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Articles from Syndicated Column "Against the Current" (for Project Syndicate)
Imperialism Reclaimed
Robert Skidelsky
Project Syndicate
| Thursday, March 17, 2011
LONDON – History has no final verdicts. Major shifts in events and power bring about new subjects for discussion and new interpretations.
Fifty years ago, as de-colonization accelerated, no one had a good word to say for imperialism. It was regarded as unambiguously bad, both by ex-imperialists and by their liberated subjects. Schoolchildren were taught about the horrors of colonialism, how it exploited conquered peoples. There was little mention, if any, of imperialism’s benefits.
Then, in the 1980’s, a revisionist history came along. It wasn’t just that distance lends a certain enchantment to any view. The West – mainly the Anglo-American part of it – had recovered some of its pride and nerve under US President Ronald Reagan and
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Unsettling America
Robert Skidelsky
Project Syndicate
| Thursday, February 17, 2011
LONDON – Is there more to be said about Egypt? Hosni Mubarak has been sacrificed to save the military regime. A “strongman” who cannot keep order in the streets is of no use to anyone. Whether “democracy” will ensue is much more dubious. Judging on the basis of Pakistan, and much of the rest of the Muslim world, periods of (corrupt) civilian rule will alternate with “cleansing” military coups.
I doubt whether most Egyptians put what we call democracy at the head of their political agenda. Journalists who claim otherwise are not a representative sample, even in Western countries. They are a restless breed, flitting round the world’s trouble spots, pen and camera poised. Freedom of expression is in their bones, mass protests their visual
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Life after Capitalism
Robert Skidelsky
Project Syndicate
| Wednesday, January 19, 2011
LONDON – In 1995, I published a book called The World After Communism. Today, I wonder whether there will be a world after capitalism.
That question is not prompted by the worst economic slump since the 1930’s. Capitalism has always had crises, and will go on having them. Rather, it comes from the feeling that Western civilization is increasingly unsatisfying, saddled with a system of incentives that are essential for accumulating wealth, but that undermine our capacity to enjoy it. Capitalism may be close to exhausting its potential to create a better life – at least in the world’s rich countries.
By “better,” I mean better ethically, not materially. Material gains may continue, though evidence shows that they no longer make people
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A Confederal Solution for Palestine
Robert Skidelsky
Project Syndicate
| Tuesday, December 14, 2010
LONDON – Last month, while in New York City, I happened to be staying in the same hotel as Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. To accommodate his security needs, the hotel had been converted into a fortress, much like Israel itself.
Netanyahu was in the United States for yet another round of Middle East peace talks. The US offered various sweeteners to induce Israel to freeze its West Bank settlement construction for another 90 days. The Israelis refused; another impasse had been reached.
What, then, might be the prospects of a negotiated peace between two peoples with claims to the same land?
The answer is: very poor. All peace efforts since the Oslo accords of 1993 have been based on the “two-state solution,” according to
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The Irrepressible 1930s
Robert Skidelsky
Project Syndicate
| Monday, November 15, 2010
LONDON – The just concluded G-20 meeting in Seoul broke up without agreement on either currencies or trade. China and the United States accused each other of deliberately manipulating their currencies to get a trade advantage. The Doha Round of global trade talks remain stalled. And, amid talk of the “risks” of new currency and trade wars, such wars have already begun.
Thus, despite global leaders’ vows to the contrary, it seems that the dreadful protectionist precedent of the 1930’s is about to be revived. That decade’s trade war was started by the US with the Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1930. The British retaliated with the Import Duties Act of 1932, followed by Imperial Preference. Soon, the world economy was a thicket of trade barriers.
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