Our disability is discursive: we simply do not know how to talk about these things any more. For the last thirty years, when asking ourselves whether we support a policy, a proposal or an initiative,...
Marxismus je sekulární náboženství – to je evidentní. Ale které náboženství vlastně následuje, není vždycky zřejmé. Zahrnuje v sobě velkou část tradiční křesťanské eschatologie: pád člověka, Mesiáše,...
Love, it seems to me, is that condition in which one is most contentedly oneself. If this sounds paradoxical, remember Rilke’s admonition: love consists in leaving the loved one space to be themselves...
Keynes himself had taken the view that capitalism would not survive if its workings were reduced to merely furnishing the wealthy with the means to get wealthier. It was
If we don’t respect public goods; if we permit or encourage the privatization of public space, resources and services; if we enthusiastically support the propensity of a younger generation to look exc...
If it is to be taken seriously again, the Left must find its voice. There is much to be angry about: growing inequalities of wealth and opportunity; injustices of class and caste; economic exploitatio...
Where the ‘Chicago boys’ got their ideas, we shall find that the greatest influence was exercised by a handful of foreigners, all of them immigrants from central Europe: Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Ha...
We have smuggled in a misleadingly ‘ethical’ vocabulary to bolster our economic arguments,
They were increasingly perceived as restrictions upon the self-expression and freedom of the individual.
Somewhat different. Many European countries have long practiced something resembling social democracy: but they have forgotten how to preach it. Social democrats today are defensive and apologetic. Cr...
Life closely track your income: residents of wealthy districts can expect to live longer and better.
Even if the students of Berkeley, Berlin and Bangalore share a common set of interests, these do not translate into community. Space matters. And politics is a function of space—we
A political class deeply sensitive to its moral and social responsibilities.
Ztráta víry samozřejmě zdaleka není tak atraktivní jako víra; i když odklon od ní může být racionální, ztrácíte tím víc, než získáváte.
When the Red Army finally reached central Europe, its exhausted soldiers encountered another world. The contrast between Russia and the West was always great—Czar Alexander I had long ago regretted al...
Whatever their other differences, French Gaullists, Christian Democrats and Socialists shared a common faith in the activist state, economic planning and large-scale public investment. Much the same w...
Western intellectual enthusiasm for Communism tended to peak not in times of ‘goulash Communism’ or ‘Socialism with a human face’, but rather at the moments of the regime’s worst cruelties: 1935–39 an...
We no longer have political movement. While thousands of us may come together for a rally or march, we are bound together on such occasions by a single shared interest. Any effort to convert such inte...
We no longer ask of a judicial ruling or a legislative act: is it good? Is it fair? Is it just? Is it right? Will it help bring about a better society or a better world? Those used to be the political...
Unsurprisingly, planning was most admired and advocated at the political extremes.