This is the launch of my website — much more will follow!
Below is the abstract & outline of a lecture I delivered in Helsinki, Finland to the Capitalism 2009 conference organized by the Finland Left Forum. An edited version of the talk will be posted on the Left Forum website relatively soon.
Political Reflections on the Global Economic & Financial Crisis
The financial and economic crisis – which appears to be simply a crisis that is internal to the functioning of global capitalism – is in reality part of a much wider and deeper global crisis. In this state of economic emergency, those mainly responsible for the policies that led to the financial collapse have claimed the right to produce the solutions with relatively little significant challenge from the progressive lefts. What is needed however is a new way to think through global challenges in ways that go beyond the confines of narrow solutions that simply favour capital. In my lecture I will therefore outline some principles and policies for the progressive lefts to consider: in fiscal policy, on lifestyles and sustainability, on public services, on the ageing society and in education and culture.
A Powerpoint which formed the outline of the lecture can be downloaded here and a smaller Word document of the same can be found here.
The conference web page and abstracts of the other presentations can be found here.
For those of you who read Finnish, here is a link to a newspaper article based upon an interview where some of the main points of my lecture are discussed: Helsingin Sanomat, 23/4/09 (1MB PDF).