The UK’s imperial tradition gave its writers a strong streak of putting down the rest of the world – but its tradition of eccentricity encouraged in a smaller number a more respectful attitude, particularly to small nations and ethnic groups. Think Eric Newby, Rebecca West, Patrick Leigh-Fermour and, following them, Jan Morris and Neal Ascherson. Oliver Bullough is one of the most interesting of the younger generation of British writers who continue this latter tradition – another is Chris de Bellaigue whose books have focused on Iran and Turkey and Islamic civilisation.
Bullough’s first two books were on the Caucasus and Russia but his latest – which I have just finished – has the fairly self-explanatory title of Moneyland – why thieves and crooks now rule the world and how to take it back (2019). Its focus is the world of “Offshore” money which started as the post-war Bretton Woods system collapsed in 1971 – and its early pages contain the clearest explanation of how that actually got underway that I have ever read.
The book recounts visits to the multiplicity of tax havens which have sprung up – not least in British-related territories - making you wonder how the author managed to escape unscathed from these encounters with the banal evil that masquerades as the legal, taxation and accountancy professions.
One feature of Bullough’s books
I would strongly recommend to other writers – instead of the penis-envy style
of long bibliographies, he gives us at the end of each book a section on “Sources”
which explains, for each chapter, which particular books he has found useful –
and why….
Widening the discussion
It’s been 25 years since David Korten forcibly brought to our attention the legal status of the Corporation in his book “When Corporations Rule the World” (1995) Will Hutton is a rare (British) economic journalist who has, for the past three decades been trying to make more of us aware of the centrality of this question – as this useful overview of his work makes clear
British people like to think
that their system is an open and honest one. But, a few years ago, British academic David Whyte edited one of the few books to explore the question of How Corrupt is Britain? (2015) - having co-authored the same year an
academically very rigorous study entitled The
Corporate Criminal – why corporations must be abolished; S Tombs and D Whyte (with a 30 page
bibliography)
He has just published Ecocide – kill the Corporation before it kills us; David Whyte (2020) which would make an appropriate input to the ongoing study about “the future of the corporation” set up in 2017 by the British Academy and chaired by Professor Colin Mayer. In 2018 it produced 13 papers; in 2019 only 4 - and this year none. It really seems due for a kick up the proverbial arse….A previous American one had reported in 2013
I’ve written quite a lot recently about the danger of the public leaving Economics to the experts; and have gone to the trouble of finding a selection of user-friendly texts to recommend to those readers who want to do something….. Perhaps I need to narrow the issue to that of hot money and financialisation......
A resource on the dodgy world of hot money
Nicholas
Shaxen’s Treasure Islands – tax
havens and the men who stole the world (2011) was the first book I read which identified
the scale of the hot money seeking refuge in these dubious places which –
despite (because of) numerous international conferences – nothing has been done
to stop.
Little
wonder that we have now so many worthy journalistic endeavours focusing on this
aspect of “financialisation” –
Richard
Murphy’s Taxresearch is one of the best
British sites - which has been vocal about this for years……
the Bureau of
Investigative Journalism
the Organised
Crime and Corruption Reporting Project
https://nomadron.blogspot.com/2020/07/money-talks-why-we-need-new-vocabulary.html
https://nomadron.blogspot.com/2020/06/a-challenge-to-conventional-finance.html
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