even to the arts center right across Floyd Road. “That would be a death march,” Meyer said, referring to both the frying rays of the Georgia summer sun and Floyd Road itself, which has grown over the years into a commuter highway, speeding people between distant mega-schools, power centers, business parks, and dollar stores.


pages: 497 words: 123,718

A Game as Old as Empire: The Secret World of Economic Hit Men and the Web of Global Corruption by Steven Hiatt; John Perkins

"RICO laws" OR "Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations", "World Economic Forum" Davos, accelerated depreciation, addicted to oil, airline deregulation, Andrei Shleifer, Asian financial crisis, Berlin Wall, big-box store, Bob Geldof, book value, Bretton Woods, British Empire, capital controls, centre right, clean water, colonial rule, corporate governance, corporate personhood, deglobalization, deindustrialization, disinformation, Doha Development Round, energy security, European colonialism, export processing zone, financial deregulation, financial independence, full employment, global village, high net worth, land bank, land reform, large denomination, liberal capitalism, Long Term Capital Management, Mexican peso crisis / tequila crisis, Mikhail Gorbachev, military-industrial complex, moral hazard, Naomi Klein, new economy, North Sea oil, offshore financial centre, oil shock, Ponzi scheme, race to the bottom, reserve currency, Ronald Reagan, Scramble for Africa, Seymour Hersh, statistical model, structural adjustment programs, Suez crisis 1956, Tax Reform Act of 1986, too big to fail, trade liberalization, transatlantic slave trade, transfer pricing, union organizing, Washington Consensus, working-age population, Yom Kippur War

Germany provides a case in point: in 2000, the newly elected Social Democrat-Green Party government pledged in its coalition agreement to reform German export finance “along socially, environmentally, and developmentally sustainable lines.” However, strong domestic pressures exerted by major transnational company clients of the German ECA Hermes, and the government ministries they influenced, effectively blocked all reform. The German center-right government elected in 2005 is even less likely to challenge “Germany Incorporated.” Similar scenarios (often without even pretenses of reform) are common in most industrialized exporting nations, as well as in emerging industrial exporting countries such as China, Brazil, and India. Through 2006, the OECD ECAs are reviewing and revising both the 2003 “Common Approaches” environmental agreement as well as a hitherto toothless 2000 OECD “Action Statement on Bribery,” which in typical ECA fashion was more a declaration of inaction than of action.


pages: 571 words: 124,448

Building Habitats on the Moon: Engineering Approaches to Lunar Settlements by Haym Benaroya

3D printing, anti-fragile, Apollo 11, Apollo 13, biofilm, Black Swan, Brownian motion, Buckminster Fuller, carbon-based life, centre right, clean water, Colonization of Mars, Computer Numeric Control, conceptual framework, data acquisition, dual-use technology, Elon Musk, fault tolerance, Gene Kranz, gravity well, inventory management, Johannes Kepler, low earth orbit, Neil Armstrong, orbital mechanics / astrodynamics, performance metric, RAND corporation, restrictive zoning, risk tolerance, Ronald Reagan, stochastic process, tacit knowledge, telepresence, telerobotics, the scientific method, Two Sigma, urban planning, Virgin Galactic, X Prize, zero-sum game

At the time of the VSE, returning to the Moon and Constellation were regular topics. SLS and Orion continue to be popular topics. The search for ET life and interstellar flight and technology are long-standing popular topics. EM Drive has also risen to a top topic over the past few years. AI and robotics are also front and center right now. There are numerous dichotomies in the space community. There are: lunar vs. Mars; robotic vs. manned; government vs. industry; science vs. commercial; and there may be other sub-group debates. Which are the most contentious? For The Space Show, contentious might be too strong as a good descriptive word.


pages: 391 words: 123,597

Targeted: The Cambridge Analytica Whistleblower's Inside Story of How Big Data, Trump, and Facebook Broke Democracy and How It Can Happen Again by Brittany Kaiser

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Albert Einstein, Amazon Mechanical Turk, Asian financial crisis, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, bitcoin, blockchain, Boris Johnson, Brexit referendum, Burning Man, call centre, Cambridge Analytica, Carl Icahn, centre right, Chelsea Manning, clean water, cognitive dissonance, crony capitalism, dark pattern, data science, disinformation, Dominic Cummings, Donald Trump, Edward Snowden, Etonian, fake news, haute couture, illegal immigration, Julian Assange, Mark Zuckerberg, Menlo Park, Nelson Mandela, off grid, open borders, public intellectual, Renaissance Technologies, Robert Mercer, rolodex, Russian election interference, sentiment analysis, Sheryl Sandberg, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, Skype, Snapchat, statistical model, Steve Bannon, subprime mortgage crisis, TED Talk, the High Line, the scientific method, WeWork, WikiLeaks, you are the product, young professional

Alexander had pitched Nicolas Sarkozy in 2012, but Sarkozy had turned him down and lost to François Hollande by a 3.2 percent margin. Alexander didn’t want the Sarkozy team to make the same mistake again. This time, Sarkozy would be running under a rebranded party, his UMP (Union for a Popular Movement), now being called Les Républicains (“the Republicans”), representing the center right, and the team had to be prepared. The elections were still two years out, which seemed a long time, but Alexander always said that elections could be won in six to nine months’ time only if need be, and then only if the conditions were right. Two years was the optimal amount of time for planning.


pages: 441 words: 124,798

Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company That Addicted America by Beth Macy

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Apollo 11, centre right, crack epidemic, David Sedaris, deindustrialization, Donald Trump, drug harm reduction, fulfillment center, invisible hand, labor-force participation, mandatory minimum, mass incarceration, McMansion, medical residency, meta-analysis, obamacare, offshore financial centre, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, pill mill, RAND corporation, rent-seeking, single-payer health, urban renewal, War on Poverty, working poor

most Americans support federal financing: “Public Ranks Children’s Health Insurance, Marketplace Stabilization Higher Priorities Than ACA Repeal,” Kaiser Family Foundation poll, Sept. 22, 2017. The poll found that Medicaid and Medicare buy-in ideas are more popular than single-payer, which was affirmed by 54 percent of those polled. Data analysis from Eric Levitz, “America Is Not a ‘Center-Right Nation,’” New York Times, Nov. 1, 2017. to court nonwhite voters, including Hispanics: U.S. Census Bureau, “Voting and Registration in the Election of November 2016,” released in May 2017. “You’ve got too many leaders just not responding”: Author interview, Bryan Stevenson, July 12, 2017. “really bad for you”: Aubrey Whelan and Don Sapatkin, “Advisers: Trump Won’t Declare Opioid Crisis a National Emergency,” Philadelphia Inquirer, Aug. 9, 2017.


pages: 572 words: 124,222

San Fransicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities by Michael Shellenberger

activist fund / activist shareholder / activist investor, affirmative action, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Albert Einstein, anti-communist, Bay Area Rapid Transit, Bernie Sanders, Black Lives Matter, business climate, centre right, coronavirus, correlation does not imply causation, COVID-19, crack epidemic, dark triade / dark tetrad, defund the police, delayed gratification, desegregation, Donald Trump, drug harm reduction, gentrification, George Floyd, Golden Gate Park, green new deal, Haight Ashbury, housing crisis, Housing First, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Jane Jacobs, mandatory minimum, Marc Benioff, mass incarceration, meta-analysis, Michael Shellenberger, microaggression, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, Peoples Temple, Peter Pan Syndrome, pill mill, RAND corporation, randomized controlled trial, remote working, rent control, Ronald Reagan, Salesforce, San Francisco homelessness, Savings and loan crisis, Silicon Valley, single-payer health, social distancing, South of Market, San Francisco, Steven Pinker, tech billionaire, tech bro, tech worker, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, walkable city

It is all about, ‘We want less government and lower taxes.’ The question is, ‘What should we be spending?’ and ‘What should it be on?’ And I think the right, if it’s really going to rebuild itself, needs to have definitive answers to those questions.”43 Part of the power of harm reduction, said Stephen Eide of the center-right Manhattan Institute, is that it can be viewed as conservative. “Some people might say it’s just a small government philosophy,” said Eide. “Government just can’t change behavior, so we should focus on what government can do, which is hand out needles, create supervised injection facilities, and teach sex ed instead of making people be abstinent.”44 Many on the left and right embraced drug decriminalization and even legalization for libertarian reasons.


pages: 1,041 words: 317,136

American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird, Martin J. Sherwin

Albert Einstein, anti-communist, Anton Chekhov, British Empire, centre right, cuban missile crisis, David Brooks, desegregation, disinformation, Eddington experiment, Ernest Rutherford, fear of failure, housing crisis, index card, industrial research laboratory, John von Neumann, Lewis Mumford, Mahatma Gandhi, military-industrial complex, Murray Gell-Mann, post-industrial society, public intellectual, Richard Feynman, Robert Gordon, seminal paper, strikebreaker, traveling salesman, union organizing, Upton Sinclair, uranium enrichment

Robert attended the Ethical Culture School where he was taught to develop his “ethical imagination,” to see “things not as they are, but as they might be.” Robert and his younger brother Frank. Oppenheimer studied at Göttingen University, where he received his doctorate in quantum physics under Max Born (right). There he was befriended by physicists Paul Dirac (center, right) and the German physicist Hendrik Kramers (below, left). Later he studied briefly in Zurich with I. I. Rabi, H. M. Mott-Smith and Wolfgang Pauli (bottom, right, sailing with Robert on Lake Zurich). Professor Oppenheimer (above, left) in 1929 at Caltech, where he had accepted a dual appointment with the University of California, Berkeley, and where he quickly became an apostle for the new quantum physics.

Robert’s ensuing security hearing was orchestrated by Atomic Energy Commission chairman Lewis Strauss (above, right), who was determined to purge Oppenheimer from government service. Oppenheimer hired lawyer Lloyd Garrison (right) to defend himself. On April 12, 1954, Oppenheimer’s security hearing opened, chaired by Gordon Gray (top, right). Only one AEC commissioner, Henry DeWolf Smyth (center, right), voted to reject the Gray Board’s decision to strip Oppenheimer of his security clearance, AEC commissioner Eugene Zuckert (bottom, right) voted with the majority against Oppenheimer. Roger Robb (bottom, left) served as the Gray Board’s prosecutor. Only one member of the Gray Board, Ward Evans (top, left) voted to uphold Oppenheimer’s security clearance.


pages: 403 words: 132,736

In Spite of the Gods: The Rise of Modern India by Edward Luce

affirmative action, Albert Einstein, Alvin Toffler, Bretton Woods, call centre, centre right, clean water, colonial rule, company town, crony capitalism, cuban missile crisis, demographic dividend, digital divide, dual-use technology, energy security, financial independence, friendly fire, Future Shock, Gini coefficient, Great Leap Forward, Haight Ashbury, informal economy, job-hopping, Kickstarter, land reform, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Wolf, megacity, new economy, plutocrats, profit motive, purchasing power parity, Silicon Valley, trade liberalization, upwardly mobile, uranium enrichment, urban planning, women in the workforce, working-age population, Y2K

In order to sell its message with any credibility, the BJP would have to sever its ties with the RSS, which remains an unreconstructed enemy of liberalism and a threat to India’s national identity. This might be unlikely. But unless the BJP does so, few will believe its claim to be reinventing itself as a moderate party of the center-right. India also needs to strengthen its system of parliamentary and local democracy. Preventing criminals from standing in elections would be a start.* But India must also find ways of raising the caliber of politicians in general. The quality of debate and scrutiny in India’s Lok Sabha (parliament) is remarkably poor for a nation that has so many eloquent talkers and sharp intellects.


pages: 493 words: 132,290

Vultures' Picnic: In Pursuit of Petroleum Pigs, Power Pirates, and High-Finance Carnivores by Greg Palast

"RICO laws" OR "Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations", anti-communist, back-to-the-land, bank run, Berlin Wall, Bernie Madoff, British Empire, capital asset pricing model, capital controls, centre right, Chelsea Manning, classic study, clean water, collateralized debt obligation, creative destruction, Credit Default Swap, credit default swaps / collateralized debt obligations, currency risk, disinformation, Donald Trump, energy security, Exxon Valdez, Glass-Steagall Act, invisible hand, junk bonds, means of production, Myron Scholes, Nelson Mandela, offshore financial centre, Pepto Bismol, random walk, Ronald Reagan, sensible shoes, Seymour Hersh, transfer pricing, uranium enrichment, Washington Consensus, Yogi Berra

My neighbor hadn’t yet swept up the crack vials (she made them into art objects). I had coffee in one hand, a bagel with scallion cream cheese in the other, and I could hear my phone ringing and ringing upstairs. I paid the guy in the box his toll (fifty cents), ran up the flight (Doesn’t anyone sweep these steps?), and got the message to get to the World Trade Center “right now, Palast.” Hill, Betts and Nash is one of those quiet white-shoe firms that provide discreet representation for Her Majesty and the Lloyd’s list on matters of Admiralty Law. They made certain Britannia ruled the waves, including handling the last little mess BP made in the Torrey Canyon crack-up.


pages: 441 words: 136,954

That Used to Be Us by Thomas L. Friedman, Michael Mandelbaum

addicted to oil, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Alan Greenspan, Albert Einstein, Amazon Web Services, American Society of Civil Engineers: Report Card, Andy Kessler, Ayatollah Khomeini, bank run, barriers to entry, Bear Stearns, Berlin Wall, blue-collar work, Bretton Woods, business process, call centre, carbon footprint, carbon tax, Carmen Reinhart, Cass Sunstein, centre right, Climatic Research Unit, cloud computing, collective bargaining, corporate social responsibility, cotton gin, creative destruction, Credit Default Swap, crowdsourcing, delayed gratification, drop ship, energy security, Fall of the Berlin Wall, fear of failure, full employment, Google Earth, illegal immigration, immigration reform, income inequality, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), job automation, Kenneth Rogoff, knowledge economy, Lean Startup, low interest rates, low skilled workers, Mark Zuckerberg, market design, mass immigration, more computing power than Apollo, Network effects, Nixon triggered the end of the Bretton Woods system, obamacare, oil shock, PalmPilot, pension reform, precautionary principle, proprietary trading, Report Card for America’s Infrastructure, rising living standards, Ronald Reagan, Rosa Parks, Saturday Night Live, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, Skype, Steve Jobs, the long tail, the scientific method, Thomas L Friedman, too big to fail, University of East Anglia, vertical integration, WikiLeaks

The toll we’re taking on ourselves is just getting bigger and bigger, said Murphy, who is not running political campaigns anymore. “Our politics [today] is almost like a parasite eating at the national interest for short-term gratification—so that your team can cheer and feel good for a few minutes,” he told us. “If we don’t save the store, the questions between the center right and center left, between apples and oranges, will be irrelevant. We will all be working at TGI Friday’s in Beijing.” Murphy then paused for a moment to recall one of the best pieces of advice he ever got from a wise old hand in the ad business. “Negative ads work,” the old hand told Murphy, but then added a word of caution: “Do you know why McDonald’s never ran a negative ad against Burger King, saying their burgers were all full of maggots?


pages: 411 words: 127,755

Advertisers at Work by Tracy Tuten

accounting loophole / creative accounting, centre right, content marketing, crowdsourcing, follow your passion, longitudinal study, Mark Zuckerberg, QR code, Sheryl Sandberg, side project, Silicon Valley, Skype, Steve Jobs, TED Talk

I said, “David would be so pleased to know that we have this interview today and I’m here frequenting his client.” Oakley: It’s Bo time! [The tag line for Bojangles’ campaign.] You were probably going through the drive-through while I was sitting at corporate headquarters. Actually, it’s not known as a corporate headquarters. It’s known as the support center, right? That’s what it’s called. It’s not called corporate headquarters. It’s called support center because they’re there to support all of the individual franchises and owners. Tuten: What led you to advertising as a profession? Did you grow up ­wanting to work in this field? Oakley: Both of my parents were potters, which was great.


pages: 493 words: 136,235

Operation Chaos: The Vietnam Deserters Who Fought the CIA, the Brainwashers, and Themselves by Matthew Sweet

Berlin Wall, British Empire, centre right, computer age, disinformation, Donald Trump, energy security, Fall of the Berlin Wall, false flag, game design, Haight Ashbury, Herbert Marcuse, hiring and firing, Howard Zinn, Kickstarter, Mikhail Gorbachev, military-industrial complex, planetary scale, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Richard Feynman, Ronald Reagan, Saturday Night Live, Seymour Hersh, Skype, South China Sea, Stanford prison experiment, Strategic Defense Initiative, Thomas Malthus, Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, WikiLeaks, Yogi Berra, éminence grise

The organization was a disruptive presence at all kinds of public, professional, and political gatherings. “I have not been to a single meeting the last two years without this company making their presence felt and sabotaging proceedings,” said Inga Thorsson, Sweden’s representative at the United Nations. Gösta Bohman, leader of the center-right Moderate Party, found himself bombarded with strange questions at his own party conference. The Social Democratic MP Birgitta Dahl once shouted at them from the platform: “Hold your own meetings instead of coming to disrupt ours!” Palme’s party was so concerned about the behavior of NCLC activists in Sweden that they commissioned Håkan Hermansson, a journalist from the Malmö paper Arbetet, to write a pamphlet about the organization.


pages: 466 words: 127,728

The Death of Money: The Coming Collapse of the International Monetary System by James Rickards

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Alan Greenspan, Asian financial crisis, asset allocation, Ayatollah Khomeini, bank run, banking crisis, Bear Stearns, Ben Bernanke: helicopter money, bitcoin, Black Monday: stock market crash in 1987, Black Swan, Boeing 747, Bretton Woods, BRICs, business climate, business cycle, buy and hold, capital controls, Carmen Reinhart, central bank independence, centre right, collateralized debt obligation, collective bargaining, complexity theory, computer age, credit crunch, currency peg, David Graeber, debt deflation, Deng Xiaoping, diversification, Dr. Strangelove, Edward Snowden, eurozone crisis, fiat currency, financial engineering, financial innovation, financial intermediation, financial repression, fixed income, Flash crash, floating exchange rates, forward guidance, G4S, George Akerlof, global macro, global reserve currency, global supply chain, Goodhart's law, Growth in a Time of Debt, guns versus butter model, Herman Kahn, high-speed rail, income inequality, inflation targeting, information asymmetry, invisible hand, jitney, John Meriwether, junk bonds, Kenneth Rogoff, labor-force participation, Lao Tzu, liquidationism / Banker’s doctrine / the Treasury view, liquidity trap, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, mandelbrot fractal, margin call, market bubble, market clearing, market design, megaproject, Modern Monetary Theory, Money creation, money market fund, money: store of value / unit of account / medium of exchange, mutually assured destruction, Nixon triggered the end of the Bretton Woods system, obamacare, offshore financial centre, oil shale / tar sands, open economy, operational security, plutocrats, Ponzi scheme, power law, price stability, public intellectual, quantitative easing, RAND corporation, reserve currency, risk-adjusted returns, Rod Stewart played at Stephen Schwarzman birthday party, Ronald Reagan, Satoshi Nakamoto, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, Skype, Solyndra, sovereign wealth fund, special drawing rights, Stuxnet, The Market for Lemons, Thomas Kuhn: the structure of scientific revolutions, Thomas L Friedman, too big to fail, trade route, undersea cable, uranium enrichment, Washington Consensus, working-age population, yield curve

The Venezuelans, Germans, and Swiss may be the most prominent exemplars of the gold-repatriation movement, but they are not alone in raising the issue. In 2013 the sovereign wealth fund of Azerbaijan, a major energy exporter, ordered its gold reserves moved from JPMorgan Chase in London to the Central Bank of Azerbaijan in Baku. The gold-repatriation issue was also raised publicly in 2013 in Mexico. In the Netherlands, members of the center-right Christian Democratic Appeal Party and the leftist Socialist Party have petitioned De Nederlandsche Bank, the Dutch central bank, to repatriate its 612 tonnes of gold. Only 11 percent of the Dutch gold, or 67 tonnes, is actually in the Netherlands. The remainder is divided with about 312 tonnes in New York, 122 tonnes in Canada, and 110 tonnes in London.


How I Became a Quant: Insights From 25 of Wall Street's Elite by Richard R. Lindsey, Barry Schachter

Albert Einstein, algorithmic trading, Andrew Wiles, Antoine Gombaud: Chevalier de Méré, asset allocation, asset-backed security, backtesting, bank run, banking crisis, Bear Stearns, Black-Scholes formula, Bob Litterman, Bonfire of the Vanities, book value, Bretton Woods, Brownian motion, business cycle, business process, butter production in bangladesh, buy and hold, buy low sell high, capital asset pricing model, centre right, collateralized debt obligation, commoditize, computerized markets, corporate governance, correlation coefficient, creative destruction, Credit Default Swap, credit default swaps / collateralized debt obligations, currency manipulation / currency intervention, currency risk, discounted cash flows, disintermediation, diversification, Donald Knuth, Edward Thorp, Emanuel Derman, en.wikipedia.org, Eugene Fama: efficient market hypothesis, financial engineering, financial innovation, fixed income, full employment, George Akerlof, global macro, Gordon Gekko, hiring and firing, implied volatility, index fund, interest rate derivative, interest rate swap, Ivan Sutherland, John Bogle, John von Neumann, junk bonds, linear programming, Loma Prieta earthquake, Long Term Capital Management, machine readable, margin call, market friction, market microstructure, martingale, merger arbitrage, Michael Milken, Myron Scholes, Nick Leeson, P = NP, pattern recognition, Paul Samuelson, pensions crisis, performance metric, prediction markets, profit maximization, proprietary trading, purchasing power parity, quantitative trading / quantitative finance, QWERTY keyboard, RAND corporation, random walk, Ray Kurzweil, Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, Richard Feynman, Richard Stallman, risk free rate, risk-adjusted returns, risk/return, seminal paper, shareholder value, Sharpe ratio, short selling, Silicon Valley, six sigma, sorting algorithm, statistical arbitrage, statistical model, stem cell, Steven Levy, stochastic process, subscription business, systematic trading, technology bubble, The Great Moderation, the scientific method, too big to fail, trade route, transaction costs, transfer pricing, value at risk, volatility smile, Wiener process, yield curve, young professional

He had decided to branch off and create a personal family-and-friends fund that would combine the existing systematic trading strategies we were using with an overlay of fundamental stock and commodity analyses. He had all the capital he needed and asked me to join him in his new venture. Ever the opportunist, I agreed. We crossed the Hudson and setup shop under the auspices of ED&F Man in the World Financial Center, right in the heart of downtown New York City. As a two-person operation, my first task was simple—recreate, from scratch, everything that the previous 30-person fund had done, but in a way that could be wholly automated and required no additional staff. Over that next year I coded day and night, and even purchased a $20,000 Sun SparcStation laptop (that’s right, a laptop) so I could code during my two-hour-per-day train commute.


pages: 458 words: 135,206

CTOs at Work by Scott Donaldson, Stanley Siegel, Gary Donaldson

Amazon Web Services, Andy Carvin, bioinformatics, business intelligence, business process, call centre, centre right, cloud computing, computer vision, connected car, crowdsourcing, data acquisition, distributed generation, do what you love, domain-specific language, functional programming, glass ceiling, Hacker News, hype cycle, Neil Armstrong, orbital mechanics / astrodynamics, pattern recognition, Pluto: dwarf planet, QR code, Richard Feynman, Ruby on Rails, Salesforce, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, Skype, smart grid, smart meter, software patent, systems thinking, thinkpad, web application, zero day, zero-sum game

And if you look at what's going on with cloud right now, all the big vendors are bringing it in-house. Cisco's building it in-house. All the big vendors are doing it themselves. We had a big shortage of data centers in '90, 2007–8. Now we're having a large data center constructed. In some areas you're oversupplied with data centers right now. In some areas you're not. But, Cisco, Google, the big guys are building their own data centers. They're not outsourcing it to Rackspace or what have you. The folks who are doing that are startups. I guess, midsized probably, but here, if I took you back to my machine room, you'd say, “No wonder you're not really worried about the cloud.”


pages: 513 words: 141,963

Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs by Johann Hari

Airbnb, centre right, drug harm reduction, failed state, glass ceiling, global pandemic, illegal immigration, low interest rates, mass incarceration, McJob, moral panic, Naomi Klein, placebo effect, profit motive, public intellectual, RAND corporation, Rat Park, Ronald Reagan, Russell Brand, San Francisco homelessness, science of happiness, Stephen Fry, Steven Pinker, traveling salesman, vertical integration, War on Poverty

You inject yourself, while a friendly trained nurse waits unobtrusively in the background. The booths are small and neat and lit from above. Once you have injected yourself, you can walk through to get medical treatment or counseling or just to talk about your problems. Any time you are ready to stop, there is a detox center right upstairs, with a warm bed waiting for you. Because of the uprising by VANDU, and a conservative mayor who listened to the facts, opened his heart, and changed his mind, Vancouver now has the most progressive drug policies on the North American continent. But many people had understandable fears about this experiment.


A Paradise Built in Hell: Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster by Rebecca Solnit

"Hurricane Katrina" Superdome, Anthropocene, Berlin Wall, Burning Man, centre right, Community Supported Agriculture, David Graeber, different worldview, dumpster diving, gentrification, Golden Gate Park, illegal immigration, Loma Prieta earthquake, means of production, Mikhail Gorbachev, Naomi Klein, Nelson Mandela, public intellectual, race to the bottom, Ralph Waldo Emerson, rent control, San Francisco homelessness, South of Market, San Francisco, Thomas Malthus, Upton Sinclair, urban planning, War on Poverty, yellow journalism

At 5:12 in the morning on April 18, 1906, about a minute of seismic shaking tore up San Francisco, toppling buildings, particularly those on landfill and swampy ground, cracking and shifting others, collapsing chimneys, breaking water mains and gas lines, twisting streetcar tracks, even tipping headstones in the cemeteries. It was a major earthquake, centered right off the coast of the peninsular city, and the damage it did was considerable. Afterward came the fires, both those caused by broken gas mains and chimneys and those caused and augmented by the misguided policy of trying to blast firebreaks ahead of the flames and preventing citizens from firefighting in their own homes and neighborhoods.


pages: 458 words: 132,912

The Dying Citizen: How Progressive Elites, Tribalism, and Globalization Are Destroying the Idea of America by Victor Davis Hanson

"World Economic Forum" Davos, 2021 United States Capitol attack, 23andMe, affirmative action, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, airport security, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, Black Lives Matter, Boeing 737 MAX, borderless world, bread and circuses, British Empire, business climate, business cycle, carbon footprint, centre right, clean water, coronavirus, COVID-19, creative destruction, currency manipulation / currency intervention, defund the police, deindustrialization, deplatforming, disinformation, Donald Trump, Dr. Strangelove, drone strike, El Camino Real, fake news, Ferguson, Missouri, fixed income, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, future of work, George Floyd, Gini coefficient, global pandemic, Herbert Marcuse, high-speed rail, Honoré de Balzac, illegal immigration, immigration reform, income inequality, Jeff Bezos, Joseph Schumpeter, laissez-faire capitalism, lockdown, Mark Zuckerberg, mass immigration, mass incarceration, Menlo Park, microaggression, military-industrial complex, mortgage debt, Nate Silver, new economy, New Urbanism, obamacare, old-boy network, Paris climate accords, Parler "social media", peak oil, Potemkin village, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Robert Mercer, Ronald Reagan, school choice, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley billionaire, Skype, social distancing, Social Justice Warrior, tech worker, Thomas L Friedman, transcontinental railway, upwardly mobile, vertical integration, WikiLeaks, working poor, Yom Kippur War, zero-sum game

In fact, Trump did not mention a single Confederate in his long list of both white and black American icons.63 Sometime during the Obama administration years, the news division at CNN—a once-renowned and pathbreaking global media service—simply ceased being a news outlet. It soon would become an extension of the so-called Resistance and a defender of the administrative state—in a way well beyond both the center-left news networks and the strictly news division at center-right Fox News. Its new mission was stunning in the wide variety of its expression. Reporters Manu Raju and Jeremy Herb in December 2017, for example, falsely asserted that Donald Trump Jr. had advanced access to the hacked WikiLeaks documents belonging to the Democratic National Committee in general and to the emails of Hillary Clinton’s campaign advisor John Podesta in particular.


pages: 561 words: 138,158

Shutdown: How COVID Shook the World's Economy by Adam Tooze

2021 United States Capitol attack, air freight, algorithmic trading, Anthropocene, Asian financial crisis, asset-backed security, Ayatollah Khomeini, bank run, banking crisis, Basel III, basic income, Ben Bernanke: helicopter money, Benchmark Capital, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, bitcoin, Black Lives Matter, Black Monday: stock market crash in 1987, blue-collar work, Bob Geldof, bond market vigilante , Boris Johnson, Bretton Woods, Brexit referendum, business cycle, business process, business process outsourcing, buy and hold, call centre, capital controls, central bank independence, centre right, clean water, cognitive dissonance, contact tracing, contact tracing app, coronavirus, COVID-19, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, cryptocurrency, currency manipulation / currency intervention, currency peg, currency risk, decarbonisation, deindustrialization, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, energy transition, eurozone crisis, facts on the ground, failed state, fake news, Fall of the Berlin Wall, fear index, financial engineering, fixed income, floating exchange rates, friendly fire, George Floyd, gig economy, global pandemic, global supply chain, green new deal, high-speed rail, housing crisis, income inequality, inflation targeting, invisible hand, It's morning again in America, Jeremy Corbyn, junk bonds, light touch regulation, lockdown, low interest rates, margin call, Martin Wolf, mass immigration, mass incarceration, megacity, megaproject, middle-income trap, Mikhail Gorbachev, Modern Monetary Theory, moral hazard, oil shale / tar sands, Overton Window, Paris climate accords, Pearl River Delta, planetary scale, Potemkin village, price stability, Productivity paradox, purchasing power parity, QR code, quantitative easing, remote working, reserve currency, reshoring, Robinhood: mobile stock trading app, Ronald Reagan, secular stagnation, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, six sigma, social distancing, South China Sea, special drawing rights, stock buybacks, tail risk, TikTok, too big to fail, TSMC, universal basic income, Washington Consensus, women in the workforce, yield curve

The EU’s political investment in the NextGen EU fiscal package of July 2020 was huge. The compromise, even if it remained on paper, had turned the political narrative and calmed the markets. Before it could be implemented, it needed to be ratified by the increasingly assertive European Parliament. In the parliament, a coalition of forces ranging from the center right to the left were alarmed at the thought of tens of billions of euros going to the governments of Poland and Hungary, countries that had undercut the independence of their judiciary, challenged the freedom of expression, attacked the civil rights of minorities, curtailed reproductive rights, and resisted the Green Deal.


Killing Hope: Us Military and Cia Interventions Since World War 2 by William Blum

anti-communist, Berlin Wall, Bolshevik threat, centre right, collective bargaining, colonial rule, cuban missile crisis, currency manipulation / currency intervention, deindustrialization, disinformation, Dr. Strangelove, kremlinology, land reform, liberation theology, Mikhail Gorbachev, Monroe Doctrine, nuremberg principles, Ronald Reagan, Seymour Hersh, South China Sea, trickle-down economics, union organizing

In other words, to watch over the population of their country with the means offered by technology. This is what I call technofascism.15 120 William Colby, later Director of the CIA, arrived in Italy in 1953 as station chief and devoted the next five years of his life to financing and advising center/right organizations for the express purpose of inducing the Italian people to turn away from the leftist bloc, particularly the Communist Party, and keep it from taking power in the 1958 elections. In his account of that period he justifies this program on the grounds of supporting "democracy" or "center democracy" and preventing Italy from becoming a Soviet satellite.


America Right or Wrong: An Anatomy of American Nationalism by Anatol Lieven

"World Economic Forum" Davos, American ideology, British Empire, centre right, cognitive dissonance, colonial rule, cuban missile crisis, desegregation, driverless car, European colonialism, failed state, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, full employment, Gunnar Myrdal, illegal immigration, income inequality, laissez-faire capitalism, mass immigration, Mikhail Gorbachev, military-industrial complex, millennium bug, mittelstand, Monroe Doctrine, moral hazard, moral panic, new economy, Norman Mailer, oil shock, open immigration, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Robert Bork, Ronald Reagan, Seymour Hersh, Thomas L Friedman, Timothy McVeigh, World Values Survey, Y2K

Among these bolts is hatred, including nationalist hatred.22 Externally directed chauvinist hatred must therefore be seen as a byproduct of the same hatred displayed by the American Right at home, notably in their pathological loathing of President Bill Clinton. In Europe, Clinton was generally seen as a version of Tony Blair, a centrist who "modernized" his formerly center-Left party by stealing most of the clothes of the center-Right and adopting a largely rightwing economic agenda. To radical conservatives in America, this was irrelevant. They hated him not for what he did, but for what he is: the representative of a multiracial, pluralist and modernist culture and cultural elite which they both despise and fear, just as they hate the atheist, decadent, unmanly Western European nations not only for what they do, but for what they are. 9 INTRODUCTION In the U.S. context it is also crucial to remember that as in a hurricane or thunderstorm, rather than simply being opposing forces, the two elements which combine to produce this system work together.


pages: 517 words: 147,591

Small Wars, Big Data: The Information Revolution in Modern Conflict by Eli Berman, Joseph H. Felter, Jacob N. Shapiro, Vestal Mcintyre

basic income, call centre, centre right, classic study, clean water, confounding variable, crowdsourcing, data science, demand response, drone strike, experimental economics, failed state, George Akerlof, Google Earth, guns versus butter model, HESCO bastion, income inequality, income per capita, information asymmetry, Internet of things, iterative process, land reform, mandatory minimum, minimum wage unemployment, moral hazard, natural language processing, operational security, RAND corporation, randomized controlled trial, Ronald Reagan, school vouchers, statistical model, the scientific method, trade route, Twitter Arab Spring, unemployed young men, WikiLeaks, World Values Survey

One arm of this study evaluated a program that provided training in basic stitching skills to rural women through small-scale training centers located in their villages. This was clearly branded as a public good brought to the village by the provincial government, which was dominated by the PMLN, the center-right party in Pakistan’s two-party system. The placement of training centers in villages was randomized to measure the effect on take-up on training, and that randomization also enabled Jake and his coauthors to assess the effect on attitudes and beliefs. Looking at subsequent village council elections, villages that had the training centers installed were much more likely to have a candidate from the PMLN place in the top two positions.


pages: 470 words: 148,444

The World as It Is: A Memoir of the Obama White House by Ben Rhodes

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, agricultural Revolution, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Boris Johnson, Brexit referendum, British Empire, centre right, cuban missile crisis, David Brooks, demand response, different worldview, disinformation, Dissolution of the Soviet Union, Donald Trump, drone strike, Edward Snowden, eurozone crisis, F. W. de Klerk, fake news, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Ferguson, Missouri, illegal immigration, intangible asset, Mahatma Gandhi, Mohammed Bouazizi, Nelson Mandela, no-fly zone, Paris climate accords, Ronald Reagan, Ronald Reagan: Tear down this wall, Silicon Valley, Skype, South China Sea, Steve Bannon, trickle-down economics, uranium enrichment, WikiLeaks

More than being profane, he was constantly in motion: The first time he called me with edits to a speech, he was swimming. He was avowedly pro-Israel and pro-peace, and he kept a careful eye on the politics of Israel. He argued that it was going to be hard—if not impossible—for a center-left government in the United States to make peace with a center-right government in Israel. But he felt that trying was important. When he got tired of hearing me argue that Obama had to show empathy to the Palestinians, he started calling me Hamas. “Hamas over here,” he’d say, “is going to make it impossible for my kid to have his fucking bar mitzvah in Israel.”


pages: 523 words: 143,639

Red November: Inside the Secret U.S.-Soviet Submarine War by W. Craig Reed

Albert Einstein, Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, cable laying ship, centre right, cuban missile crisis, en.wikipedia.org, fixed-gear, nuclear winter, operation paperclip, Ronald Reagan, Saturday Night Live, Silicon Valley, undersea cable, upwardly mobile

Author’s collection Top-secret listening station sites resembled large “elephant cages” and were positioned along the Pacific and Atlantic rims near Imperial Beach, California (above), Okinawa, Japan (below), and more than a dozen other locations. Author’s collection During the early 1960s, William J. Reed helped deploy top-secret listening stations around the world in an effort to locate Soviet submarines. gnu Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 The USS Thresher (SSN-593) was lost with all hands on April 10, 1963. center right: Navy divers aboard the bathyscaphe USS Trieste (DSV-0) descended to 8,400 feet to search for her remains. U.S. Navy photographs Navy diver Nihil Smith—whose best friend, Joe Walski, was aboard the Thresher when she sank—brought up a pipe found by the Trieste in 1963, validating the sub’s location on the bottom. below right: The Trieste found other remains, including the crushed sonar dome.


pages: 466 words: 146,982

Venice: A New History by Thomas F. Madden

big-box store, buy low sell high, centre right, colonial rule, Columbine, Costa Concordia, double entry bookkeeping, facts on the ground, financial innovation, indoor plumbing, invention of movable type, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Murano, Venice glass, spice trade, trade route, upwardly mobile, urban planning

A host of alternative solutions were presented, ranging from the raising of Venice’s pavements, to the erection of barriers along the islands, to the pumping of groundwater back into the aquifer. All were rejected. The question became more bedeviled by the close association between Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and MOSE. The prime minister had laid the first stone of the project in 2003 and he remained its strong proponent. Those who opposed Berlusconi and his center-right party tended also to oppose MOSE. Nonetheless, the project continued to move forward. When (or if) it will ever be completed is currently anyone’s guess. Despite the dire warnings, acqua alta did nothing to slow Venice’s tourist industry—an industry that now produces more than half the area’s revenues.


San Francisco by Lonely Planet

airport security, Albert Einstein, Apple II, back-to-the-land, banking crisis, Bay Area Rapid Transit, Burning Man, California gold rush, car-free, carbon footprint, centre right, Chuck Templeton: OpenTable:, David Brooks, David Sedaris, Day of the Dead, Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, G4S, game design, glass ceiling, Golden Gate Park, Haight Ashbury, Joan Didion, Larry Ellison, Loma Prieta earthquake, machine readable, Mason jar, messenger bag, New Urbanism, off-the-grid, retail therapy, San Francisco homelessness, Silicon Valley, South of Market, San Francisco, stealth mode startup, stem cell, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Stewart Brand, transcontinental railway, urban sprawl, Whole Earth Catalog, Zipcar

The organic rustic decor and the location are upscale, but the prices are about what you’d pay in the Mission, give or take a buck and a BART ride. Split Pea Seduction Soups, Sandwiches $ Offline map Google map ( 415-551-2223; www.splitpeaseduction.com; 138 6th St; lunches $6-10; 8am-5pm Mon-Fri; & Civic Center) Right off Skid Row are unexpectedly healthy, homey gourmet soup-and-sandwich combinations, including seasonal soups like potato and housemade pesto with a signature crostata (open-faced sandwich), such as blue cheese with persimmon jam and toasted hazelnuts. Tu Lan Vietnamese $ Offline map Google map ( 415-626-0927; 8 6th St; 11am-9:30pm Mon-Sat; & Civic Center) Sidewalks don’t get skankier than the one you’ll be waiting on, but try complaining after your heap of velvety Vietnamese chicken curry or tangy tomato-onion prawns.


San Francisco by Lonely Planet

airport security, Albert Einstein, Apple II, back-to-the-land, banking crisis, Bay Area Rapid Transit, Burning Man, California gold rush, car-free, carbon footprint, centre right, Chuck Templeton: OpenTable:, David Brooks, David Sedaris, Day of the Dead, Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, G4S, game design, glass ceiling, Golden Gate Park, Haight Ashbury, Joan Didion, Larry Ellison, Loma Prieta earthquake, machine readable, Mason jar, messenger bag, New Urbanism, off-the-grid, retail therapy, San Francisco homelessness, Silicon Valley, South of Market, San Francisco, stealth mode startup, stem cell, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Stewart Brand, transcontinental railway, urban sprawl, Whole Earth Catalog, Zipcar

The organic rustic decor and the location are upscale, but the prices are about what you’d pay in the Mission, give or take a buck and a BART ride. Split Pea Seduction Soups, Sandwiches $ Offline map Google map ( 415-551-2223; www.splitpeaseduction.com; 138 6th St; lunches $6-10; 8am-5pm Mon-Fri; & Civic Center) Right off Skid Row are unexpectedly healthy, homey gourmet soup-and-sandwich combinations, including seasonal soups like potato and housemade pesto with a signature crostata (open-faced sandwich), such as blue cheese with persimmon jam and toasted hazelnuts. Tu Lan Vietnamese $ Offline map Google map ( 415-626-0927; 8 6th St; 11am-9:30pm Mon-Sat; & Civic Center) Sidewalks don’t get skankier than the one you’ll be waiting on, but try complaining after your heap of velvety Vietnamese chicken curry or tangy tomato-onion prawns.


Costa Rica by Matthew Firestone, Carolina Miranda, César G. Soriano

airport security, Berlin Wall, centre right, desegregation, illegal immigration, Monroe Doctrine, new economy, off-the-grid, Pepto Bismol, purchasing power parity, Ronald Reagan, Rosa Parks, Skype, sustainable-tourism, the payments system, trade route, urban sprawl, women in the workforce, young professional

Return to beginning of chapter COSTA RICA TOMORROW Costa Rica held free and fair presidential elections in February 2010, which were supervised by the Organization of American States. The victor was Oscar Arias Sánchez’ former Vice President Laura Chinchilla, who won just under 47% of the vote, thus retaining the political power of her center-right National Liberation Party. Chinchilla campaigned on similar economic platforms as her political mentor, namely the promotion of free trade and further increased access to US markets. However, critics argue that these aims do not protect small farmers and domestic industries, which have struggled to compete with the recent flood of cheap US products.

The classy quarters are painted bright yellow and fitted with shiny black-lacquer furniture to complete the executive package. Hotel del Sur (771 3033; http://hoteldelsur.net; standard/superior r US$53/75; ) This business complex has modern rooms with nondescript decor, several conference rooms and an upscale restaurant and bar. Located several kilometers south of the center, right off the highway, it’s good for guests who don’t want to leave the hotel. AROUND SAN ISIDRO Hotel La Princesa (2772-0324; www.laprincesahotel.com; San Rafael; d/q US$35/45; ) If sitting in the hot tub watching the sun drop behind the Talamanca sounds appealing, La Princesa is for you, especially if you’re looking for affordable luxury and quieter surrounds than downtown San Isidro.


pages: 558 words: 168,179

Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right by Jane Mayer

Adam Curtis, affirmative action, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Alan Greenspan, American Legislative Exchange Council, An Inconvenient Truth, anti-communist, Bakken shale, bank run, battle of ideas, Berlin Wall, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, carbon tax, carried interest, centre right, clean water, Climategate, Climatic Research Unit, collective bargaining, company town, corporate raider, crony capitalism, David Brooks, desegregation, disinformation, diversified portfolio, Donald Trump, energy security, estate planning, Fall of the Berlin Wall, financial engineering, George Gilder, high-speed rail, housing crisis, hydraulic fracturing, income inequality, independent contractor, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invisible hand, job automation, low skilled workers, mandatory minimum, market fundamentalism, mass incarceration, military-industrial complex, Mont Pelerin Society, More Guns, Less Crime, multilevel marketing, Nate Silver, Neil Armstrong, New Journalism, obamacare, Occupy movement, offshore financial centre, oil shale / tar sands, oil shock, plutocrats, Powell Memorandum, Ralph Nader, Renaissance Technologies, road to serfdom, Robert Mercer, Ronald Reagan, school choice, school vouchers, Solyndra, The Bell Curve by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, The Chicago School, the scientific method, University of East Anglia, Unsafe at Any Speed, War on Poverty, working poor

The think tank personnel wrote model bills, which they previewed for legislators, and boasted of their clout in the general assembly. Pope was proud of the achievement, telling the conservative Philanthropy Roundtable, “In a generation, we’ve shifted the public-policy debate in North Carolina from the centerleft to the center-right.” Besides the $60 million that Pope and his family foundation put into this ideological infrastructure, they gave more than $500,000 to state candidates and party committees in 2010 and 2012. In addition, Pope’s company, Variety Wholesalers, gave nearly $1 million more to outside groups running independent campaigns during that period.


pages: 522 words: 162,310

Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History by Kurt Andersen

affirmative action, Alan Greenspan, Albert Einstein, animal electricity, anti-communist, Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, augmented reality, back-to-the-land, Bernie Sanders, British Empire, Burning Man, California gold rush, Celebration, Florida, centre right, cognitive dissonance, Columbine, corporate governance, cotton gin, Credit Default Swap, David Brooks, delayed gratification, dematerialisation, disinformation, disintermediation, disruptive innovation, Donald Trump, Donner party, Downton Abbey, Easter island, Edward Snowden, Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, failed state, fake news, Ferguson, Missouri, God and Mammon, Gordon Gekko, greed is good, Herman Kahn, high net worth, illegal immigration, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, John von Neumann, Kickstarter, large denomination, Mark Zuckerberg, market fundamentalism, McMansion, Mikhail Gorbachev, military-industrial complex, Minecraft, moral panic, mutually assured destruction, new economy, New Urbanism, Norman Mailer, off-the-grid, Oklahoma City bombing, placebo effect, post-truth, pre–internet, prosperity theology / prosperity gospel / gospel of success, Ralph Waldo Emerson, RAND corporation, reality distortion field, Ronald Reagan, Silicon Valley, smart meter, Snapchat, South Sea Bubble, Steve Jobs, sugar pill, Ted Kaczynski, the scientific method, Thomas Kuhn: the structure of scientific revolutions, Timothy McVeigh, trade route, transcontinental railway, urban renewal, We are all Keynesians now, Whole Earth Catalog, WikiLeaks, Y2K, young professional

JFK was “the last true president of the United States,” and Lee Harvey Oswald was a patsy—just like Timothy McVeigh. “The Establishment,” he has said, “they want to make it…right-wing versus left-wing.” Glenn Beck, for instance, “spins it in a neocon-ish way that reinforces the controlled, left-right paradigm that divides people.” Jones does consider the center-left more dangerous than the center-right—“the Democratic Party,” he told Farrakhan in 2016, has “got black people in their web murdering your people and they love it.” But whenever Jones’s beliefs in the metaconspiracy contradict conventional conservative positions, he defaults to the former. His despised New World Order has always included the Republican donor class.


pages: 446 words: 578

The end of history and the last man by Francis Fukuyama

affirmative action, anti-communist, Ayatollah Khomeini, Berlin Wall, Bonfire of the Vanities, business cycle, centre right, classic study, cuban missile crisis, deindustrialization, Deng Xiaoping, Donald Trump, European colonialism, Exxon Valdez, F. W. de Klerk, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, full employment, Gini coefficient, Great Leap Forward, Gunnar Myrdal, Herbert Marcuse, Hernando de Soto, income inequality, Isaac Newton, Joan Didion, joint-stock company, Joseph Schumpeter, kremlinology, land reform, liberal world order, liberation theology, life extension, linear programming, long peace, means of production, Michael Milken, Mikhail Gorbachev, Nelson Mandela, New Journalism, nuclear winter, old-boy network, open economy, post-industrial society, RAND corporation, Ronald Reagan, Socratic dialogue, Strategic Defense Initiative, strikebreaker, the scientific method, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Kuhn: the structure of scientific revolutions, zero-sum game

This could not have happened if important elements of the old regime (most importantly, King Juan Carlos) had not believed that Francoism was an anachronism in a democratic Europe, a Europe that Spain had come to resemble increasingly on a social and economic plane.10 The last Francoist Cortes did a remarkable thing: it overwhelmingly passed a law in November 1976 that in effect constituted its own suicide by stipulating that the next Cortes be democratically elected. As in Portugal, the Spanish population as a whole provided the ultimate ground for democracy by supporting a democratic center, first by giving strong support to the December 1976 referendum approving democratic elections, and then by calmly voting Suarez’s center-right party into office in June 1977.11 In the cases of the Greek and Argentine turns to democracy in 1974 and 1983, respectively, the military in both countries was not forcibly ousted from power. They gave way to civilian authority instead through inner divisions within their ranks, reflecting a loss of belief in their right to rule.


pages: 604 words: 161,455

The Moral Animal: Evolutionary Psychology and Everyday Life by Robert Wright

agricultural Revolution, Andrei Shleifer, Apollo 13, Asian financial crisis, British Empire, centre right, cognitive dissonance, cotton gin, double entry bookkeeping, double helix, Easter island, fault tolerance, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, Garrett Hardin, George Gilder, global village, Great Leap Forward, invention of gunpowder, invention of movable type, invention of the telegraph, invention of writing, invisible hand, John Nash: game theory, John von Neumann, Marshall McLuhan, Multics, Norbert Wiener, planetary scale, planned obsolescence, pre–internet, profit motive, Ralph Waldo Emerson, random walk, Richard Thaler, rising living standards, Robert Solow, Silicon Valley, social intelligence, social web, Steven Pinker, talking drums, technological determinism, the medium is the message, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, trade route, Tragedy of the Commons, your tax dollars at work, zero-sum game

In general, workers in high-wage and low-wage countries have a common interest in elevating pay in low-wage countries (so long as large numbers of workers in low-wage countries aren’t priced out of the market altogether, a threat that doesn’t loom large). As it happens, NAFTA included no meaningful labor accords; it passed the U.S. Congress on a center-right coalition, so its structure is conservative. But this is no necessary feature of trade blocs. The European Union gets very involved in workplace regulation—and, in general, proves that a trade bloc can embody leftish values. Will the World Trade Organization ever go the way of the European Union?


pages: 566 words: 163,322

The Rise and Fall of Nations: Forces of Change in the Post-Crisis World by Ruchir Sharma

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Asian financial crisis, backtesting, bank run, banking crisis, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, BRICs, business climate, business cycle, business process, call centre, capital controls, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, Carmen Reinhart, central bank independence, centre right, colonial rule, commodity super cycle, corporate governance, creative destruction, crony capitalism, currency peg, dark matter, debt deflation, deglobalization, deindustrialization, demographic dividend, demographic transition, Deng Xiaoping, Doha Development Round, Donald Trump, driverless car, Edward Glaeser, Elon Musk, eurozone crisis, failed state, Fall of the Berlin Wall, falling living standards, financial engineering, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, Freestyle chess, Gini coefficient, global macro, Goodhart's law, guns versus butter model, hiring and firing, hype cycle, income inequality, indoor plumbing, industrial robot, inflation targeting, Internet of things, Japanese asset price bubble, Jeff Bezos, job automation, John Markoff, Joseph Schumpeter, junk bonds, Kenneth Rogoff, Kickstarter, knowledge economy, labor-force participation, Larry Ellison, lateral thinking, liberal capitalism, low interest rates, Malacca Straits, Mark Zuckerberg, market bubble, Mary Meeker, mass immigration, megacity, megaproject, Mexican peso crisis / tequila crisis, middle-income trap, military-industrial complex, mittelstand, moral hazard, New Economic Geography, North Sea oil, oil rush, oil shale / tar sands, oil shock, open immigration, pattern recognition, Paul Samuelson, Peter Thiel, pets.com, plutocrats, Ponzi scheme, price stability, Productivity paradox, purchasing power parity, quantitative easing, Ralph Waldo Emerson, random walk, rent-seeking, reserve currency, Ronald Coase, Ronald Reagan, savings glut, secular stagnation, Shenzhen was a fishing village, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, Simon Kuznets, smart cities, Snapchat, South China Sea, sovereign wealth fund, special economic zone, spectrum auction, Steve Jobs, tacit knowledge, tech billionaire, The Future of Employment, The Wisdom of Crowds, Thomas Malthus, total factor productivity, trade liberalization, trade route, tulip mania, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, unorthodox policies, Washington Consensus, WikiLeaks, women in the workforce, work culture , working-age population

The positive side of the debt rule is that a large decrease in the debt-to-GDP ratio can set up a country for a new round of lending and growth, and in the five years between 2011 and 2015, private debt fell by 30 percentage points as a share of GDP in Spain, one of the sharpest drops in the developed world. Wages and labor costs also came down as Spaniards paid down debt. During this period, with global manufacturers expanding plants in Spain, it was one of the few developed countries to see its share of global export manufacturing expand. By last year, however, Mariano Rajoy’s center-right government had lost most of its enthusiasm for tough reform, and then in the December 2015 elections it lost its parliamentary majority and its leverage. With progress stymied, Spain’s progress now rests on the momentum of past reforms, and its prospects have slipped. France is also trending downward according to the rules, particularly on the perils of the state.


pages: 477 words: 165,458

Of a Fire on the Moon by Norman Mailer

Apollo 11, Apollo 13, card file, centre right, data acquisition, Eratosthenes, Gene Kranz, invention of gunpowder, Neil Armstrong, Norman Mailer, planned obsolescence, public intellectual, Ralph Nader, RAND corporation, Watson beat the top human players on Jeopardy!

The comments now came fast. They were beginning another TV show. The audience would be offered a view of the moon no later than one orbit after themselves. SPACECRAFT: We’re about 95 degrees east, coming up on Smyth’s Sea.… Sort of a hilly-looking area … looking back at Marginus … Crater Schubert and Gilbert in the center right now … a triple crater with a small crater between the first and second, and the one at the bottom of the screen is Schubert Y.… Zooming in now on a crater called Schubert N … very conical inside wall … coming up on the Bombing Sea … Alpha 1 … a great bright crater. It is not a large one but an extremely bright one.


Insight Guides South America (Travel Guide eBook) by Insight Guides

Airbnb, anti-communist, Atahualpa, bike sharing, call centre, centre right, colonial rule, Colonization of Mars, COVID-19, digital nomad, Easter island, European colonialism, failed state, Francisco Pizarro, invention of writing, Kickstarter, land reform, urban planning, urban renewal

Since the late 1990s, South American soccer has become increasingly competitive, with Uruguay among the perennial leaders on the heels of the twinkle-toed giants Brazil and Argentina. Fact The government of President Tabaré Vázquez, a renowned oncologist, banned smoking in public places in 2006, the first South American country to do so. This was a major public health initiative, in a country where one-third of the people smoke. Jorge Batlle of the center-right Colorado Party was elected head of state and government in 2000. Tax increases, among other measures, were implemented soon afterward in an effort to prevent Argentina’s financial crisis from entering Uruguay. In 2005, for the first time in Uruguay’s history, the two traditional parties failed to win the presidency.


Termites of the State: Why Complexity Leads to Inequality by Vito Tanzi

accounting loophole / creative accounting, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Alan Greenspan, Andrei Shleifer, Andrew Keen, Asian financial crisis, asset allocation, barriers to entry, basic income, behavioural economics, bitcoin, Black Swan, Bretton Woods, business cycle, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, Carmen Reinhart, Cass Sunstein, central bank independence, centre right, clean water, crony capitalism, David Graeber, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, deindustrialization, Donald Trump, Double Irish / Dutch Sandwich, experimental economics, financial engineering, financial repression, full employment, George Akerlof, Gini coefficient, Gunnar Myrdal, high net worth, hiring and firing, illegal immigration, income inequality, indoor plumbing, information asymmetry, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invisible hand, Jean Tirole, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, Kenneth Arrow, Kenneth Rogoff, knowledge economy, labor-force participation, libertarian paternalism, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, market fundamentalism, means of production, military-industrial complex, moral hazard, Naomi Klein, New Urbanism, obamacare, offshore financial centre, open economy, Pareto efficiency, Paul Samuelson, Phillips curve, price stability, principal–agent problem, profit maximization, pushing on a string, quantitative easing, rent control, rent-seeking, Richard Thaler, road to serfdom, Robert Shiller, Robert Solow, Ronald Coase, Ronald Reagan, Second Machine Age, secular stagnation, self-driving car, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, synthetic biology, The Chicago School, The Great Moderation, The Market for Lemons, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, too big to fail, transaction costs, transfer pricing, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, universal basic income, unorthodox policies, urban planning, very high income, Vilfredo Pareto, War on Poverty, Washington Consensus, women in the workforce

In Sweden, which was still perhaps the best example of a welfare state, public spending was dramatically cut in the 1990s, and major reforms were made to the pension system, the tax system, and other areas. In Italy it led to the election of the first Berlusconi government, which claimed to be a government of the center-right (see Tanzi, 2015a). Canada and Ireland sharply reduced public spending. Other countries, including Australia, Spain, New Zealand, Argentina, Chile and others were also influenced by the new thinking. The pro-market, reduced-government revolution had the following common elements: (a) Growing skepticism about Keynesian countercyclical policies.


Lonely Planet Colombia (Travel Guide) by Lonely Planet, Alex Egerton, Tom Masters, Kevin Raub

airport security, call centre, car-free, carbon footprint, centre right, colonial rule, Columbian Exchange, Downton Abbey, El Camino Real, Francisco Pizarro, friendly fire, gentrification, glass ceiling, haute couture, land reform, low cost airline, off-the-grid, race to the bottom, sustainable-tourism, urban sprawl

Alternatively, a recommended tour guide is Darlis Contreras (%300-343-7366); she doesn't speak English but can show you around the rest of the town and point out other Gabriel García Márquez-related sights if your Spanish is up to it. 2Activities Taganga is a popular scuba-diving center, with plenty of dive schools offering dives and courses. Four-day open-water PADI courses range from COP$600,000 to COP$750,000, but beware of the many cowboy operators. Aquarius Diving ClubDIVING ( GOOGLE MAP ; %422-2263; www.aquariusdivingclub.com; Calle 13 No 2-06) A five-star PADI diving center right in the heart of the town. Charges COP$150,000 for a two-tank dive and COP$650,000 all-inclusive for open-water courses. Poseidon Dive CenterDIVING ( GOOGLE MAP ; %421-9224; www.poseidondivecenter.com; Calle 18 No 1-69) Well-equipped and experienced dive school; open-water courses cost COP$720,000.


pages: 728 words: 182,850

Cooking for Geeks by Jeff Potter

3D printing, A Pattern Language, air gap, carbon footprint, centre right, Community Supported Agriculture, Computer Numeric Control, crowdsourcing, Donald Knuth, double helix, en.wikipedia.org, European colonialism, fear of failure, food miles, functional fixedness, hacker house, haute cuisine, helicopter parent, Internet Archive, iterative process, Kickstarter, lolcat, Parkinson's law, placebo effect, random walk, Rubik’s Cube, slashdot, stochastic process, TED Talk, the scientific method

Because maltodextrin is water soluble, however, water would dissolve the starch granules. And, luckily, maltodextrin can soak up a lot more oil per volume than sand can soak up water, making it useful for conveying flavors in a nonliquid form. Powdered Brown Butter Whisking any fat such as browned butter (upper left) with maltodextrin (center right) creates a powdered form (bottom) that can be used to create a surprising texture as the powder "melts" back into browned butter when placed in the mouth. Try using this browned butter powder as a garnish on top of or alongside fish, or making a version with peanut butter and sprinkling on desserts.


Basic Income: A Radical Proposal for a Free Society and a Sane Economy by Philippe van Parijs, Yannick Vanderborght

Airbnb, Albert Einstein, basic income, Berlin Wall, Bertrand Russell: In Praise of Idleness, carbon tax, centre right, collective bargaining, cryptocurrency, David Graeber, declining real wages, degrowth, diversified portfolio, Edward Snowden, eurozone crisis, Fall of the Berlin Wall, feminist movement, full employment, future of work, George Akerlof, Herbert Marcuse, illegal immigration, income per capita, informal economy, Jeremy Corbyn, job automation, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, Kickstarter, Marshall McLuhan, means of production, minimum wage unemployment, Money creation, open borders, Paul Samuelson, pension reform, Post-Keynesian economics, precariat, price mechanism, profit motive, purchasing power parity, quantitative easing, race to the bottom, road to serfdom, Robert Solow, Rutger Bregman, Second Machine Age, secular stagnation, selection bias, sharing economy, sovereign wealth fund, systematic bias, The Spirit Level, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, Tobin tax, universal basic income, urban planning, urban renewal, War on Poverty, working poor

Ci vi l S oc iet y, Parti es, and t he Back D oor 2015, the basic income initiative was put up for a final vote in the National Council: 157 voted against, 19 in �favor, and 16 abstained. On the same day, the Council of States (the Swiss senate, made up of representatives of the cantons), rejected it by a vote of 40 to 1, with 3 abstentions. In all cases, all the representatives from the center, right, and far-�right parties voted against the proposals, while all pro votes and abstentions came from the socialist and green parties, both sharply divided. The degree of support thus ranged from 0 �percent in the Federal Council and 2 �percent in the Council of States to 10 �percent in the final vote of the National Council.141 A few weeks before the referendum, each Swiss citizen received, as usual, a booklet containing the argument of the initiators of the proposal and the argument of the Federal Council, in this case recommending rejection.


The Rough Guide to Jamaica by Thomas, Polly,Henzell, Laura.,Coates, Rob.,Vaitilingam, Adam.

buttonwood tree, call centre, Caribbean Basin Initiative, centre right, colonial rule, computer age, ghettoisation, jitney, John Gilmore, Kickstarter, post-work, Ronald Reagan, Saturday Night Live, sustainable-tourism, trade route

The restaurant at Villa Bella has standard international and Jamaican fare at moderate to expensive prices and a nice indoor dining area (you’ll find it’s too cold to eat outside in the winter). Otherwise, 263 the main road has a smattering of inexpensive snack bars and patty shops and a particularly popular jerk stand/restaurant (Bull’s Jerk Center) right before the crossroads heading to Walderston. Regular minibuses run up Shooter’s Hill from Mandeville and head straight into town – ask them to drop you off if you’re heading for Hotel Villa Bella. If you’re driving, the hotel is signposted on your right just before you enter town; bear left and keep straight on for the town itself.


pages: 583 words: 182,990

The Ministry for the Future: A Novel by Kim Stanley Robinson

"World Economic Forum" Davos, agricultural Revolution, airport security, Anthropocene, availability heuristic, basic income, bitcoin, blockchain, Bretton Woods, cakes and ale, carbon tax, centre right, clean tech, clean water, cryptocurrency, dark matter, decarbonisation, degrowth, distributed ledger, drone strike, European colonialism, failed state, fiat currency, Food sovereignty, full employment, Gini coefficient, global village, green new deal, happiness index / gross national happiness, High speed trading, high-speed rail, income per capita, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Internet of things, invisible hand, Jevons paradox, Kim Stanley Robinson, land reform, liberation theology, liquidity trap, Mahbub ul Haq, megacity, megastructure, Modern Monetary Theory, mutually assured destruction, nuclear winter, ocean acidification, off grid, off-the-grid, offshore financial centre, place-making, plutocrats, Ponzi scheme, post-oil, precariat, price stability, public intellectual, quantitative easing, rewilding, RFID, Robert Solow, seigniorage, Shenzhen special economic zone , Silicon Valley, special economic zone, structural adjustment programs, synthetic biology, time value of money, Tragedy of the Commons, universal basic income, wage slave, Washington Consensus

This ratio, one of the most extreme in the world, had caused membership in the various right-wing anti-immigrant parties in Switzerland to swell, and now they held a dozen or more seats in the Swiss legislature, led by the SVP, the Swiss People’s Party. There were about thirty political parties in Switzerland, and all the ruling coalitions in the federal government were formed by majorities created by alliances between the central parties; center-right, center-left, with the more radical parties on each side just barely earning seats. SVP had even held a majority for a while, then after the heat wave it had lost popularity. Now they did better in the cantonal governments, but these had had their power shifted over the years to Bern’s federal government— not entirely, but in national matters like this one, the federal government tended to get its way.


pages: 619 words: 177,548

Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity by Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", "World Economic Forum" Davos, 4chan, agricultural Revolution, AI winter, Airbnb, airline deregulation, algorithmic bias, algorithmic management, Alignment Problem, AlphaGo, An Inconvenient Truth, artificial general intelligence, augmented reality, basic income, Bellingcat, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, Bletchley Park, blue-collar work, British Empire, carbon footprint, carbon tax, carried interest, centre right, Charles Babbage, ChatGPT, Clayton Christensen, clean water, cloud computing, collapse of Lehman Brothers, collective bargaining, computer age, Computer Lib, Computing Machinery and Intelligence, conceptual framework, contact tracing, Corn Laws, Cornelius Vanderbilt, coronavirus, corporate social responsibility, correlation does not imply causation, cotton gin, COVID-19, creative destruction, declining real wages, deep learning, DeepMind, deindustrialization, Demis Hassabis, Deng Xiaoping, deskilling, discovery of the americas, disinformation, Donald Trump, Douglas Engelbart, Douglas Engelbart, Edward Snowden, Elon Musk, en.wikipedia.org, energy transition, Erik Brynjolfsson, European colonialism, everywhere but in the productivity statistics, factory automation, facts on the ground, fake news, Filter Bubble, financial innovation, Ford Model T, Ford paid five dollars a day, fulfillment center, full employment, future of work, gender pay gap, general purpose technology, Geoffrey Hinton, global supply chain, Gordon Gekko, GPT-3, Grace Hopper, Hacker Ethic, Ida Tarbell, illegal immigration, income inequality, indoor plumbing, industrial robot, interchangeable parts, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, Jacques de Vaucanson, James Watt: steam engine, Jaron Lanier, Jeff Bezos, job automation, Johannes Kepler, John Markoff, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, Joseph-Marie Jacquard, Kenneth Arrow, Kevin Roose, Kickstarter, knowledge economy, labor-force participation, land reform, land tenure, Les Trente Glorieuses, low skilled workers, low-wage service sector, M-Pesa, manufacturing employment, Marc Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg, megacity, mobile money, Mother of all demos, move fast and break things, natural language processing, Neolithic agricultural revolution, Norbert Wiener, NSO Group, offshore financial centre, OpenAI, PageRank, Panopticon Jeremy Bentham, paperclip maximiser, pattern recognition, Paul Graham, Peter Thiel, Productivity paradox, profit maximization, profit motive, QAnon, Ralph Nader, Ray Kurzweil, recommendation engine, ride hailing / ride sharing, Robert Bork, Robert Gordon, Robert Solow, robotic process automation, Ronald Reagan, scientific management, Second Machine Age, self-driving car, seminal paper, shareholder value, Sheryl Sandberg, Shoshana Zuboff, Silicon Valley, social intelligence, Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits, social web, South Sea Bubble, speech recognition, spice trade, statistical model, stem cell, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, strikebreaker, subscription business, Suez canal 1869, Suez crisis 1956, supply-chain management, surveillance capitalism, tacit knowledge, tech billionaire, technoutopianism, Ted Nelson, TED Talk, The Future of Employment, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, theory of mind, Thomas Malthus, too big to fail, total factor productivity, trade route, transatlantic slave trade, trickle-down economics, Turing machine, Turing test, Twitter Arab Spring, Two Sigma, Tyler Cowen, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, union organizing, universal basic income, Unsafe at Any Speed, Upton Sinclair, upwardly mobile, W. E. B. Du Bois, War on Poverty, WikiLeaks, wikimedia commons, working poor, working-age population

After the beginning of the Great Depression, the SAP started campaigning for a robust policy response that had both a macroeconomic leg (greater government spending, higher wages in industry to prop up demand, and expansionary monetary policy by leaving the gold standard) and an institutional leg (providing foundations for consistent sharing of profits between labor and capital, redistribution via taxation, and social insurance programs). To achieve this, the party started seeking coalition partners. It looked like a hopeless task, at least at first. The center-right had no intention of working with the SAP, and worker and agrarian parties were often at loggerheads, not just in Sweden but throughout much of Western Europe during this period. The SAP, which was organically linked to trade unions, was determined to maintain high wages in industry and expand manufacturing employment.


pages: 652 words: 172,428

Aftershocks: Pandemic Politics and the End of the Old International Order by Colin Kahl, Thomas Wright

"World Economic Forum" Davos, 2021 United States Capitol attack, banking crisis, Berlin Wall, biodiversity loss, Black Lives Matter, Boris Johnson, British Empire, Carmen Reinhart, centre right, Charles Lindbergh, circular economy, citizen journalism, clean water, collapse of Lehman Brothers, colonial rule, contact tracing, contact tracing app, coronavirus, COVID-19, creative destruction, cuban missile crisis, deglobalization, digital rights, disinformation, Donald Trump, drone strike, eurozone crisis, failed state, fake news, Fall of the Berlin Wall, fear of failure, future of work, George Floyd, German hyperinflation, Gini coefficient, global pandemic, global supply chain, global value chain, income inequality, industrial robot, informal economy, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Internet of things, it's over 9,000, job automation, junk bonds, Kibera, lab leak, liberal world order, lockdown, low interest rates, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Wolf, mass immigration, megacity, mobile money, oil shale / tar sands, oil shock, one-China policy, open borders, open economy, Paris climate accords, public intellectual, Ronald Reagan, social distancing, South China Sea, spice trade, statistical model, subprime mortgage crisis, W. E. B. Du Bois, World Values Survey, zoonotic diseases

Haaretz political analyst Anshel Pfeffer wrote in July: “Israel’s failure, at this point, is of a magnitude that seems to defy all its perceived advantages in dealing with the crisis.”66 If you want to understand why some countries led by nationalist leaders fared better than others, the contrast between the United Kingdom and Australia is particularly instructive. Both countries are islands, and thus have more control over their own borders than landlocked nations. British prime minister Boris Johnson and Australian prime minister Scott Morrison are both center-right leaders who cozied up to Donald Trump and were not shy about their nationalist leanings. Johnson, of course, led Britain’s exit from the EU and dismissed experts who warned against Brexit as “Project Fear.” For his part, Morrison was a climate skeptic and liked to slam “globalists.” And yet the two leaders and countries handled the pandemic very differently.


USA Travel Guide by Lonely, Planet

1960s counterculture, active transport: walking or cycling, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Albert Einstein, Apollo 11, Apollo 13, Asilomar, Bay Area Rapid Transit, Bear Stearns, Berlin Wall, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, big-box store, bike sharing, Biosphere 2, Bretton Woods, British Empire, Burning Man, California gold rush, call centre, car-free, carbon footprint, centre right, Charles Lindbergh, Chuck Templeton: OpenTable:, congestion pricing, Cornelius Vanderbilt, cotton gin, cuban missile crisis, Day of the Dead, desegregation, Donald Trump, Donner party, Dr. Strangelove, East Village, edge city, El Camino Real, fake news, Fall of the Berlin Wall, feminist movement, Ford Model T, Frank Gehry, gentleman farmer, gentrification, glass ceiling, global village, Golden Gate Park, Guggenheim Bilbao, Haight Ashbury, haute couture, haute cuisine, Hernando de Soto, Howard Zinn, illegal immigration, immigration reform, information trail, interchangeable parts, intermodal, jitney, Ken Thompson, Kickstarter, license plate recognition, machine readable, Mars Rover, Mason jar, mass immigration, Maui Hawaii, McMansion, Menlo Park, military-industrial complex, Monroe Doctrine, Neil Armstrong, new economy, New Urbanism, obamacare, off grid, off-the-grid, Quicken Loans, Ralph Nader, Ralph Waldo Emerson, retail therapy, RFID, ride hailing / ride sharing, Ronald Reagan, Rosa Parks, Saturday Night Live, Silicon Valley, South of Market, San Francisco, starchitect, stealth mode startup, stem cell, supervolcano, the built environment, The Chicago School, the High Line, the payments system, three-martini lunch, trade route, transcontinental railway, union organizing, Upton Sinclair, upwardly mobile, urban decay, urban planning, urban renewal, urban sprawl, Virgin Galactic, walkable city, white flight, working poor, Works Progress Administration, young professional, Zipcar

Pick up a Six Scenic Walking Tours brochure from the visitor center in Eureka Springs; rent a bike from Adventure Mountain Outfitters ( 479-253-0900; www.adventuremountainoutfitters.com; 151 Spring St, Eureka Springs; half day $50; 9am-5pm Wed-Sat) ; or catch the Red Line of the Eureka Trolley (www.eurekatrolley.org; adult/child $5/1; 9am-5pm Jan-Apr & Nov-Dec, til 8pm Sun May-Oct) . If your budget can stand it, bypass the cheap motels on the rim of the canyon and splurge on lodging in the town center. Right in the historic downtown is the - and historic New Orleans Hotel and Suchness Spa ( 479-253-8630; www.neworleanshotelandspa.com; 63 Spring St; r $84-204; ) , which sends you reeling back in time, except that it houses a spa with a menu fully loaded for your body and chakra needs. Treehouse Cottages ( 479-253-8667; www.treehousecottages.com; 165 W Van Buren St; from $145; ) offers gorgeous sunlit, Jacuzzi-equipped tree houses (that are more like cottages on stilts) in the woods.

IOWA FACTS » Nickname Hawkeye State » Population 3.1 million » Area 56,275 sq miles » Capital city Des Moines (population 203,500) » Sales tax 6% » Birthplace of painter Grant Wood (1891–1942), actor John Wayne (1907–79), author Bill Bryson (b 1951) » Home of Madison County’s bridges » Politics center-right with flashes of liberalism » Famous for Iowa Caucus that opens the presidential election season » Official flower wild rose » Driving distances Dubuque to Chicago 180 miles, Des Moines to Rapid City 625 miles History After the 1832 Black Hawk War pushed local Native Americans westward, immigrants flooded into Iowa from all parts of the world and hit the ground farming.

NEBRASKA FACTS » Nickname Cornhusker State » Population 1.83 million » Area 77,360 sq miles » Capital city Lincoln (population 260,000) » Other cities Omaha (population 409,000) » Sales tax 5.5% » Birthplace of dancer Fred Astaire (1899–1987), actors Marlon Brando (1924–2004) and Hilary Swank (b 1974), civil rights leader Malcolm X (1925–65) » Home of Air Force generals » Politics center-right » Famous for only unicameral state legislature, corn » Official beverage milk » Driving distances Omaha to the Wyoming border on I-80 480 miles, Omaha to Kansas City 186 miles Information Nebraska Association of Bed & Breakfasts ( 877-223-6222; www.nebraskabb.com) Nebraska state parks ( reservations 402-471-1414; www.outdoornebraska.ne.gov) Vehicle permits cost $5/21 per day/year.


Frommer's Mexico 2008 by David Baird, Juan Cristiano, Lynne Bairstow, Emily Hughey Quinn

airport security, AltaVista, Bartolomé de las Casas, centre right, colonial rule, Day of the Dead, East Village, gentrification, glass ceiling, haute cuisine, indoor plumbing, low cost airline, Maui Hawaii, out of africa, Pepto Bismol, place-making, Skype, sustainable-tourism, the market place, urban planning

Other popular features include: • • • • Online updates of our most popular guidebooks Vacation sweepstakes and contest giveaways Newsletters highlighting the hottest travel trends Online travel message boards with featured travel discussions What’s New in Mexico T he year 2007 brought new leadership to Mexico, with Felipe Calderon of the center-right National Action Party (PAN, the same political party that former President Fox belonged to) elected as the new president following a close and contested race. President Calderon promised to focus his government on tackling domestic insecurity, poverty, and joblessness. Throughout this transition, Mexico’s economy remained stable and the government committed to attracting investment and tourism.

For Mexicans, a government under the PRI was all that they had ever known. During Fox’s presidency, the three main political parties had to adjust to the new realty of power sharing. The old government party, the PRI, still had a large infrastructure for getting out the vote and still controlled the local governments of several states. Fox’s center-right PAN had control of the presidency and the most seats in the legislature, while the centerleft PRD (Partido de la Revolución Democrática, or Democratic Revolution Party) controlled the city government of Mexico City as well as a few southern states. Many observers anticipated gridlock. But the three parties, to their credit, handled the transition better than expected.


Frommer's Egypt by Matthew Carrington

airport security, bread and circuses, centre right, colonial rule, Easter island, Internet Archive, land tenure, low cost airline, Maui Hawaii, open economy, rent control, rolodex, Suez canal 1869, Suez crisis 1956, sustainable-tourism, trade route, urban planning, urban sprawl, walkable city, Yom Kippur War

Desert Divers, Masbat (& 069/3640500; www.desert-divers.com), is a great, locally owned and run business in Dahab that’s becoming a center for free diving and yoga. It pioneered the idea of “camel dive safaris,” where you trek up the coast with camels to do the shore dive. Big Blue’s (& 069/3640045 or 010/1945466; www.bigbluedahab.com) logo says it all: It’s time to chill out and dive. Big Blue is a brand-new dive center right next to the water, which means a great combination of uptight standards and chilled-out diving. The dive center at the Nessima Resort, Mashraba (& 069/3640320; fax 069/ 3640321; www.nesima-resort.com), not only has a first-class reputation, but is conveniently located in one of the nicest places to stay and eat in the middle of Dahab.


pages: 708 words: 196,859

Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World by Liaquat Ahamed

Alan Greenspan, Albert Einstein, anti-communist, bank run, banking crisis, Bretton Woods, British Empire, business cycle, capital controls, central bank independence, centre right, credit crunch, currency manipulation / currency intervention, Etonian, Ford Model T, full employment, gentleman farmer, German hyperinflation, Glass-Steagall Act, index card, invisible hand, Lao Tzu, large denomination, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, margin call, market bubble, Mexican peso crisis / tequila crisis, mobile money, money market fund, moral hazard, new economy, open economy, plutocrats, price stability, purchasing power parity, pushing on a string, rolodex, scientific management, the market place

His recommendations were still very orthodox, designed to prevent an exchange crisis rather than to address the growing problem of unemployment. Three weeks later, the government with which he had broken split over the unemployment question and fell, the Socialists wanting to finance an expansion in unemployment benefits by more foreign borrowing, the center parties to cut the budget deficit. A new center-right coalition, excluding the Socialists, took office and was led by a new chancellor, Heinrich Brüning, a dour Catholic, former army officer, and staunch monarchist. Unable to get anything through a divided parliament, Brüning was forced to rule by decree, moving Germany in a more authoritarian direction by his reliance on the constitution’s provisions for emergency powers.


Energy and Civilization: A History by Vaclav Smil

8-hour work day, additive manufacturing, agricultural Revolution, animal electricity, Apollo 11, Boeing 747, business cycle, carbon-based life, centre right, Charles Babbage, decarbonisation, dematerialisation, Deng Xiaoping, Easter island, en.wikipedia.org, energy security, energy transition, epigenetics, Exxon Valdez, Fairchild Semiconductor, Ford Model T, Frederick Winslow Taylor, Great Leap Forward, high-speed rail, hydraulic fracturing, income inequality, Indoor air pollution, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invention of gunpowder, James Watt: steam engine, Jevons paradox, John Harrison: Longitude, Joseph-Marie Jacquard, Just-in-time delivery, Kaizen: continuous improvement, Kibera, knowledge economy, land tenure, language acquisition, Lewis Mumford, lone genius, Louis Blériot, mass immigration, megacity, megaproject, Menlo Park, mutually assured destruction, North Sea oil, ocean acidification, oil shale / tar sands, peak oil, phenotype, precision agriculture, purchasing power parity, QWERTY keyboard, Richard Feynman, scientific management, Silicon Valley, Suez canal 1869, Toyota Production System, transcontinental railway, uranium enrichment, Yom Kippur War

In relative terms, people were better carriers than animals. Typical loads were only about 30% of an animal’s weight (that is, mostly just 50–120 kg) on the level and 25% in the hills. Men aided by a wheel could move loads far surpassing their body weight. Recorded peaks are more than 150 kg in Chinese barrows where the load was centered right above the wheel’s axle. European barrows, with their eccentric front wheel, were usually loaded with no more than 60–100 kg. Massed applications of human labor, aided by simple mechanical devices, could accomplish some astonishingly demanding tasks. Undoubtedly the most taxing transport tasks in traditional societies were the deliveries of large-sized building stones or finished components to construction sites.


pages: 388 words: 211,314

Frommer's Washington State by Karl Samson

airport security, British Empire, California gold rush, centre right, company town, flying shuttle, Frank Gehry, glass ceiling, global village, Great Leap Forward, land bank, machine readable, place-making, sustainable-tourism, Tacoma Narrows Bridge, transcontinental railway, white picket fence

About 21 miles north of Davenport, at the confluence of the Spokane and Columbia rivers, stands Fort Spokane, which was built in 1880. Four of the original buildings are still standing. An 1892 brick guardhouse serves as a visitor center, though the recreation area’s main visitor center is the Grand Coulee Dam Visitor Center right at the dam. Some 30 miles down the Grand Coulee, just south of Coulee City on Wash. 17, you can have a look at a natural wonder that’s as impressive as the dam. Dry Falls are the remains of a massive waterfall created by the same floodwaters that scoured out the Grand Coulee. At their peak flow, the waters cascading 400 feet over these falls stretched 31⁄2 miles wide (in comparison, Niagara Falls are less than 1 mile wide and less than 180 ft. tall).


pages: 678 words: 216,204

The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom by Yochai Benkler

affirmative action, AOL-Time Warner, barriers to entry, bioinformatics, Brownian motion, business logic, call centre, Cass Sunstein, centre right, clean water, commoditize, commons-based peer production, dark matter, desegregation, digital divide, East Village, Eben Moglen, fear of failure, Firefox, Free Software Foundation, game design, George Gilder, hiring and firing, Howard Rheingold, informal economy, information asymmetry, information security, invention of radio, Isaac Newton, iterative process, Jean Tirole, jimmy wales, John Markoff, John Perry Barlow, Kenneth Arrow, Lewis Mumford, longitudinal study, machine readable, Mahbub ul Haq, market bubble, market clearing, Marshall McLuhan, Mitch Kapor, New Journalism, optical character recognition, pattern recognition, peer-to-peer, power law, precautionary principle, pre–internet, price discrimination, profit maximization, profit motive, public intellectual, radical decentralization, random walk, Recombinant DNA, recommendation engine, regulatory arbitrage, rent-seeking, RFID, Richard Stallman, Ronald Coase, scientific management, search costs, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, SETI@home, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, Skype, slashdot, social software, software patent, spectrum auction, subscription business, tacit knowledge, technological determinism, technoutopianism, The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, the long tail, The Nature of the Firm, the strength of weak ties, Timothy McVeigh, transaction costs, vertical integration, Vilfredo Pareto, work culture , Yochai Benkler

Only after a few days, when the boycott was crystallizing, would opponents have reason to point out the boycott effort and discuss it. This interpretation also well characterizes the way in which the Trent Lott story described later in this chapter began percolating on the liberal side of the blogosphere, but then migrated over to the center-right. 462 The third claim was that money would reemerge as the primary source of power brokerage because of the difficulty of getting attention on the Net. Descriptively, it shares a prediction with the second-generation claims: Namely, that the Internet will centralize discourse. It differs in the mechanism of concentration: it will not be the result of an emergent property of large-scale networks, but rather of an old, tried-and-true way of capturing the political arena--money.


pages: 915 words: 232,883

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

"World Economic Forum" Davos, air freight, Albert Einstein, Andy Rubin, AOL-Time Warner, Apollo 13, Apple II, Apple's 1984 Super Bowl advert, big-box store, Bill Atkinson, Bob Noyce, Buckminster Fuller, Byte Shop, centre right, Clayton Christensen, cloud computing, commoditize, computer age, computer vision, corporate governance, death of newspapers, Do you want to sell sugared water for the rest of your life?, don't be evil, Douglas Engelbart, Dynabook, El Camino Real, Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Fairchild Semiconductor, Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco, fixed income, game design, General Magic , Golden Gate Park, Hacker Ethic, hiring and firing, It's morning again in America, Jeff Bezos, Johannes Kepler, John Markoff, Jony Ive, Kanban, Larry Ellison, lateral thinking, Lewis Mumford, Mark Zuckerberg, Menlo Park, Mitch Kapor, Mother of all demos, Paul Terrell, Pepsi Challenge, profit maximization, publish or perish, reality distortion field, Recombinant DNA, Richard Feynman, Robert Metcalfe, Robert X Cringely, Ronald Reagan, Silicon Valley, skunkworks, Steve Ballmer, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Steven Levy, Stewart Brand, supply-chain management, The Home Computer Revolution, thinkpad, Tim Cook: Apple, Tony Fadell, vertical integration, Wall-E, Whole Earth Catalog

And somewhere off Jobs’s radar screen, at least for the moment, there was a small skunkworks project for a low-cost machine that was being developed by a colorful employee named Jef Raskin, a former professor who had taught Bill Atkinson. Raskin’s goal was to make an inexpensive “computer for the masses” that would be like an appliance—a self-contained unit with computer, keyboard, monitor, and software all together—and have a graphical interface. He tried to turn his colleagues at Apple on to a cutting-edge research center, right in Palo Alto, that was pioneering such ideas. Xerox PARC The Xerox Corporation’s Palo Alto Research Center, known as Xerox PARC, had been established in 1970 to create a spawning ground for digital ideas. It was safely located, for better and for worse, three thousand miles from the commercial pressures of Xerox corporate headquarters in Connecticut.


The Rough Guide to New York City by Rough Guides

3D printing, Airbnb, Bear Stearns, Berlin Wall, Bernie Madoff, bike sharing, Blue Bottle Coffee, Bonfire of the Vanities, Broken windows theory, Buckminster Fuller, buttonwood tree, car-free, centre right, Chuck Templeton: OpenTable:, clean water, collateralized debt obligation, colonial rule, congestion pricing, Cornelius Vanderbilt, crack epidemic, David Sedaris, Donald Trump, Downton Abbey, East Village, Edward Thorp, Elisha Otis, Exxon Valdez, Frank Gehry, General Motors Futurama, gentrification, glass ceiling, greed is good, haute couture, haute cuisine, Howard Zinn, illegal immigration, index fund, it's over 9,000, Jane Jacobs, junk bonds, Kickstarter, Lewis Mumford, Lyft, machine readable, Nelson Mandela, Norman Mailer, paper trading, Ponzi scheme, post-work, pre–internet, rent stabilization, ride hailing / ride sharing, Saturday Night Live, Scaled Composites, starchitect, subprime mortgage crisis, sustainable-tourism, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, the High Line, transcontinental railway, Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, uber lyft, upwardly mobile, urban decay, urban planning, urban renewal, white flight, Works Progress Administration, Yogi Berra, young professional

In a building designed by Philip Johnson, the organization preserves an archive of 160,000, mostly American, TV shows, radio broadcasts and commercials, accessible via an excellent computerized reference system. Occasional screenings (family friendly on Saturdays, more cultured on Sundays) and panel discussions take place in the downstairs theatre. The ‘21’ Club 21 W 52nd St • 212 582 7200, 21club.com • Subway B, D, F, M to 47-50th sts-Rockefeller Center Right next door to the Paley Center is the ‘21’ Club, which has been providing food (and drink) since the days of Prohibition, and remains an Old Boys’ institution. Founded by Jack Kriendler and Charlie Berns, the club quickly became one of the most exclusive establishments in town, a place where young socialites and local celebrities could spend wild nights dancing the Charleston and enjoying wines and spirits of the finest quality.


pages: 1,028 words: 267,392

Wanderers: A Novel by Chuck Wendig

Black Swan, Boston Dynamics, centre right, citizen journalism, clean water, Columbine, coronavirus, crisis actor, currency manipulation / currency intervention, disinformation, fake news, game design, global pandemic, hallucination problem, hiring and firing, hive mind, Internet of things, job automation, Kickstarter, Lyft, Maui Hawaii, microaggression, oil shale / tar sands, private military company, quantum entanglement, RFID, satellite internet, side project, Silicon Valley, Skype, supervolcano, tech bro, TED Talk, uber lyft, white picket fence

Summer humidity and all. He tried again, more vigorously. Nothing. Rattle, rattle. Now worry ran through his legs, down his arms, humming in his ears. He pushed his shoulder into the door once—it didn’t budge. Again—still nothing. He backed up, then stabbed out with his foot into as hard a kick as he could muster, centered right on the doorknob. It popped off, and the door pitched open. That’s when he found Autumn. Her body was in the tub. Her eyes half lidded as the soapy water gently lapped at her chin. Running down the tub was a crust of drying vomit. More puke floated in the tub, forming foamy, bilious islands.


pages: 935 words: 267,358

Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty

accounting loophole / creative accounting, Asian financial crisis, banking crisis, banks create money, Berlin Wall, book value, Branko Milanovic, British Empire, business cycle, capital controls, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, carbon footprint, carbon tax, central bank independence, centre right, circulation of elites, collapse of Lehman Brothers, conceptual framework, corporate governance, correlation coefficient, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, demographic transition, distributed generation, diversification, diversified portfolio, European colonialism, eurozone crisis, Fall of the Berlin Wall, financial intermediation, full employment, Future Shock, German hyperinflation, Gini coefficient, Great Leap Forward, high net worth, Honoré de Balzac, immigration reform, income inequality, income per capita, index card, inflation targeting, informal economy, invention of the steam engine, invisible hand, joint-stock company, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Arrow, low interest rates, market bubble, means of production, meritocracy, Money creation, mortgage debt, mortgage tax deduction, new economy, New Urbanism, offshore financial centre, open economy, Paul Samuelson, pension reform, power law, purchasing power parity, race to the bottom, randomized controlled trial, refrigerator car, regulatory arbitrage, rent control, rent-seeking, Robert Gordon, Robert Solow, Ronald Reagan, Simon Kuznets, sovereign wealth fund, Steve Jobs, Suez canal 1869, Suez crisis 1956, The Nature of the Firm, the payments system, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, Thorstein Veblen, trade liberalization, twin studies, very high income, Vilfredo Pareto, We are the 99%, zero-sum game

Clearly, Leroy-Beaulieu was fascinated by the globalization of his day and scared stiff by the thought that a sudden revolution might put it all in jeopardy.22 There is of course nothing inherently reprehensible about such a fascination as long as it does not stand in the way of sober analysis. The great issue in France in 1900–1910 was not the imminence of a Bolshevik revolution (which was no more likely than a revolution is today) but the advent of progressive taxation. For Leroy-Beaulieu and his colleagues of the “center right” (in contrast to the monarchist right), there was one unanswerable argument to progressivity, which right-thinking people should oppose tooth and nail: France, he maintained, became an egalitarian country thanks to the French Revolution, which redistributed the land (up to a point) and above all established equality before the law with the Civil Code, which instituted equal property rights and the right of free contract.


Lonely Planet Chile & Easter Island (Travel Guide) by Lonely Planet, Carolyn McCarthy, Kevin Raub

California gold rush, call centre, carbon footprint, centre right, Colonization of Mars, company town, East Village, Easter island, gentrification, haute cuisine, Kickstarter, land reform, low cost airline, mass immigration, New Urbanism, off grid, off-the-grid, place-making, QR code, rewilding, satellite internet, Skype, sustainable-tourism, trade route, upwardly mobile, urban sprawl, white picket fence

At the same time, the outpouring of solidarity demonstrated by the Chilean people was a boost to national pride. Bachelet’s tenure was nearly over at the time of the earthquake. After 20 years of rule by the liberal Concertacíon, Chile had elected conservative billionaire businessman Sebastian Piñera from the center-right Alianza por Chile. While Piñera took his oath of office, a 6.9 magnitude aftershock rocked Santiago. Liberal commentators, including novelist Isabel Allende, seized the metaphor, but around the globe observers were curious what the first right-wing government since Pinochet would herald. Chile rebounded onto the world stage six months later when 33 miners became trapped 700m underground in the Atacama desert.


Coastal California by Lonely Planet

1960s counterculture, airport security, Albert Einstein, Asilomar, back-to-the-land, Bay Area Rapid Transit, Berlin Wall, bike sharing, Blue Bottle Coffee, buy and hold, California gold rush, call centre, car-free, carbon footprint, centre right, Chuck Templeton: OpenTable:, company town, Day of the Dead, Donner party, East Village, El Camino Real, Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, electricity market, Frank Gehry, gentrification, global village, Golden Gate Park, Haight Ashbury, haute cuisine, illegal immigration, Joan Didion, Khyber Pass, Kickstarter, Loma Prieta earthquake, low cost airline, machine readable, Mason jar, McMansion, military-industrial complex, Neil Armstrong, Northpointe / Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions, off-the-grid, rolling blackouts, Ronald Reagan, Silicon Valley, South of Market, San Francisco, stealth mode startup, Steve Wozniak, trade route, transcontinental railway, Upton Sinclair, urban sprawl, white picket fence, women in the workforce, working poor, Works Progress Administration, young professional, Zipcar

The Visitors Center can direct you towards the Pet Cemetery off Crissy Field Ave, where handmade tombstones commemorate military hamsters who’ve completed their final tour of duty. Today the only wars waged around here are interstellar ones in George Lucas’ screening room in the Letterman Digital Arts Center, right by the Yoda statue. Crissy Field PARK (www.crissyfield.org; 603 Mason St; sunrise-sunset, Center 9am-5pm) War is now officially for the birds at this former military airstrip, restored as a tidal marsh and reclaimed by knock-kneed coastal birds. On blustery days, bird-watch from the shelter of Crissy Field Center, which has a cafe counter facing the field with binoculars.


Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel, and the Palestinians (Updated Edition) (South End Press Classics Series) by Noam Chomsky

active measures, American ideology, anti-communist, Ayatollah Khomeini, Berlin Wall, centre right, colonial rule, David Brooks, disinformation, European colonialism, facts on the ground, Fall of the Berlin Wall, information security, Monroe Doctrine, New Journalism, public intellectual, random walk, Ronald Reagan, Silicon Valley, strikebreaker, Suez crisis 1956, the market place, Thomas L Friedman

Population growth is increasing among Palestinians and ultra-religious Jews, declining among secular and privileged sectors, as in Europe. Many Israelis find the looming “civil war” more ominous even than the dangerous international conflicts that are likely to persist. As in the U.S., the Israeli political system is converging in a narrow center-right spectrum with little differentiation, and the traditional parties (Likud, Labor) are virtually collapsing. Their current leaders, Benjamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak, have “two identical maps,” political commentator Yosef Harif observes: “from a political point of view there is no difference today between Netanyahu and Barak”—not that matters were very different before, apart from the differences of style that trace to the differing constituencies of the political blocs.


pages: 956 words: 288,981

Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2011 by Steve Coll

airport security, Ayatollah Khomeini, Berlin Wall, Boeing 747, Boycotts of Israel, centre right, colonial rule, computer age, disinformation, energy security, failed state, Fall of the Berlin Wall, illegal immigration, index card, Islamic Golden Age, Khyber Pass, Mikhail Gorbachev, Network effects, Oklahoma City bombing, operational security, RAND corporation, Ronald Reagan, Timothy McVeigh, trade route, upwardly mobile, urban planning, women in the workforce

To disrupt bin Laden’s embedded network in Afghanistan and capture al Qaeda’s leaders, the agency would have to revive its partnership with Pakistan’s ISI—or, if this failed, the CIA would soon have to find another intelligence service to work with in Afghanistan’s rough neighborhood. 24 “Let’s Just Blow the Thing Up” PAKISTANI PRIME MINISTER Nawaz Sharif lived in continual fear of his own army. Generals had invented the Sharifs as a political dynasty. They endorsed Nawaz as the civilian face of their favored alliance, a center-right artifice of industrialists, landlords, Muslim clerics, and freelance opportunists. Sharif was attentive to his self-interest if not always witting about how to secure it. He was presumed to be raking millions from Pakistan’s treasury for his family’s benefit. He also knew that any Pakistani politician, especially one handpicked by the army, risked overthrow if the generals felt threatened by the civilian’s independence or popularity.


Rainbow Six by Tom Clancy

active measures, air freight, airport security, bread and circuses, centre right, clean water, computer age, Exxon Valdez, false flag, flag carrier, Live Aid, old-boy network, operational security, plutocrats, RAND corporation, Recombinant DNA, rent control, rolodex, superconnector, systems thinking, urban sprawl

"But, goddamnit, these people are my responsibility." "Yes, they are, and you can take that responsibility outside. Now!" the captain ordered him. "Leave!" Dennis replaced the phone, turning then to look at the fifteen person duty staff in the command center: "People, everybody, follow me. We're heading for the backup command center. Right now," he emphasized. The castle, real as it appeared, wasn't real. It had been built with the modern conveniences of elevators and fire stairwells. The former were probably compromised, Dennis thought, but one of the latter descended straight down to the underground. He walked to that fire door and opened it, waving for his employees to head that way.


pages: 1,073 words: 314,528

Strategy: A History by Lawrence Freedman

Albert Einstein, anti-communist, Anton Chekhov, Ayatollah Khomeini, barriers to entry, battle of ideas, behavioural economics, Black Swan, Blue Ocean Strategy, British Empire, business process, butterfly effect, centre right, Charles Lindbergh, circulation of elites, cognitive dissonance, coherent worldview, collective bargaining, complexity theory, conceptual framework, Cornelius Vanderbilt, corporate raider, correlation does not imply causation, creative destruction, cuban missile crisis, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, defense in depth, desegregation, disinformation, Dr. Strangelove, Edward Lorenz: Chaos theory, en.wikipedia.org, endogenous growth, endowment effect, escalation ladder, Ford Model T, Ford paid five dollars a day, framing effect, Frederick Winslow Taylor, Gordon Gekko, greed is good, Herbert Marcuse, Herman Kahn, Ida Tarbell, information retrieval, interchangeable parts, invisible hand, John Nash: game theory, John von Neumann, Kenneth Arrow, lateral thinking, linear programming, loose coupling, loss aversion, Mahatma Gandhi, means of production, mental accounting, Murray Gell-Mann, mutually assured destruction, Nash equilibrium, Nelson Mandela, Norbert Wiener, Norman Mailer, oil shock, Pareto efficiency, performance metric, Philip Mirowski, prisoner's dilemma, profit maximization, race to the bottom, Ralph Nader, RAND corporation, Richard Thaler, road to serfdom, Ronald Reagan, Rosa Parks, scientific management, seminal paper, shareholder value, social contagion, social intelligence, Steven Pinker, strikebreaker, The Chicago School, The Myth of the Rational Market, the scientific method, theory of mind, Thomas Davenport, Thomas Kuhn: the structure of scientific revolutions, Torches of Freedom, Toyota Production System, transaction costs, Twitter Arab Spring, ultimatum game, unemployed young men, Upton Sinclair, urban sprawl, Vilfredo Pareto, W. E. B. Du Bois, War on Poverty, women in the workforce, Yogi Berra, zero-sum game

As Louis-Napoleon was defeated, radicals took over in France, declared the Third Republic, and continued to resist. After five months, Paris fell in January 1871. The drama was still not over. The city was in a fevered state. The people were well armed and the radicals took control. Prime Minister Adolphe Thiers from the Center-Right government fled to Versailles, where he regrouped with those of his troops, police, and administrators who had not gone over to the radicals. In Paris, a central committee arranged elections for a commune. Sundry radicals and socialists stepped forward, some looking back to the glories of 1789 while others looked forward to the new communist utopia.


pages: 1,051 words: 334,334

Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon

centre right, classic study, company town, Eratosthenes, experimental subject, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, ought to be enough for anybody, plutocrats, random walk

Rockets are supposed to be like artillery shells, they disperse about the aiming point in a giant ellipse—the Ellipse of Uncertainty. But Pokier, though trusting as much as any scientist in uncertainty, is not feeling too secure here. It is after all his own personal ass whose quivering sphincter is centered right on Ground Zero. And there is more to this than ballistics. There is Weissmann. Any number of chemists and materials people know as much about insulation as Polder . . . why should he have been picked, unless . . . somewhere in his brain now two foci sweep together and become one . . . zero ellipse ... a single point ... a live warhead, secretly loaded, special bunkers for everyone else . . . yes that's what he wants ... all tolerances in the guidance cooperating toward a perfect shot, right on top of Pokier ... ah, Weissmann, your end game lacks finesse—but there were never spectators and judges not in all this time, and who ever said the end could not be this brutal?


Hawaii by Jeff Campbell

airport security, big-box store, California gold rush, carbon footprint, centre right, Charles Lindbergh, commoditize, company town, creative destruction, Drosophila, Easter island, G4S, haute couture, land reform, lateral thinking, low-wage service sector, machine readable, Maui Hawaii, off-the-grid, Peter Pan Syndrome, polynesian navigation, risk/return, sustainable-tourism, upwardly mobile, urban sprawl, wage slave, white picket fence

* * * TOP PICKS – HONOLULU & WAIKIKI HAWAIIANA SHOPS Bishop Museum (Click here) Native Books/Nā Mea Hawai′i (Click here) Cindy’s Lei Shop (below) Na Lima Mili Hulu No′eau (Click here) Bailey’s Antiques & Aloha Shirts (Click here) Kamaka Hawaii (right) Manuheali′i (right) Antique Alley (opposite) Hula Supply Center (right) Hawai′i State Art Museum (Click here) * * * Ward Warehouse (Map; 591-8411; cnr Ward Ave & Kamake′e St; 10am-9pm Mon-Sat, to 6pm Sun) Just across the street from Ala Moana Beach Park, this minimall is home to more one-of-a-kind island-born shops, including Native Books/Nā Mea Hawaii (Click here), which sells gourmet foodstuffs, wooden koa bowls, hand-carved fishhook jewelry, authentic Hawaiian quilts and oodles of books, CDs and DVDs.


pages: 1,590 words: 353,834

God's Bankers: A History of Money and Power at the Vatican by Gerald Posner

Albert Einstein, anti-communist, Ayatollah Khomeini, bank run, banking crisis, book value, Bretton Woods, central bank independence, centralized clearinghouse, centre right, credit crunch, disinformation, dividend-yielding stocks, European colonialism, forensic accounting, God and Mammon, Index librorum prohibitorum, Kevin Roose, Kickstarter, liberation theology, low interest rates, medical malpractice, Murano, Venice glass, offshore financial centre, oil shock, operation paperclip, power law, rent control, Ronald Reagan, Silicon Valley, WikiLeaks, Yom Kippur War

Pollard, “The Vatican, Italy and the Cold War,” in Diane Kirby, Religion and the Cold War (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), 110. 115 Pollard, Money and the Rise of the Modern Papacy, 202; Cooney, The American Pope, 155–58; Phayer, Pius XII, the Holocaust, and the Cold War, 146-47. 116 The Popular Democratic Front consisted of the Italian Communist Party and the Italian Socialist Party. The disclosure of some of the money spent ($1 million to the center-right political parties) was made in a CIA memorandum to the Forty Committee (National Security Council), presented to the Select Committee on Intelligence, United States House of Representatives in 1975. The U.S. government provided overt aid in excess of $350 million ($3.6 billion in 2014 dollars) to Italy just in the year leading up to the election.


Eastern USA by Lonely Planet

1960s counterculture, active transport: walking or cycling, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Albert Einstein, Apollo 11, Bear Stearns, Berlin Wall, bike sharing, Bretton Woods, British Empire, car-free, carbon footprint, centre right, Charles Lindbergh, collective bargaining, congestion pricing, Cornelius Vanderbilt, cotton gin, cuban missile crisis, Day of the Dead, desegregation, Donald Trump, East Village, fake news, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Ford Model T, Frank Gehry, gentleman farmer, gentrification, glass ceiling, Guggenheim Bilbao, haute cuisine, Hernando de Soto, illegal immigration, immigration reform, information trail, interchangeable parts, jitney, Ken Thompson, Kickstarter, license plate recognition, machine readable, Mason jar, mass immigration, McMansion, megacity, Menlo Park, Neil Armstrong, new economy, New Urbanism, obamacare, Quicken Loans, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ronald Reagan, Rosa Parks, Saturday Night Live, Silicon Valley, Skype, the built environment, the High Line, the payments system, three-martini lunch, transcontinental railway, union organizing, Upton Sinclair, upwardly mobile, urban decay, urban planning, urban renewal, urban sprawl, walkable city, white flight, Works Progress Administration, young professional

Pick up a Six Scenic Walking Tours brochure from the visitor center in Eureka Springs; rent a bike from Adventure Mountain Outfitters ( 479-253-0900; www.adventuremountainoutfitters.com; 151 Spring St, Eureka Springs; half day $50; 9am-5pm Wed-Sat); or catch the Red Line of the Eureka Trolley (www.eurekatrolley.org; adult/child $5/1; 9am-5pm Jan-Apr & Nov-Dec, til 8pm Sun May-Oct). If your budget can stand it, bypass the cheap motels on the rim of the canyon and splurge on lodging in the town center. Right in the historic downtown is the super - comfortable and historic New Orleans Hotel and Suchness Spa ( 479-253-8630; www.neworleanshotelandspa.com; 63 Spring St; r $84-204; ), which sends you reeling back in time, except that it houses a spa with a menu fully loaded for your body and chakra needs.


pages: 1,540 words: 400,759

Fodor's California 2014 by Fodor's

1960s counterculture, active transport: walking or cycling, affirmative action, Asilomar, Bay Area Rapid Transit, big-box store, Blue Bottle Coffee, California gold rush, car-free, centre right, Charles Lindbergh, Chuck Templeton: OpenTable:, Donner party, Downton Abbey, East Village, El Camino Real, Frank Gehry, gentrification, Golden Gate Park, Haight Ashbury, high-speed rail, housing crisis, Kickstarter, Maui Hawaii, messenger bag, Mikhail Gorbachev, Northpointe / Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions, off-the-grid, Ronald Reagan, Saturday Night Live, Silicon Valley, South of Market, San Francisco, trade route, transcontinental railway, urban renewal, urban sprawl, white picket fence, Works Progress Administration, young professional

Summers can be torrid, with daytime temperatures reaching 110°F. Planning Your Time Joshua Tree in One Day One day is enough time to visit the most interesting sites of Joshua Tree National Park, enjoy a picnic lunch, and be back in Palm Springs for dinner. Try a loop tour that starts in the town of Joshua Tree at the West Entrance Visitor Center—right off Twentynine Palms Highway. Here you can get maps and information on ranger programs and hikes before you start. Take a leisurely drive along Park Boulevard, stopping to explore Hidden Valley. Detour to Keyes View for a sweeping view of the valley amid 10,000-foot-high peaks. Return to Park Boulevard and then head east for Queen Valley, where you can learn about pioneer life on a 90-minute guided tour of Keys Ranch.


Frommer's England 2011: With Wales by Darwin Porter, Danforth Prince

airport security, Ascot racecourse, British Empire, carbon footprint, centre right, Charles Babbage, Columbine, congestion charging, country house hotel, double helix, Edmond Halley, gentrification, George Santayana, haute couture, high-speed rail, Isaac Newton, James Watt: steam engine, Murano, Venice glass, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ronald Reagan, Skype, Sloane Ranger, spinning jenny, Stephen Hawking, sustainable-tourism, the market place, tontine, University of East Anglia, urban planning, urban renewal, urban sprawl, young professional

Shopping Bath is loaded with markets and fairs, antiques centers, and small shops, with literally hundreds of opportunities to buy (and ship) anything you want (including the 384 13_615386-ch10.indd 38413_615386-ch10.indd 384 8/24/10 2:09 PM8/24/10 2:09 PM famous spa waters, for sale by the bottle). Prices, however, are comparable to London’s. The whole city is basically one long, slightly undulating shopping area. It’s not defined by one high street, as are so many British towns. If you arrive by train, there’s a new shopping center right next to the station, and within 2 blocks are several shopping streets. The single best day to visit, if you are a serious shopper intent on hitting the flea markets, is Wednesday. The Bartlett Street Antiques Centre, Bartlett Street, encompasses 20 dealers and 50 showcases displaying furniture, silver, antique jewelry, paintings, toys, military items, and collectibles.


pages: 803 words: 415,953

Frommer's Mexico 2009 by David Baird, Lynne Bairstow, Joy Hepp, Juan Christiano

airport security, AltaVista, Bartolomé de las Casas, centre right, colonial rule, Day of the Dead, East Village, gentrification, glass ceiling, haute cuisine, indoor plumbing, low cost airline, out of africa, Pepto Bismol, place-making, Skype, sustainable-tourism, the market place, urban planning, young professional

For Mexicans, a government under the PRI was all that they had ever known. During Fox’s presidency, the three main political parties had to adjust to the new realty of power sharing. The old government party, the PRI, still had a large infrastructure for getting out the vote and still controlled the local governments of several states. Fox’s center-right PAN had control of the presidency and the most seats in the legislature, while the centerleft PRD (Partido de la Revolución Democrática, or Democratic Revolution Party) controlled the city government of Mexico City as well as a few southern states. Many observers anticipated gridlock. But the three parties, to their credit, handled the transition better than expected.


The power broker : Robert Moses and the fall of New York by Caro, Robert A

Albert Einstein, American Society of Civil Engineers: Report Card, bank run, benefit corporation, British Empire, card file, centre right, East Village, Ford Model T, friendly fire, ghettoisation, high-speed rail, hiring and firing, housing crisis, Internet Archive, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, land reform, Lewis Mumford, Ralph Waldo Emerson, rent control, Right to Buy, scientific management, Southern State Parkway, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, urban decay, urban planning, urban renewal, working poor, Works Progress Administration, young professional

New York Daily News Photos: Section I: plates 6 (top), 8 (top and center), 13 (top and center), 14 (center), ij (bottom right). Section II: plates 1, 2-3 (all but bottom right), 4, 6, 7, // (bottom left), 12 (bottom), 13 (top right and bottom right), 14 (top right), 16. Section III: plates 2 (bottom right), 3 (top right), 7 (center right and bottom right). Wide World Photos: Section I: plates 3 (top), 7 (bottom), 10 (top right and bottom right), 12 (top and center). Section II: plates 10 (center), 11 (bottom right), 13 (center), 14 (bottom), 1$ (top and bottom left). The New York Times: Section I: plate 10 (bottom left), plate 16 (bottom).