Category Archives: economics

Notes for the New Year from Plague Island

Four Horsemen of Apocalypse, by Viktor Vasnetsov. Painted in 1887. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons. Today, in the UK we live on a plague island (with some of the highest rates of Covid infections and deaths, globally), politically isolated from … Continue reading

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Things I’ve written lately, mostly elsewhere.

I’m rather aware that I’ve been neglecting this blog lately.  It’s not because I’ve been inactive, the opposite, in fact.  So here is a list of the most important things I’ve written over the last year and a bit. “Properly” … Continue reading

Posted in climate change, ecology, economics, Latin America, Manchester, politics, psychology, social policy, Spain | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

What’s gone wrong in Venezuela?

What’s gone wrong in Venezuela? Mark H Burton1 pdf version [Update, 3 Feb, 2019: Some additional recent English language sources appear at the end – not in the pdf version yet.] This piece is intended as a guide to what’s … Continue reading

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Could Labour implement a post-growth economy?

Here is the full version of the article published, in rather truncated form today, on Left Foot Forward. I will be posting a fully referenced extended version in the near future. pdf version of the full text Could Labour implement … Continue reading

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After peak capitalism: the livelihood challenge – revised version

Here is the revised version of my working paper, “After peak capitalism: the livelihood challenge“.  I’m grateful to those who have offered encouragement and constructively critical comments.  This new version, Has numerous improvements to the text and further references to … Continue reading

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After peak capitalism: the livelihood challenge.

Note: there is now a revised version.  See this later post. This is my new working paper. It attempts to deal with the question of peak capitalism and ecological crisis on two levels – the post-industrial wastelands of the core … Continue reading

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Labour again: Corbyn’s victory and the growth narrative

This is a short post to note Corbyn’s victory in the Labour leadership re-election and ask some fundamental questions.  Despite some misgivings in the last post, I’m delighted.  This is all about rejecting the politics and economics of the last … Continue reading

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Progress as a trap.

Craig Bennett is the Chief Executive of Friends of the Earth UK. Last night (11/2/2016) he gave a lecture at Manchester Business School, “What is Progress: how are we doing and where next?” It was an interesting topic for a … Continue reading

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Corbynomics: let’s be sceptical about the growth rhetoric.

“So all our emphasis and work and campaigning is about an expanding economy and investing in an expanding economy” Jeremy Corbyn, quoted by The Independent, 29 February 2016 “El socialismo puede llegar sólo en bicicleta.” Socialism can only arrive by … Continue reading

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Jeremy Corbyn and the double struggle

Jeremy Corbyn‘s campaign for the Labour leadership is about doing things differently, about re-discovering the basic Labour values of social and economic justice, but in a way that harnesses the knowledge, commitment and energy of the many, in the changed … Continue reading

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