http://www.project-syndicate.org/series/against_the_current <p><em>Are markets moral? What does the East expect from the West? Has globalization killed the idea of equality? Has the concept of &ldquo;humanitarian intervention&rdquo; been discredited? Is authoritarian capitalism a viable development option?</em></p> en 2012-02-10T06:00:43+01:00 webmaster@project-syndicate.org Robert Skidelsky 1994-01-01T00:00:00+01:00 4 hourly http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/skidelsky49/English <a href=http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/skidelsky49/English>SKIDELSKY: Does Debt Matter?</a> As with “the specter of Communism” that haunted Europe in Karl Marx’s famous manifesto, so today “[a]ll the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise” the specter of national debt. But statesmen who tremble before their national debt should remember that Marx’s specter, too, was a “nursery tale.” Robert Skidelsky 2012-01-20T00:00:00+01:00 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/skidelsky48/English <a href=http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/skidelsky48/English>SKIDELSKY: The Euro in a Shrinking Zone</a> The euro will survive, but the zone will shrink, sending shock waves around the world. But sometimes shock waves are needed to break the ice and start the water flowing again. Robert Skidelsky 2011-12-15T00:00:00+01:00 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/skidelsky47/English <a href=http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/skidelsky47/English>SKIDELSKY: The Wages of Economic Ignorance</a> Politicians portray everything good that happens as the result of their exceptional talents and efforts, while everything bad is caused by someone or something else. But, when i comes to most advanced countries' inability to achieve a sustained recovery since 2008, they have only their own economic illiteracy to blame. Robert Skidelsky 2011-11-21T00:00:00+01:00 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/skidelsky46/English <a href=http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/skidelsky46/English>SKIDELSKY: Recovery before Reform</a> Whatever their intrinsic merits, none of the proposals for bank reform being debated nowadays addresses the global economy’s most immediate problem: undersupply, not oversupply, of credit. In other words, the challenge is to revive lending growth in full awareness that we must begin devising ways to rein it in. Robert Skidelsky 2011-10-20T00:00:00+02:00 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/skidelsky45/English <a href=http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/skidelsky45/English>SKIDELSKY: The Consequences of Angela Merkel</a> Germany has been leading the opposition in the EU to any write-down of troubled eurozone members’ sovereign debt. But German Chancellor Angela Merkel should consider that, following World War I, her country was in a similar position – and the result for Germany, Europe, and the world was hardly optimal. Robert Skidelsky 2011-09-20T00:00:00+02:00 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/skidelsky44/English <a href=http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/skidelsky44/English>SKIDELSKY: The Keynes-Hayek Rematch</a> The Austrian economist Friedrich von Hayek, who died in 1992 at the age of 93, once remarked that returning to fashion requires only outliving your opponents. His great good fortune was to outlive Keynes for almost 50 years, and thus to claim a posthumous victory over a rival who had savaged him intellectually while he was alive. Robert Skidelsky 2011-08-19T00:00:00+02:00 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/skidelsky43/English <a href=http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/skidelsky43/English>SKIDELSKY: The Battle of the Bonds</a> Every week, the preposterous coterie of European bankers and finance ministers drags itself from one capital to another to discuss which default/restructuring plan to adopt. No one who is not well versed in financial legerdemain can make much sense of the various schemes, but behind them lie two moral attitudes, which are much easier to grasp. Robert Skidelsky 2011-07-20T00:00:00+02:00 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/skidelsky42/English <a href=http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/skidelsky42/English>SKIDELSKY: Free Speech under Siege</a> You know that a doctrine is in trouble when even those claiming to defend it do not understand what it means. By that standard, the classic doctrine of free speech is in crisis. Robert Skidelsky 2011-06-21T00:00:00+02:00 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/skidelsky41/English <a href=http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/skidelsky41/English>SKIDELSKY: Lumpy Labor</a> Work-sharing is surely the most civilized solution to the problem of technology-driven unemployment. And yet all schemes aimed at easing the burden of work and increasing the amount of leisure risk falling victim to our genius for conjuring up new disasters. Robert Skidelsky 2011-05-19T00:00:00+02:00 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/skidelsky40/English <a href=http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/skidelsky40/English>SKIDELSKY: Democracy or Finance?</a> "Shorting" sovereign debt is how financial markets hold governments accountable. Ultimately, however, it is voters, not markets, that hold governments to account, and, when these two accounting standards diverge, the popular standard must prevail if democracy is to survive. Robert Skidelsky 2011-04-21T00:00:00+02:00 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/skidelsky39/English <a href=http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/skidelsky39/English>SKIDELSKY: Imperialism Reclaimed</a> Fifty years ago, as de-colonization accelerated, no one had a good word to say for imperialism. Nowadays, it is extolled for spreading economic progress, the rule of law, and science and technology to countries that would never have benefited from them otherwise. Robert Skidelsky 2011-03-23T00:00:00+01:00 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/skidelsky38/English <a href=http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/skidelsky38/English>SKIDELSKY: Unsettling America</a> The idea that the US is a status-quo power is a delusion of international-relations experts. In the short run, of course, the US behaves like an ordinary power – protecting its interests even if this requires supporting unsavory regimes – but America’s long-term goal is to remake the world in its image. Robert Skidelsky 2011-02-17T00:00:00+01:00 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/skidelsky37/English <a href=http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/skidelsky37/English>SKIDELSKY: Life after Capitalism</a> Perhaps socialism was not an alternative to capitalism, but its heir. It will inherit the earth not by dispossessing the rich of their property, but by providing motives and incentives for behavior that are unconnected with further – and unnecessary – wealth accumulation. Robert Skidelsky 2011-01-20T00:00:00+01:00