Over the last few weeks, a recurring theme has emerged within my writing and YouTube videos, which is a reference to something I have been calling a politics of care.
I have been sketching out what this might mean in odd moments, and have discussed it with my wife and sons, both of whom were around over the weekend.
Last night I asked two of them, over our evening meal, whether I should write a book on this theme. They said I should, despite knowing that I am not always the most fun to live with when I am writing a book.
The best day of writing a book is the day you agree with a publisher to do so.
The next best day is when the publisher says it has gone to print.
The bit between those two events can be tough going.
Publication is harrowing because you have no idea how it will be received.
Thereafter, you hope to be known for a while as the author of whatever it might be called.
With that thought still in mind, I checked my emails while watching the early evening news programmes and was a little surprised to find a completely unsolicited invitation from a major publisher to write for them, or at least to discuss doing so.
I have resisted this idea for some time. Over the last few weeks, I have begun to change my thinking for three reasons.
First, I know we need a form of political economy. What we have is failing us.
Second, we have to stand up to fascism, and that requires new thinking.
Third, my sketching has been productive, although it is not complete yet. With a comprehensive plan, I do not find writing a book that hard, and I suspect I would find the exercise easier this time. I have written at least a million words a year since finishing my last book. Practice at anything, from forming sentences onwards, does help.
So, I have this question:
What is the best use of my time now, in addition to writing this blog and recoridnmg daily YouTube videos?
- Writing a book summarising my political economic philosophy? (62%, 244 Votes)
- An online course on political economy? (17%, 67 Votes)
- An online course on modern monetary theory? (16%, 64 Votes)
- An online course on money? (5%, 18 Votes)
Total Voters: 393
Loading ...I am genuinely interested in your opinion.
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I have picked up a few books over the holidays.
the point of a book I suggest is that
1. It lays out an argument/tells a story/whatever in a particular format – if properly written! (Or in one or two cases despite not being well written!)
2. Its a generally recognised way of putting something into the public arena and can be quoted, reviewed etc
So I say go for it!
Thanks
Please write the book, and call it ‘The Politics of Care’
The subtitle could be ‘The antidote to the 21st century’
@ Richard via Graham
Absolutely, on both project and naming!
Of late I have taken to describing the post-WW2 Attlee Settlement that was killed off by Thatcher’s misguided Neoliberal project as the “I am my sister’s and brother’s keeper” society, because it was the quintessential exercise in caring, after a bloody war that rounded off centuries of exploitation and non-caring – of society being Cain, not Abel.
I leave the question open as to whether Thatcher and Thatcherism could have been headed off, but Callaghan’s ill-judged failure to go to the country in 1978, before the Winter of Discontent sealed the matter.
We now face, at the hands of the gleeful sociopathic toddler now occupying (in every sense!) the White House, a far worse threat to the caring society the world MUST return to, if it is to survive, than was the case with the toxic Neoliberal Project of the Thatcher/Reagan duumvirate, making a book on the caring society absolutely essential.
Please go for it.
Thanks, Andrew
Of the options you list, I don’t know which might be most influential, but I do like the idea of “a politics of care”. Although there are politicians who are (or were) motivated by care, it isn’t talked about much. Lobbyists get at them. Party officials redirect them. If they still care, maybe they do not dare to say so. The usual measures of success don’t recognise care as relevant. Jesus’ command to love is forgotten, or not mentioned, though it should be fundamental to all that we do, even (especially?) in politics.
We need new paradigms – as you say the existing ones are failing.
A book is a project basically with a start and a finish so the other stuff you say you could do can be projects for other days. So do the book, if you can bear it.
Why is a political economy of caring necessary?
1. Because we need take note of people’s actual needs and not just apply solutions dogmatically.
2. The morality behind exploiting needs and weaknesses in modes of living is dubious. I find none, especially if it makes people poorer and strips them of their assets.
3. Income is under threat everywhere, and at odds with state withdrawal and support and increasing marketisation and choice agendas provided by markets whose profit motive means exclusion for many and variable quality.
4. Caring needs to be professionalised and rewarded better, even celebrated.
5. Caring is humanity in action. It’s intervention based.
6. We can afford, it is excellent value for money, an excellent use of resources, a democratic use of the resources.
Thanks
We know you write to get ideas into the world. The concept of ‘care’ applied to economics is a suitably big idea. Timely too. A big part of the publishing process now can be an intense promotional phase. Particularly if the publication has a wide appeal. Like ‘The Courageous State’, rather something more academic. This sort of book promotion can be extended if the book is promoted overseas. Good publishers organise, and the author fronts. It’s not for everyone.
This will not be academic, at all
If I do it then it will have to be polemic
You say it will be polemical, not academic. But it also has the intent to provide a vision and a more positive way for the future.
Like many here I sigh at the huge impact that the contemporary economic orthodoxy has on shaping policy. Challenging that should be easy … But it is defended by its “academic credentials” and “models” (which do not account for difficult things like evidence, externalities, “fairness”, “justice”, care, etc).
Perhaps, combining polemics with sufficient academic rigour, and references to supporting evidence could help include such thinking to be an essential, though normally largely missing, element of “grown up policy shaping”.
To be discussed….
I voted for you to write a book as you already have a fairly wide online presence and a book might have a new or slightly different audience. Whatever you do don’t feel pressured, remember you are supposed to be (sort of) retired?
ATB
I will be really retiring in may late 80s, I hope, and only then if I have to
If I voted for myself only, I’d choose an online course, but it would be unlikely to get attention from politicians or press.
A book on political vision would. There is a huge gap at the moment in terms of political vision – failed or exhausted ideologies littering the streets on right and left, while fascism’s jackboots march up to fill the void.
Last night I was looking for something on the blog and came across an old post of yours about the extent of your involvement with Labour’s economic policy under Corbyn/McDonnell. In there you complained about a lack of political vision and outlined something about the role of government, v similar to what you wrote recently about constitutional change requiring government to serve the interests of its citizens especially the most vulnerable.
Its clearly been bubbling away inside for years. You won’t have any peace (nor will your family) till its out in print.
So I voted for the vision book. Our budding politicians need help, vision that is also rooted in economic reality – things that CAN be done, but also – some political morality – some principles that can unite people who might differ on detail – principles that STILL apply even when “events dear boy” upset all the plans. You can do that. A boring working title could be “Principles of political economy – a humane vision for government” (needs to be much more eyecatching for the final published title).
I never hope for peace
I always hope for more ideas
My greatest wish is they never end
I doubt they will
And thank you
Trump is upending the global financial system. He wants to replace it with a kleptocracy. But what he’s doing does present an opportunity for people of goodwill, who know what they’re talking about, to come together and push for something better. And there’s so much that could be done. Government Bonds, for instance, aren’t the same beast that was introduced in the 1700s to fund wars. They’ve evolved. They can, and must, along with other forms of debt, evolve again. So please write the book. Thing is though, you might need to finish it rather quickly!
I voted for the book. It’s clear from your YouTube channel that Americans, Canadians, Australians, and many Europeans are engaging with your videos, as well as your UK readers, and are hungry for information. I would hope your book will appeal to as wide a readership as possible. We are all in this together.
That would be my hope
The book would nit be U.K. centric. We are all in this together.
One of the best technical books I ever bought was “Blasting Techniques” ( I am a mining engineer). It brought together all my practical learning and took it to the next level by introducing allowance for errors. Pulling every thing together in a book makes a much stronger result.
I may be biased because I love books, I have some 25,000 although only about 5,000 are technical.
I also love books….
And I like the fact I have written them, once they are done.
I’m very much the odd one out, as I voted for the MMT course.
The reason, and I found it a difficult choice against the book, is that an understanding of MMT is I believe an essential precursor to having a caring economy. The siren voices of the neoliberals need to be stopped. I hope that a new, and effective course would contribute in achieving that aim. It would be something to point at, as there isn’t, in my view, a satisfactory course available.
But whatever your choice, I wish you well and thanks in advance.
My aim is that all these things will happen. It is ordering that I am really asking about. And given books take ages to produce I suspect a course might still come first.
I voted for an online course on money, which I see isn’t popular! – I suppose I was thinking about what would have most reach to people who weren’t familiar with your work. Everyone is interested in money!
I’m sure your book would be a really good thing and I would certainly read it but I suspect the people that really need to read it wouldn’t???…so it’s hard to know how much influence it would have.
I really don’t know what is best but that’s my instinct.
I’ve also wondered about you doing some videos in a question and answer format, in effect as an example of the conversation one might have on the Clapham Omnibus – how to respond to the usual questions or responses when trying to convince people that there is an alternative.
I realise that is more demanding of time and organisation.
I think the course of money is the next most likely thing after a book – and maybe besides the writing of a book.
The other courses make no sense without doing money first – you are right.
I agree with Judith B, and I also voted for the online course on money. My reasoning is that you have built up a large audience for your videos, and I suspect they would be more receptive to further online offerings than to a printed book. I also suspect you will write the book anyway (or as well)! So we all win. 🙂
You may be right….
I hesitate to push an opinion on what you should do. But I think online activity will reach more people, of more varied backgrounds, than a book would. I’ve been recommending “Joy of Tax” to friends for at least 10 years now. None of them had heard of it; those who read it were all grateful. But much of the population doesn’t read books; they get information from their phones. And your YouTube videos are getting larger audiences all the time.
I hope that this is like tossing a coin to make a decision; it helps to clarify what one really intends to do. And good luck with your decision, whatever it is.
But books create credibility, like it or not. That is their power. They open other media.
Agree 100%!
Writing a book gives much creditability!
I voted for “An online course on modern monetary theory” because I want to watch the series.
However, if I was allowed two votes, I would have also vote for “Writing a book summarising my political economic philosophy” as both are equally important to me.
Thanks
It will eventually be both
Unless they offer me a multi-book contract
I’ve just read about a book by Tim Jackson that may be relevant:
‘ Care is the foundation for life itself. But its fate in the economy is precarious and uncertain. In our hearts it’s honoured as an irreducible good. But in the market it’s treated as a second class citizen—barely recognised in the relentless rush for productivity and wealth. How did we arrive in this dysfunctional place? And what can we do to change things? ‘
https://timjackson.org.uk/the-care-economy/
I have never read Tim’s book – maybe I should.
The book I want to read might not be called ‘the Politics of Care’ .
‘Caring’ has been so co-opted by main stream politics, either to mean self- sacrificing family and/or volunteering, or else institutional care that we would love to ‘afford’ but can’t.
You have several times touched on the notion that we should start from the physical/ material /social system we want, abolish poverty, homelessness, destitution etc – and why we haven’t got it – and then work out how we can get it – in other words ‘anything we can actually do we can afford’.
The dominant paradigm in the media and politics is to set out the financial framework first – and foremost , and only then maybe discuss ‘what we can afford’.
If you can overturn and reverse this way of thinking you should get a Nobel prize.
I am oopen minded
Editors have a great deal to say on titles
Authors rarely choose them
Althohgh I did suggest The Joy of Tax
I for another would love to see you on a plane to Stockholm to deliver that lecture and collect a Nobel Prize. With the funding coming from the private sector the value of the prize hasn’t kept up with inflation but you should still go for it.
That will never hapen.
Richard what are your thoughts on using AI to help/assist you in writing your book? I am not for one second suggesting plagiarizing, or using AI systems to write a book that lacks in originality and quality etc. Rather as you have already said on here before AI is a very handy tool in producing summaries and even drawing out similarities and differences of opinions based on actual works/txts/commentaries/books etc etc.
So you could tap into AI tools/software and other tech to help with writing the book. However, I assume you would need to first check with the publisher and get their consent.
I think using AI (as a tool only) to assist in writing the book would be a novel and very useful experience. It could save lots of time and dare I say it frustration.
For example, I wonder what would happen if you fed the 1M words you have already written into AI and asked it to churn out chapters based on your goals/objectives, themes, parameters, and overall sketch. Worth considering?
AI is a usueful research tool
I definitely will no9t be using it to write a book of what will, I hope, be original thought. That is not what it can do.
Richard,
I have had the opportunity to give the matter a little more thought.
May I start with two cautionary tales.
My great grandfathers obituary was on Waterguard.net
Until one day it wasnt – the site had gone – I suspect that the owner had died/gone into care etc and the hosting fee was no longer being paid. I suspect the same fate will befall the Newbury Diesel website unless as thankfully happened with the relevant bit of Waterguard.net it ends up on an internet archive.
I was also told in pre internet days that somebody had done a lot of research on the 1949 MV Balmoral BUT wasnt going to write it up and as my informant bellyached bitterly when this person died all the knowledge and of course his understanding and conclusions would be lost.
So may I suggest that now is the time to look at the ‘legacy’ you choose to leave in terms of both what you wish to say and how you wish to preserve it – if that is your choice.
Clearly unlike previous generations we dont leave behind letters, minute books etc but emails, blogs & social media which is more ephemeral in terms of conservation.
Books tend to survive.
Tye British Library archive this blog (to my surprise) but ho kinows what they might be told to delete one day?
https://web.archive.org/web/20250000000000*/https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/
(last crawled April 7th)
They archive most sites unless told not to, in a site “robots.txt”.
Of course nothing that isn’t on your own physically owned storage is guaranteed.
Trump’s fascist administration for example, is clearing stuff he doesn’t like from the Smithsonian (“ideologies inconsistent with Federal law and policy,”), as well as the Pentagon sites (news about prominent non-white, non-male service personnel).
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/28/jd-vance-smithsonian-ideology-028386
Conversely, it seems that certain billionaire-owned search engines now kill certain stories that their algorithms deem to not be worth publicising, making news about certain things quite hard to locate even though you know it has appeared on the web.
I work on the basis that unless it is on one of my own drives, in my own house, then it may disappear.
And if I get arrested on a protest, then of course, even my own local storage media may disappear into police custody once the police have visited my home to check out anything that might cause a “nuisance”.
Perhaps some very dangerous free-thinkers keep encrypted backup thumb drives somewhere known only to themselves, and refresh them every month or so?
That is WayBank macine
The British Library is different – they asked for permission.
But your point is spot on.
Perhaps I should share the back ups?
I voted for the online political economy course. It seems to me that a book has a long gestational period and the finished product, sadly, has a fairly limited audience. More people are likely to look at the online course and benefit from it, more quickly, and my interest is more in political economy than money or MMT.
BUT this will be your project and it seems to me that you want to write the book. So go for it! I will buy it.
Not many people will necessarily buy the book (but Gary Stevenson has sold a pile) but books extend media influence.
An interesting question. A book will probably be read by far fewer people than you tell us now follow you on this blog and other social media, but it allows development of a large scale properly argued case that might be important in influencing the thinking of political commentators. That still doesn’t mean actual politicians are likely to pay much notice though.
So the serious work that needs to go into writing a book is only worth it if you are able to develop a distinctive position that attracts the attention of those commentators and the smallish number of ordinary readers (such as me). From your very brief summary above, it seems that you are talking about something that has quite a lot in common with Kate Raworth’s Doughnut Economics. That book is an example of one which has clearly influenced political thinkers and commentators – but not obviously been acted on by politicians – and the question is whether what you propose would be a new departure from that point of view, and go far enough beyond it to justify the effort.
You also say you are considering something polemical rather than academic. While I half understand what you mean, the ability of a book to “create credibility” (your words) comes from the way a book-length account can not just build a big idea but justify it – in other words being fairly academic. Looking on my bookshelves, both Raworth’s book and Kelton’s include notes and references, the tools of academic writing. It may end up a bigger task than you currently imagine.
Noted
Thanks
I’ve voted for the book, and I think you’ve already pre-empted my next comment: I’m currently working on creating online ‘digital products’. As I work through this, it’s becoming ever clearer to me that I am, by doing so, also writing the useful book I want to end up with.
Look forward to reading it – many times over.
Good luck with your book.
Tim Jackson has recently published ‘The Care Economy’ https://timjackson.org.uk/the-care-economy/
Indeed, already noted.
A voted for a book.
Blueprint for Better.
Your videos are very educational as it is and I have picked up a lot.
Off subject – there is a very chilling scene in the star wars show Andor, episode one, eries 2. The Empire are discussing how they systemically create a massacre and divide the nation of a peaceful planet so they can drill for it’s minerals. I hadn’t realised I was watching a documentary.
Many thanks to all who voted.
All those in power claim to be caring. Suggesting that they are self-deluded may be counter productive. Those same powerful people claim that the economy does not provide enough resource for them to display their caring. So, as I see it, the need is to re-educate as many as possible in the reality of MMT to show them how those resources can be made available.
MMT is just a description
It is not a policy
Yes please Richard – do write your book. Perhaps: The Politics of Care (or why we need to end the Politics of Scare)
I sum up my personal/political/professional philosophy as:
Building a sustainable World in which all people have dreams & ambitions – and the wherewithal to achieve them
…
It is time to level up politics for 21st century – time to end the soul & world crushing politics of neo-liberal fascism.
I like that
I have been struck by the references to elected politicians *serving* their electors in the AI interpretation of governance based on the teachings of Jesus and in other recent posts, and then in the one on Labour’s cynical decision not to scrap the two child benefit cap by this:
“It is all about rewarding prejudice.
It shows an absolute absence of care, both now and about the future.
It indicates an absolute absence of the willingness to lead.”
The intertwining of explicitly and vigorously practicing caring, advocating caring and challenging prejudice against caring is a politics of care.
Such a polemic would be most welcome. The spirit of pamphlets and news sheets.
Thanks
Hi Richard,
as a recovering academic, I would say most books are twice the length they need to be and I would opt for an online course (but dont call it political economy its too academic, how about ‘Economics for the people’ or such like?).
Also, I think such a course would enable people to discuss, debate, and learn from you and each other and in the process we get a more informed citizenry who can then put pressure on local and national politicians and others, write to the media, and spread the word, feel empowered to take on the right-wing trolls on socail media (if they so wish) and who knows, maybe they can even set up their own economics for the people groups? Its progressive people power form below that needs massively boosting, along with their confidence, and its that type of approach I think we need more than ever.
Noted
But this will not be an academic book, just as the Joy of Tax was not.
Re: the Jackson book: The basic point that the economy should be about caring for people and environment is well made but for my taste the argument gets lost in a lot of autobiographical digressions. Something more direct that pursues the implications of the basic message would be welcome.
Noted
A World Fit for People?