Brexit SuperSaturday – and my role as your guide

I blog for my own amusement and edification but readily confess to a thrill when the clicks soar to 750 which they did yesterday – presumably as readers sensed we were reaching Brexit End-game.

I am very conscious that English is a second language for some 70% of my readers and therefore take my role as a guide to the specifics of the UK very seriously indeed.

So before offering any comment on today’s events, let me try to spell out in a little more detail how I see that role.

I do not pretend to be an impartial observer on either Brexit or the UK – but I do try to be fair-minded and reasonably “inclusive”. I learned the importance of this initially from my parents and then from my own experience of negotiating the various boundaries of class, group, profession, intellectual discipline and nation. That soon taught me that seeing the different sides of an issue has its advantages

I am, for example, very open about my Scottishness; am no friend of the nationalist cause (whether Scottish or English) but am pretty critical of the perverse influence of the upper-class elites on the British political culture. Too much of the rhetoric practiced for decades by people such as Boris Johnson smacks of the blinkered arrogance one expects from imperialist adventurers…..

I was deeply disappointed (and personally threatened) by the results of the 2016 Brexit referendum – although I can well understand (if not sympathise with) the emotions caused by migration trends. And the European “project” has been technocratic and secretive. In the late 60s and early 70s as the debate raged in the UK about membership of the “common market” I was a bit of an agnostic - although by 1979 I was openly European.

In the 1980s I was active in European networks and starting to understand the differences in cultural style.
From the 1990s I was in the middle of the European Commission procurement system and able to see with my own eyes some of its corruptions……..

I hope this helps readers understand my background a bit better…

So – today’s events

There will be drama at Westminster today – but it might not be quite the historic day people expected…...One of the early amendments to be dealt with is the one covered in my last post which would require Parliament to confirm any Brexit deal with its Final Reading of a Withdrawal Bill. (That seems to me fairly obvious - so I confess I don't quite understand why Lewin and Benn felt it necessary to have Thursday's vote)  

The latest numbers I have is that Johnson could win today by 2-3 votes. Everything is down to the votes of a few maverick Labour MPs and the new MP from Grimsby has just indicated she will join 8 other Labour MPs to support the hard Brexit which Johnson is asking the House to approve. Even if he wins, parliamentary procedure requires 2 further stages of "reading" and things are so finely balanced that the exact votes for these 2 stages can't be taken for granted. People have to be present physically and move into the appropriate voting place.....   

I was, however, impressed by an article which suggested that there was too much focus on such tactical issues and that most people were ignoring the elephant in the room

The talk is mostly on the numbers in parliament. Occasionally it veers into the provisions for a dual customs system in Northern Ireland and the reliability of the level playing field concession. That makes sense - it's where the votes will make or break. 

But it is extraordinary that we are not talking about the real issue of what is happening here, the actual underlying reality of what this decision involves. It is more than an elephant in the room. It is a monster, filling up all the space, breathing fire on us, and yet we are somehow managing to pretend it isn't there while our hair sets alight. 

The issue is: What would Johnson's deal actually do to the economy of this country?

That's not about Brexit. You can leave the EU and stay close to its trade regime. This is about how you do Brexit. 

The Johnson deal is the hardest of hard Brexits. It pulls Britain completely out of the customs union and single market and envisions a very minor free trade agreement to replace it.

It's not fashionable to talk about this now. These arguments were made after the referendum. As Brexit bored on, we all desperately searched out new areas of debate and focused on the aspects which caused most division in parliament. And somehow we ended up in this place, where the fundamental choice we are about to make is barely discussed. You could watch dozens of hours of TV news without even a mention of it. So it's worth, one last time, providing a reminder of what's actually going on before we decide to do it.

“Taken together, the single market and customs union are the most advanced examples of international economic cooperation in the history of mankind. They do two things. The customs union harmonises tariffs so that goods pay no tax and experience no country-of-origin checks inside their territory.

“The single market aligns regulations, so that goods can move freely without worries about whether they're against the rules in one country or another.

This project massively increases trade and improves the economic well being of the countries who are members of it. It means that investors from countries like Japan use Britain as a beachhead to Europe.

It means services, a core and criminally under-discussed part of the British economy, can sell their products all over a continent of well-off consumers. 

It means you get infinitely more than any trade deal, because it does not involve the country-of-origin checks which make exports complicated and laborious. It means just-in-time supply chains can operate with lightning efficiency, because they know there will be no blockages.

It keeps you locked in to one of the most advanced regulatory climates on earth, with high standards for food safety, agricultural rules, worker safety and environmental protection. It gives the UK access to major trade deals with countries like Japan and Canada, on terms negotiated using the leverage of the massive European consumer market, and secured using some of the most impressive trade negotiators in the world.

It allows lots of medium-sized economies to club together so that they can go toe-to-toe with larger economies. China and the US can bully almost anyone. They're big enough. But they can't bully the EU. In a world that is slowly degenerating into a dog-eat-dog system without the old rules-based order, it offers strength and protection.

“Outside of that system, Britain is going to hurt. A recent report by UK in a Changing Europe projected a reduction in UK GDP per capita after ten years of between 2.3% and seven per cent under Johnson's plan.

The gap will be defined by whether we try to make up the loss by bringing in lots of immigrants and find a way to improve productivity. The best case scenario is a £16 billion hit to public finances per year. It's £49 billion hit in the worst case.

This will not be made up for by securing new free trade deals overseas. These agreements are tiny and inconsequential next to the European project. The government's own analysis suggests that even at peak British negotiating success they would amount to an increase in GDP after 15 years of somewhere between 0.1% and 0.2%.

People's lives will be damaged. They will be poorer. They will be £2,250 a year worse off by 2034. The nation's finances will be hurt. There will, in the end, be more austerity. And this will be done just as the world is most uncertain, amid a bitter trade war between China and the US, when the WTO is being brought to its knees by Donald Trump.

These arguments are treated with scorn nowadays. We're told that people who still care about economics have lost sight that this is a debate about identity and sovereignty. That's fine. It's about those things too. But when you experience hardship, everyone cares about economics. A man without bread is not concerned with where the regulatory decisions are made on lawnmower levels. 

“We are about to sabotage our relationship with the most successful economic project in the modern world. It is the biggest decision we'll take in our lifetime and one which, if we do it, we'll regret for a long time to come. It's worth mentioning that - the actual reality of what is happening - at least one more time before MPs vote. 

while our attention was diverted.......

We were all so focused on Brussels yesterday that we forgot to keep check on what was happening in Westminster where the government was defeated by 12 votes on a motion tabled by Sir Oliver Letwin, the former Tory cabinet minister, ensuring that, when the Commons votes on the Brexit deal tomorrow, it will be possible for MPs to debate and vote on multiple amendments.

Taking advantage of his own rule change, Letwin has tabled an amendment to the government motion tomorrow. It has heavyweight, cross-party support, with those backing it including Hilary Benn, the Labour chair of the Brexit committee, Jo Swinson, the Lib Dem leader, and Philip Hammond, the former Conservative chancellor.

The amendment would remove almost all the government motion (which says the Commons has approved the Brexit deal) and withhold approval of the deal until the legislation implementing it has been passed.

As Letwin explained in the debate yesterday, his aim is to close a loophole in the Benn Act, the legislation forces the PM to request a Brexit extension if a deal has not been passed by the end of tomorrow.

A vote in favour of the deal would have meant there was no need for the PM to request an extension. But if the withdrawal agreement bill (WAB) failed to get through parliament by 31 October (several stages or “readings” are necessary and key individuals could be missing), the UK could end up leaving with no-deal by accident.

                          

Letwin’s amendment would lead to the PM having to request an extension tomorrow, on the proviso that if the WAB gets through by the end of October, at that point the extension would be withdrawn. You could call it a backstop.

The Benn Act passed by 29 votes at second reading and it is likely that the Letwin amendment, which is just intended to copper bottom the Benn Act, will also pass tomorrow.

If it does, the make-or-break vote on Johnson’s deal will never actually take place. Instead MPs will vote on a bland motion (see below), which could go through on the nod.

At that point, if Johnson complies with the assurances that he gave to the court of session in Scotland, he will have to write a letter to the EU requesting an extension.

And at that point Johnson would have to decide whether to try to pass his withdrawal agreement bill by 31 October, to release him from the obligation to take up the extension - or whether to accept the extension, and then hold the election that Labour has promised to back in the event of an extension happening. He would campaign promising to implement his Brexit deal - against Labour promising a further negotiation.

This is starting to get speculative, but what is clear is that there is now a real chance that “Super Saturday” could turn out not to be the make-or-break Brexit moment people have been expecting.

Assuming that Letwin’s amendment passes, this is the motion, as amended, that MPs would be voting on. (The Letwin text, replacing 12 lines in the original, is in bold.)

That, in light of the new deal agreed with the European Union, which enables the United Kingdom to respect the result of the referendum on its membership of the European Union and to leave the European Union on 31 October with a deal, this house has considered the matter but withholds approval unless and until implementing legislation is passed.

You can read the text of the Letwin amendment on the order paper here (pdf). 

Johnson's Three Card Trick

My Bulgarian, Portugese, Polish, Italian, Romanian, Russian and American readers will, I know, be waiting “with bated breath” for my reaction to the latest Brexit development. So my post is based on 5 of your questions -

- How did he manage to pull it off? 

- Will it fly tomorrow in Parliament? 

- In what sense is it different from the Deal which Theresa May negotiated last year?
- What are this morning's front pages saying? 
- what happens now? 

1.     How did the “greased piglet” manage to pull it off?

The media reaction in the UK so far seems to assume that all he conceded was that Norther Ireland will remain under EU rules, for the foreseeable future - with the Belfast Assembly (mothballed since January 2017) given the power to decide when to opt out. The reality is rather different (see section 3 below).

The EU’s main concern has been to maintain the integrity of the Good Friday agreement  that saw the end of violence in the north. The EU could not accept the idea of any border controls or customs arrangements on the border between Ireland (an EU member) and Norther Ireland (UK). So the EU was happy to get this concession – although it just seems to postpone the moment at which there could be such controls….

One of the known risks is that the North could eventually unite with the Irish republic - but Conservative party members have already given a clear indication they are fed up with Northern Ireland and would be happy to see it go. And ditto for the Scots – who have too loud a voice in the British Parliament - and have anyway clearly stated that what’s sauce for the Irish goose is sauce for the Scottish gander.  

2.    Will MPs vote for it?

Johnson’s tactics have loosened the parliamentary logjam. He basically threw his allies in the DUP (the Irish unionists) to the wolves when he made the concession. When Theresa May gambled in the 2017 General Election and lost her majority, she had to make major concessions to the DUP which cost a lot of money.

The DUP was strongly supported by the right-wing ERG group in parliament (led by Jacob Rees-Mogg) - but the approach of a No-Deal reality; and the distaste for the Irish connection seem to have been sufficient to allow a lot of the ERG members to peel off and declare their support for the Johnson Deal.

And, of course, Boffy had sorted all this out by Thursday afternoon.

Reaction from Northern Ireland itself suggests general acceptance for what would be a considerably increased special status

MPs have this year consistently voted down May’s Deal and also what few efforts Boris Johnson managed to put in front of them. The Labour party has 6 simple tests for any Deal -

1. Does it ensure a strong and collaborative future relationship with the EU?

2. Does it deliver the “exact same benefits” as we currently have as members of the Single Market and Customs Union?

3. Does it ensure the fair management of migration in the interests of the economy and communities?

4. Does it defend rights and protections and prevent a race to the bottom?

5. Does it protect national security and our capacity to tackle cross-border crime?

6. Does it deliver for all regions and nations of the UK?

As a party, they cannot therefore support this new Deal – not least because they simply don’t trust Johnson in his assurances about coherence with EU-type regulation (the “level playing field” of EU jargon)

That leaves the mavericks who have left or been booted out of the Labour and Conservative parties in parliament – about 30 of them. 
It is therefore basically their votes tomorrow which will decide this….

And this is a quite brilliant analysis of the choices individual MPs now face - with the gun at their head and given a mere 36 hours or so to make a decision whose consequences will reverbate for at least decade. As Jeremy Bentham might have put it “nonsense on stilts”!

3.  How does the Johnson Deal differ from May’s?

The border basically moves from the Irish mainland to the Irish Sea. And the Northern Irish Assembly (which has been in abeyance for a couple of years) is given the power to decide on its extension (or not) of EU customs regulations.
But Johnson has basically been deceiving most of us with his version of the "three cards trick".

Our attention was on the harsh reality of No-Deal - against which this deal is better.  If, however, we compare this Deal with the Theresa May one, this one takes the country out of the Customs Union and Single Market....
It took Ian Dunt of the Politics Today website to remind me of that basic fact - despite my having reproduced the Labour Party's 6 tests above. 
MPs, of course, are not as stupid as me and will not fall for such legerdemain (????)

The detailed provisions which Theresa May’s Withdrawal Agreement  had made about the “level playing field” have been removed and put, instead, into the political agreement (which, of course, has no legal force)

Readers can see for themselves in this track-change document produced by the Open Europe website - which has also produced this guide to the Johnson Deal

This confirms the view of those who read the very composition of the new Johnson Cabinet as indicating he was going down the American path of loose regulatatory capitalism...

4.     What the front pages of the British  Press are saying

Most papers make it clear that this is not a done deal. The Times says: “Final hurdle in sight as Johnson gets his deal”, the Guardian reports: “Johnson gets his Brexit deal – now it’s a numbers game”. The Mirror says: “On the brink of Brexit … once again”, the i has: “Johnson gets his EU deal … now for the tricky part” and the FT says: “DUP veto threat leaves Johnson’s Brexit deal gamble in the balance”.

Other papers are sounding warnings to MPs to vote for the deal.

·         The Telegraph quotes from the prime minister: “It’s my deal or no deal”,

·         the Daily Mail features a picture of Johnson pointing, with the headline: “He’s done his duty. Now MPs must do theirs”,

·         The Sun has rhyming advice: “Get real … take the deal”
the Express says: “Just do it!”

And the European press is clear that the concessions were all Johnson’s

5. What Happens Now?

There could be a slight hiccup tomorrow if an amendment is selected and passed for MPs to be given a few more days to given to read and assess the implications of what is before them (see next post). The government has denied MPs an official cost-benefit analysis but enough independent economic analysis is available to indicate that the costs of the "hard" Brexit this is will be very severe....

This post from Richard North reminds us that, even if the UK Parliament approves the deal, it becomes a “done deal” only after ratification by the European Parliament and the European Council - which may take more than a week. 

And that, if the deal is voted down (however narrowly), it immediately triggers the Benn Act whereby the government has, legally, to seek a 3 month extension from the EU

So there…consider yoursel' tell’t!

Further Reading

- https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2019/oct/18/how-much-johnson-great-new-deal-actually-new; perhaps the single best briefing – includes a visual guide to the 5% difference between May’s Deal of 2018 and this one. And also to parliament’s vote on 19th
- https://www.politics.co.uk/author/ian-dunt; the best British website on politics and Brexit

- https://chrisgreybrexitblog.blogspot.com/2019/10/time-and-motion.html; The most incisive and objective of the many Brexit blogs

- http://eureferendum.com/Default.aspx; the most independent of the pro- Brexit blogs
- http://eulawanalysis.blogspot.com/2019/10/the-withdrawal-agreement-implementation.html; detailed legal commentary on the latest withdrawal agreement 
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/sites/beta-political/files/consolidated_withdrawal_agreement_17-10-2019_1.pdf - all 537 pages of the official withdrawal agreement from the EU website

On Writing Well

“The Road to Character” was an unusual book for me – bought on impulse for a euro in one of the second-hand Bucharest bookshops which give me an intellectual lifeline. And it made me realise how “dead” and technocratic a lot of the non-fiction material is in the “professional” sections of my library – particularly those concerned with Economics, Management (whether public, private or third sector), Development and Politics.

Political economists like Mark Blyth, Paul Collier, Wolfgang Streeck and Yanis Varoufakis are the exception – their prose glows and they keep you hooked – as did veteran Susan Strange’s. And recent Nobel-prize winning Jean Tirole’s Economics for the Common Good (2017 Eng) isn’t your usual economics book but takes themes of interest to us all and reasons conversationally about them.

British political scientists like Richard Rose, Rod Rhodes, Matt Flinders and Gerry Stoker also managed to break away from the mainstream focus on parties, elections and statistics and engage our interest on important issues.

The geographers and anthropologists can generally be relied upon for fresh insights – eg Danny Dorling and Chris Shore - although you have to persevere a bit with the likes of David Harvey.

I have quite an extensive history section but have to confess that my interest gives out at about page 50 of a 400 page tome on the history of a nation or of Europe. The only writers who have survived my boredom threshold for this genre are Richard Evans (Germany) and Geert Mak. But, interestingly, some recent histories of economic or sociological thought (or indeed thought generally) can make for a good read – if they have the appropriate balance between ideas and personalities.

Traditionally such books have been a bit of a slog, with the emphasis too much on the dry dissection of ideas - but the success of a few non-specialist writers in the last decade (think Bill Bryson) has demonstrated the public’s thirst for the exposition of scientific ideas.

The academic community, however, has always taken a dim view of popularisation – the eminent economist JK Galbraith who wrote “The Affluent Society” suffered very much from academic jealousy as did the historian AJP Taylor – so it is great that some writers and journalists have turned increasingly to the world of science and ideas.

Grand Pursuit; the story of economic genius (2011) is a good example.  
Written by Sylvia Nasar, a Professor of journalism (who also produced “A Beautiful Mind” about game theorist John Nash), it attracted a rather sniffy review from one of the doyens of Economics - Robert Solow. (Michael Pollan is another Professor of journalism – this time one who has chosen to convey to the general public the realities of agro-business and food).  

Not, however, that I want to discourage academics from writing well and for the general public! The previous paragraphs have given the examples of those who have managed to do it without apparently attracting opprobrium or jealousy in the fields with which I am familiar. Philosophy is not such a field but I was delighted to discover recently a “popular” book by academic philosopher James Miller Examined Lives – from Socrates to Nietzsche with a nice interview here    

Alan Ryan is another academic who writes well although his On Politics is just a bit too voluminous a history of political thought for me. These extensive notes give a useful sense of what would be in store for any brave reader

My own favourite is “Comparative European Politics – the story of a profession” which invites 28 big names in what was then a new discipline to tell the personal story of how their careers developed. Richard Rose was one of those originals and has a delightful memoir “Learning about politics in time and space” (2014). Here’s one of his reflections on a colleague which will give you a sense of his care with words. Not for nothing was Rose in his very early life a journalist! I’m glad to say he is still going strong in his mid 80s.

I know some of you will tell me that, if I am now finding texts in my own library “dead” and technocratic, I should reconsider my antipathy to novels. I considered this question a couple of years ago in a post which started thus -

I’m not a great reader of novels – the interactions and fate of fictitious characters pale against those of the real people I find in histories…..If I want good prose, I find it in essays, travelogues and short stories – although I grant you that it’s only in stories (short and long) that the inner life of people can be treated in depth…..Perhaps that’s why I’m so partial to short stories – produced by the likes of William Trevor, Carol Shields, Alice Munro, Vladimir Nabakov, Joseph Miller and……Joseph Roth

Nine years ago one post here did actually pay tribute to about 75 novels which had taken my fancy – only one third of which, interestingly, were British….And, of those, most were Irish or Scottish since I have found their style of writing much more lively than that of English novelists…..It’s not just the older generation I’m referring to (such as Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Edwin Muir, Robin Jenkins and Muriel Spark) but also the younger writers (such as Andrew Greig, James Meek and James Robertson on the Scottish side – and John Banville, Sebastian Barry, John McGahern and Edna O'Brien on the Irish).

But too many contemporary English writers seem to be unable to shake themselves out of their limited middle-class environment – eg Ian McEwan, although this is not something you could say about his acerbic mate Martin Amis. Sebastian Faulks and Louis de Bernieres are two exceptions who deal with big issues – the latter giving us “Birds without Wings” about the tragic exchange of population in early 20s Anatolia. And Lawrence Durrell still thrills me – despite the reputation he has unfairly been given for “over the top” writing…… 

I was not always so prejudiced. In my youth I read a lot of novels and the 2010 post reflected the novel reading which continued to entertain me. The later 2017 post demonstrated that I was still partial to novels…. So I don’t know why I suddenly apparently went off the genre…..

Lists of personal favourites are rather self-indulgent and pointless – unless including some sort of justification for the choices….which might just persuade us to give some of the texts a whirl…. 

It’s in that spirit that I now update that earlier post. 

In 2010 I hadn’t quite adjusted to my Romanian base – so had missed a baker’s dozen of superb books - Miklos Banffy’s Transylvanian Trilogy (originally written in the 1950s but only widely available from 2010); Olivia Manning’s Balkan Trilogy (written in the 60s but receiving a new lease of life after the film); and Gregor von Rezzori’s brilliant three semi-autobiographical books drawn from his time in Romanian Czernowitz (now in southern Ukraine) – first written (in German) between the 50s and 70s but issued by NYRB only recently.  

Rebecca West’s massive and stunning Black Lamb and Grey Falcon – a journey through Yugoslavia  was first published in 1941 and is actually four books in one – about Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Macedonia – but received a huge boost from the 90s Yugoslav conflagration. It’s not, of course, a novel but, some 80 years on, it is a gripping read - and still repays study.

I would stand by my 2010 list – with the embarrassing exception of Paul Coelho! And I also don’t know how Jason Godwin crept onto the list…. Otherwise the mix of South American “magic realism”; French romanticism and nihilism; Irish, Israeli and Egyptian realism; and Scottish whimsy stands up well……

My recent tributes to the likes of John Berger and William MacIlvanney demand their addition – as do the works of JM Coetze and Svetlana Alexievitch 

Capitalism – what is it? Can it change for the better?

If character traits are getting more inward and selfish, what does this mean for our ability to create a better future?

The recent series I did on Paul Collier’s “Future of Capitalism” makes me realise that I have never offered a serious post on “Capitalism – what is it and can it change its spots?”. This is how I had left things -

By the turn of the millennium the message seemed to be that Capitalism takes various forms; is constantly changing; and will always be with us. But increasingly, people were wondering whether it was not out of control.

And a few years back, something changed. It wasn’t the global crisis in itself but rather the combination of two things – first the suggestion that the entire engine of the system (profitability) was reaching vanishing point; and, second, a sudden realisation that robotization was a serious threat to even middle-class jobs. Now the book titles talk of the new phenomenon of “post-capitalism” 

Curious that I omitted global warming the growing appreciation of whose reality makes it a third factor. I have therefore developed a table which identifies what I consider are the most accessible books about the nature of this system “without a proper name”. In my day we knew the system as “the mixed economy” but that phrase fell out of favour in the 1980s in the face of the onslaught of privatisation.

“Neoliberalism” wasn’t a very good substitute since very few people knew what this meant – indeed it clearly registered as a term of abuse…..And any use of the term “capitalism” was banned in all but the most militant circles….. 

You almost felt the sense of relief when the phrase “post-capitalism” came along – a system whose name didn’t embarrass us!!!!

The table looks at almost a dozen very different specialisms (inc journalism, religion and policy analysts/think tankers).

I have to confess that I get very impatient with the incredible specialism in the so-called “social sciences” which has developed these past few decades with the expansion of universities. Two things in particular annoy me - first the lack of communications between these so-called “experts” is nothing short of criminal. Most of them received free education and yet, starved of the slightest contact with those developing similar thoughts in separate fields (let alone with real life), offer us, with few exceptions, boring, barren thoughts

And I get impatient, secondly, with the amnesia of these micro-specialists…their worship of the new…just look at the recommended reading they inflict on their poor students……very little before 2000….And my own lists are the same……And note what the author of one of the clearest books on capitalism said in 2008

“No social scientist over the past half century has added anything that is fundamentally new to our understanding of the capitalist economic system”

Geoff Ingham in “Capitalism” (2008)

I have selected the books which appear in the table according to whether they portray a world of “perfect competition” in which, according to the theory, no one has any power or, at the other extreme, a world of large companies and groups exercising power (legal and illegal).

We are prone these days to use ideological labels too easily – so I want to avoid that by using less obvious labels.

-      “Mixed” therefore covers those who clearly argue for what used to be called “the mixed economy” and are quite clear that they wish a better, more balanced capitalism;

-      The “critical-realist” label covers those who go further in their critical approach, extending their analysis to the role exercised by dubious and illegitimate power players who try to buy democracy and whose activities threaten the planet’s very survival.

    

Needless to say, the allocation to one particular column is arbitrary and could be disputed – as can the choice of illustrative authors and books! I shall try to say something about my choice in a subsequent post...   

Key Texts about the future of capitalism – by academic discipline and “approach”

Academic Discipline	1. Critical-Realist	2. Mixed approach	3. “market” proponents
Economics	Conceptualising Capitalism – institutions, evolution, future; Geoff Hodgson (2015) Debt and Neo-Feudalism; Michael Hudson (2012) Credo – economic beliefs in a world of crisis; Brian Davey (2015). Davey is not a career or conventional economist!	People, Power and Profits – progressive capitalism for an age of discontent; Joseph Stiglitz (2019) The Future of Capitalism – facing new anxieties; Paul Collier (2018) Shifts and Shocks – what we’ve learned, and still have to, from the financial crisis; Martin Wolf (2014) – with accompanying power point presentation	Why Globalisation Works; Martin Wolf (2004) most of the discipline
Economic history	Capitalism and its Economics – a critical History; Douglas Dowd (2000) Never Let a Good Crisis go to waste; Philip Mirowski  (2013)	Crashed – how a decade of financial crises changed the world Adam Tooze (2018)	Economic historians by definition have a strong sense of political and other institutions
Political economy	“The Lugano Report: On Preserving Capitalism in the Twenty-first Century” – Susan George (1999). Susan Strange - The Retreat of the State (1994) - States and Markets (1988) - Casino Capitalism ; (1986)	Austerity – the history of a dangerous idea; Mark Blyth (2013) Yanis Varoufakis - And the Weak Suffer what they must – Europe, austerity and the threat to global stability (2016) - The Global Minotaur (2012)	The discipline still rediscovering itself but, again, by definition, has a strong sense of the importance of institutions
Political Science	Crisis without End - the unravelling of western prosperity: A Gamble (2014) Democracy Incorporated – managed democracy and the spectre of inverted totalitarianism; Sheldon Wolin (2008)	Paul Hirst eg Revisiting Associative Democracy; ed Westall (2011). The Great Disruption – human nature and the reconstitution of social order; Francis Fukuyama (1999) Mammon’s Kingdom – an essay on Britain, Now; David Marquand (2015)	Only a few brave pol scientists trespass into the economic field – although it is becoming more fashionable
Policy analysis/Think Tanks		“The Locust and the Bee – predators and creators in capitalism’s future”; G Mulgan (2015)	An Intro to Capitalism (IEA 2018)
Sociology	Wolfgang Streeck. - How will Capitalism End?; (2016) - Buying Time – the delayed crisis of democratic capitalism (2013) End of capitalism? Michael Mann (2013) Capitalism; Geoff Ingham (2008)	Vampire Capitalism – fractured societies and alternative futures; Paul Kennedy (2017)	The sociological voice is still inspired by C Wright Mills, Veblen, Weber and Durkheim
Geography	David Harvey - Seventeen Contradictions and the End of Capitalism (2014) - The Enigma of Capital (2010) - A Brief History of Neo-Liberalism (2005).	Danny Dorling - A Better Politics – how government can make us happier (2016 - Injustice (2014)	The geographers are a bolshie lot - with a strong sense of geo-politics
Environment	Come On! Capitalism, short-termism, population and the destruction of the planet; (Club of Rome 2018).	Why we can’t agree about Climate Change; Mike Hulme (2009) Natural Capitalism – the next industrial revolution; Paul Hawken (1999)	they pride themselves on their technocracy
Journalism	Post Capitalism – a guide to our Future; Paul Mason (2015) …. The Capitalism Papers – Fatal Flaws of an Obsolete System; Jerry Mander (2012).	How Good Can we be – ending the mercenary society Will Hutton (2015) Capitalism 3.0 Peter Barnes (2006)	They don’t enjoy the tenure of the academics (altho Hutton is a college Director)
Management and man’t studies	“The Dictionary of Alternatives – utopianism and organisation”; M Parker (2007)	Rebalancing Society; Henry Mintzberg (2014) Peter Senge Charles Handy	Most mant writers are apologists – apart from the critical mant theorists
Religious studies	Laudato-Si – Pope Francis’ Encyclical (2015). Accessible in its entirety here	The Crisis of global capitalism – Pope Benedict XVI’s social encyclical and the future of political economy; ed A Pabst (2011) Questions of Business Life; Higginson (2002)	A more ecumenical bunch!

Psychology

What about me – the struggle for identity in a market based society?; Paul Verhaeghe (2014)