11th of November 2024 My Lords, there are many things to welcome in this Budget, particularly on the spending side. I am less keen on some of the tax proposals, which seem to be mean-minded and counterproductive, such as the tax on knowledge. The spending commitments are important because they reverse the disastrous policy of … Continue reading Speech in the House of Lords – Autumn Budget 2024
Finance
Politics, Inequality and the Australian Welfare State After Liberalisation
Speaker: Ben Spies-Butcher
Thursday 7 November 2024, 12-1:30pm
Room 441, Social Sciences Building (A02), The University of Sydney
Neoliberalism has transformed work, welfare and democracy. However, its impacts, and its future, are more complex than we often imagine. Alongside growing inequality, social spending has been rising. This seminar draws on Ben’s recent book to ask how we understand this contradictory politics and what opportunities exist to create a more equal society. It argues an older welfare state politics, driven by the power of industrial labour, is giving way to political contests led by workers within the welfare state itself. Advancing more equal social policy, though, requires new forms of statecraft, or ways of doing policy, as well as new models of organising.
“”My Lords, I was not on the committee and therefore would like to allow myself a few mild criticisms of a very thought-provoking report. I will touch on three aspects of its central problem: “Who watches the watchdogs?” First, a bit of history might be helpful. In its present form, this challenge was created by … Continue reading Speech in the House of Lords on Watchdogs 9th of September
Project Syndicate 18th of September, 2024 “Shortly after taking office, the United Kingdom’s new Labour government announced the discovery of a massive shortfall in public finances. While much of the political debate has centered on the size of this fiscal hole, the real culprit is the set of arbitrary rules that British governments have imposed on themselves … Continue reading Britain’s Illusory Fiscal Black Hole
The Spectator, 13 January 2024 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? The Keynesian economist Nicholas Kaldor called Milton Friedman one of the two most evil men of the 20th century. (Friedman was … Continue reading Milton Friedman – economic visionary or scourge of the world?
Join a panel of experts for a conversation that tackles the moral and ethical obligations integral to research and investing priorities.
When: 5:00 pm – 6:15 pm, October 14, 2014
Where: Eastern Avenue Lecture Theatre 315, University of Sydney
Registrations: https://events.humanitix.com/weapons-climate-justice-and-investing-ethically
We are living in an era of overlapping crises: from climate catastrophe to devastating wars, alongside the age-old ravages of inequality at home and across the globe. As these struggles escalate, many ordinary people are questioning their own responsibility, and possibility of their complicity, in these disasters. What prospects are there for responding? What avenues for meaningful action?
With the ongoing wars in Gaza and Ukraine, these concerns have come into sharper focus. This panel of experts will examine some of these uncomfortable questions, and our moral and ethical obligations to address adverse human rights and climate justice impacts.
Panellists:
At stake in the machinations between global asset managers, the firms they invest in, and regulators is the core question of what environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing really does and its function at the frontiers of contemporary capital accumulation. This is the question addressed in my recent book, False profits of ethical capital.
The post False profits of ethical capital: Finance, labour and the politics of risk appeared first on Progress in Political Economy (PPE).
by Basak Kus* It has now been almost two decades since the 2007-10 financial crisis shattered the exuberance that surrounded American capitalism in the 1990s. The immediate issues the crisis posed—negative growth rates, rising unemployment, and falling stock prices—were addressed long ago. Crises like the Great Recession, however, are more than temporary setbacks; they necessitate […]
Each time money is used, an epistemology, a metaphysics, a politics, an ethics, and even a theology is evoked. Money condenses the spirit of capitalism. Money did not create capitalism—the early factories and mills were rarely funded by bank loans—yet money transmits, propagates, and vivifies it. This thought-provoking quotation (p. 20) is from Theology of […]
During the past decade, it has become obvious that economic interconnectedness did not bring forth frictionless international relations as many liberal theorists had predicted. To the contrary, the fact that economic integration has been profoundly uneven has enabled the weaponisation of asymmetrical economic relations for the achievement of geopolitical and/or economic goals (Whyte 2022; Farrell 2023). The weaponisation of the unique international role of the US dollar is one of the most consequential examples of this trend. For instance, in the period since 2001, US sanctions designations have expanded by an extraordinary 933%. In the context of Russia’s war in Ukraine, dollar hegemony made it possible to freeze Russia’s foreign reserves and expel the country from the SWIFT payments system and US correspondent banking.