capitalism
What a slippery, hateful toad Fred Goodwin was
Make It Happen is a portrait of a bullying control freak, Fred Goodwin, who turned RBS into the largest bank…
Progress is destroying the planet: the rants of a self-hating American
Poverty is increasing and freedom contracting, says Samuel Miller McDonald – and exploitative white Americans, from Abraham Lincoln onwards, are largely to blame
Rumpelstiltskin retold: Alive in the Merciful Country, by A.L. Kennedy, reviewed
A group of idealistic activists is betrayed by a charismatic newcomer who dazzles with skill and charm – and gets away with murder. Repeatedly
Milton Friedman – economic visionary or scourge of the world?
Monetarism, with which his name is associated, has long defined economic policy. But what would Friedman have made of the banking collapse, so soon after his death in 2006?
Scent and smoke and sweat
The world would never be quite the same again after we first glimpsed the casino of Royale-les-Eaux at three in the morning, says Philip Hensher
Low life
A light was on in the caravan site office so I went over to try and buy a gas canister.…
Small but perfectly formed
Haydn is looking well — in fact, he’s positively glowing. The dignified pose; the modest, intelligent smile: it’s only when…
The economic illiteracy of anti-capitalists
Back in October, World Bank chief economist Carmen Reinhart recommended that countries borrow heavily during the pandemic. ‘First, you worry…
There’s nothing wrong with profiting from a vaccine
A couple of shots to the arm and this will all be over. With today’s news from Moderna, last week’s…
Low life
Chatting on the café terrace with my new friends Didier and Emile made me aware that certain political ideas, which…
A cascade of wishful thinking
Ah well. It was a nice try. A few years ago I wrote a book called The Great Acceleration, arguing…
How capitalism killed sleep
What can you make a joke about these days? All the old butts of humour are off limits. No wonder…
Of course the young like socialism – they’re taught to
It beggars belief that Jeremy Corbyn can, with a straight face, announce that capitalism has failed and we’d all be…
Welcome to the hard centre – and the future of British politics
The Conservative party has to move beyond Brexit and leaders: what is it going to be about? I suggest it…
Extraordinary power and simplicity: Lehman Trilogy reviewed
Stefano Massini’s play opens with a man in a frock-coat reaching New York after six weeks at sea. The year…
Interview: Meet Mariana Mazzucato, big-state capitalism’s new champion
‘It was Plato who said storytellers rule the world,’ observes Mariana Mazzucato, her powerful voice tempered with a beaming smile,…
From Stansted to corporate swank: superstructuralism has a lot to answer for
Amid the thick of the Crimean war, Florence Nightingale dispatched a plea to the Times deploring the lethal conditions of…
Letters
What do the Tories offer? Sir: I have been hoping that someone more eloquent than me would respond to your…
Armageddon averted
From 1945 to 1992 the Cold War was the climate. Individual weather events stood out — the Korean War, the…
Well of sorrows
The Red-haired Woman is shorter than Orhan Pamuk’s best-known novels, and is, in comparison, pared down, written with deliberate simplicity…
Heavy-handed
Oliver Cotton is an RSC stalwart who looks like a man born to greatness. Google him. He has the fearless…
Wish upon a star
Out come the stars in Kenneth Branagh’s Romeo and Juliet. He musters a well-drilled, celebrity-ridden crew but they can’t quite…
Wishful thinking
Deirdre McCloskey has been at work for many years on a huge project: to explain why the world has become…
Another banking review is pointless: just carry on naming, shaming and jailing
Was the Financial Conduct Authority leaned on by the Chancellor to scrap its ‘review of banking culture’? Or did it…
Western economies are failing – but capitalism isn’t the problem
Matthew Lynn 25 May 2024 9:00 am
Left-wing polemicists accuse neoliberals, inspired by Friedrich Hayek, of secretly running the world – but if so, they’re not concealing the whole sinister project very well