Money and Empire: Charles P. Kindleberger and the Dollar SystemBy Perry Mehrling. Reviewed by Herman Mark Schwartz Money makes the world go round, or as Karl Marx put it, Geldgespräche, Quatsch-Spaziergänge. How does this work at the global or international level? Perry Mehrling’s elegantly written biography of the MIT economist Charles Poor Kindleberger illuminates the relationship between… Read More Money as Empire?
Hunter-gatherers don’t live in an economic idyll but their deep appreciation of rest puts industrialised work to shame Vivek V Venkataraman In the seminar I teach about hunter-gatherers, I often ask my students whether they think life was better in the past or today. There are, of course, always a few people who insist they… Read More Lessons from the foragers
Narendra Modi posed for the cameras holding a photograph of Narendra Modi in Ahmedabad’s Narendra Modi stadium… lets lose ourselves in this “bottomless sinkhole of North Korean narcissism” Mukul Kesavan It isn’t unusual for prime ministers of cricket-mad nations to sidle into the frame, to photobomb the cricket. During a Commonwealth heads of government meeting… Read More Cult over cricket
Ferenc Laczó An anarchist philosopher turned right-leaning libertarian and anti-capitalist critic of the illiberal order, Gáspár Miklós Tamás (1948–2023) embodied what east European thinkers have tended to be best at: making paradoxes intelligible. Democracy is ‘an odd thing to be glad about all on one’s own,’ Gáspár Miklós Tamás quipped in the late 1990s, and… Read More Rhapsody of emancipation: the interventions of Gáspár Miklós Tamás
Bichhdā kuchh is adā se ki rut hī badal gaī / ik shaḳhs saare shahr ko vīrān kar gayā – Khalid Sharif He parted in such a way that the season has changed / A whole city stands deserted by one man’s departure Kishore Saint, Ashish Kothari, Aseem Shrivastava “Ahimsa and Truth are my two lungs.… Read More The Sacred Ecology of Ahimsa
Rahamath Tarikere and Chandan Gowda talk about philosophy, culture, resistance and syncretism in some traditions in Karnataka. Tarikere worked as professor of Kannada literature at Kannada University, Hampi from 1992 until his retirement in 2021. His extensive publications, which include literary and cultural criticism, travel writing as well as short essays on wide ranging matters,… Read More Dissent, Diversity Run Deep in Karnataka and in Indian Philosophy: A Conversation
By Liam Barrett In an interview for the Guardian last week, MSNBC broadcaster Mehdi Hasan launched a broadside against Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News. Fox is less of a news channel, Hasan said, than “a propaganda arm of the Republican Party.” Hasan accused Murdoch of overseeing the “degradation of our democracy and media.” His criticisms mirror a general distrust of the mainstream… Read More Rupert Murdoch’s press empire is a threat to democracy
Bharat Bhushan One in four suicides in India is committed by a daily wage worker. Farmer suicides come way down the list, below the self-employed, salaried, unemployed, students, business and private sector suicides. Yet, unlike farmers, suicides by daily wagers do not grab media attention. Bharat Bhushan writes. On February 14, the Ministry of Labour… Read More Daily wage worker suicides unlikely to end soon
Dahlia Scheindlin Israel’s right wing is no stranger to political victory. Rightwing parties have governed for the better part of more than four decades and each time Benjamin Netanyahu has won an election since 2009, euphoric supporters have cheered King Bibi, while losers have gloomily prophesied the end of democracy. But Netanyahu’s sixth government, formed in the final… Read More Israel is at a crucial crossroads: it can save itself or slide into despotism
‘There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children‘: Nelson Mandela terrybellwrites.com The latest national Budget, generally lauded by business, did nothing to halt the ongoing shedding of jobs or the fact that more and more families are being thrown into abject poverty. The situation… Read More Terry Bell: The poor – and children again pay the price
