George Monbiot’s Guardian article this morning asks what is the next big idea. He concludes it could be land value taxation and a citizen’s income. I have no doubt land value taxation has to be part of a proper tax system. I also have a paper coming very shortly, with Howard Reed, on a citizen’s income. But whilst I think they
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Capital controls are in the news. They are something I called for in Chapter 18 of The Courageous State when discussing the need to tackle tax haven abuse. I wrote there: The measures suggested in this chapter are forms of capital control: they are intended to make sure that capital is accountable wherever it is. This is essential if the inevitable
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In my book The Courageous State I described Cameron’s government as a perfect example of cowardly politics. As I put it in the introduction: Cameron and Osborne, with their allies Nick Clegg and Danny Alexander ….have become the apotheosis of something that has been thirty years in the making: they are the personification of what
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The New Putney Debates are on the for the next fortnight. The full programme is here. You’ll find my contribution on 8 November. As the organisers say: Celebrating the 365th year anniversary of the original Putney Debates, Occupy London is holding a series of events inspired by the Levellers’ and Diggers’ demands for social justice, civil rights and equal
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As the FT reports this morning: The International Monetary Fund has moved a step closer to withdrawing its support for the UK’s economic strategy, advising the government to redraw its fiscal tightening plan if growth disappoints in the coming quarters. It notes: The IMF said in its Fiscal Monitor report, published on Tuesday, that Britain should
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I’m in Appeldorn in the Netherlands this morning, about to go to speak, at the invitation of the Dutch Tax Authority on the Courageous State and the problems of taxing in the 21 century at a conference called Innovations and Ideas. Odd to contrast that with the points I’ve just noted about Dave Hartnett: HMRC
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As the Observer notes this morning: The economic crisis engulfing the coalition deepened after the Tory head of local government raised the spectre of councils across England and Wales running out of cash reserves used to boost local economies within five years, under the weight of massive spending cuts. This is not chance: this is deliberate. As I
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The FT carries this headline this morning: HSBC says it’s “shameful, embarrassing and very painful” that it has had to do this. The reality is though that this is the comment of an organisation in denial. What HSBC has not recognised is that this is not just the result of errors: these failures are the result of systemic flaws
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This is a new review of my book, The Courageous State from counterfire.org. I hope they’ll forgive me reproducing it: “The banking crisis of 2008 should have shaken the world of neoliberal economics to its core, but as some have observed, mainstream economics has largely continued unrepentant and unscathed. All challenges to this neoliberal consensus are therefore
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