Project Syndicate
The West Is Not Dying, but It Is Working on It – Project Syndicate op-ed
, 19/12/2024
Western power is as strong as ever. What has changed is that the combination of socialism for financiers, collapsing prospects for the bottom 50%, and the surrender of our minds to Big Tech has given rise to overweening Western elites with little use for the last century’s value system. ATHENS – A motley crew of […]
America’s Trade Deficit Is Not Afraid of Donald Trump – Project Syndicate op-ed
, 02/12/2024
If the US president-elect’s efforts to eliminate America’s trade deficit succeed, real-estate prices in Miami and Manhattan will crash, the cost of servicing government debt will skyrocket and the Dow Jones will plummet. Perhaps he should be reminded that the most vengeful of deities is one that grants him his sincerest wish. ATHENS – Donald […]
The Road from Fascism – Project Syndicate op-ed
, 19/08/2024
Once fascism is in the air, it is pointless to pander to xenophobia, as liberals do when they embrace an anti-immigrant agenda, or to rail against austerity, as leftists do. Neither issue is what is really fueling far-right extremism, which is good news for progressives. ATHENS – The recent riots in the United Kingdom have […]
Macron and Europe’s Centrists Are Out of Good Options – Project Syndicate op-ed
, 26/07/2024
After four years of pandemic-induced fiscal laxity, the eurozone’s rules are back in force, requiring that France impose severe austerity measures to reduce its deficit. Though no political party ever wants to go down this road, it is the only choice that French President Emmanuel Macron has left himself. ATHENS – France’s political impasse reflects […]
Three Myths Haunting the West – Project Syndicate op-ed
, 26/06/2024
Three myths underpin the collective frustration of Western centrist political leaders, who have long taken their hegemony for granted. Each myth is worse than erroneous, and debunking them is a necessary, if insufficient, step toward making sense of the present. ATHENS – Confident elites reflect viable regimes. Today, elites on both sides of the Atlantic […]
Strict Separation Is Not the Answer for Palestine and Israel – Project Syndicate op-ed
, 29/05/2024
As the bombs continue to fall, and the propaganda war rages, it is hard to imagine any way out of the Israeli-Palestinian tragedy. But that could reflect our failure to imagine two states whose purpose is to bring the two people closer, not to create two apartheid states where there is now one. ATHENS – […]
The day Germany banned me! – Project Syndicate op-ed
, 30/04/2024
Germany recently prohibited a Palestinian Congress from taking place in Berlin, arrested its Jewish supporters, and barred one of its organizers, Greece’s former finance minister, from entering the country. But the turn to repression is powerful evidence that the country’s pro-Israel political consensus is breaking down. ATHENS – Three weeks ago, I was banned from entering […]
A European War Union? – Project Syndicate op-ed
, 22/04/2024
Advocates of European unity used to celebrate the European Union as a peace project. But well before Russia invaded Ukraine, the European vision of a peaceful road to shared prosperity had begun to frazzle, and now the invasion has facilitated the EU’s mutation into something much uglier. ATHENS – Europe has become unrecognizable. Advocates of […]
Economics is Irredeemably Sexist – Project Syndicate
, 01/04/2024
One reason women avoid the field of economics is the male chauvinist pig standing at its center, masquerading as the model of rationality. No sensible woman recognizes herself in Homo economicus, who always gets what he likes and likes what he gets. ATHENS – Economics has an intractable “women problem.” High-school girls avoid it. Female undergraduates abandon it. And […]
The Two Faces of the Euro: Jacques Delors and Wolfgang Schäuble – Project Syndicate Long Read
, 03/02/2024
Of all European politicians who never led their countries, Jacques Delors and Wolfgang Schäuble had the greatest impact on Europe. Between them, the two men, who passed away within a day of each other in December, shaped today’s European Union, warts and all. ATHENS – Of all European politicians who never led their countries, Jacques Delors and Wolfgang […]
Europe’s Bad China Bluff – Project Syndicate op-ed
, 24/12/2023
Against the backdrop of the new cold war between the United States and China, the European Union’s top brass seems to be adding to the pressure on China by issuing credible threats in response to four grievances. Alas, the Chinese authorities are probably more amused than alarmed. ATHENS – On the December 7, the presidents […]
Europe’s 15-Year Slump – Project Syndicate op-ed
, 22/11/2023
The European Union’s supporters celebrate the survival of the euro, the fact that public debt is no longer the threat it was, and, crucially, that their mercantilist business model remains intact. But it has come at a steep price: Europe’s permanent stagnation and continuing fragmentation. ATHENS – Europe is languishing in a long-term economic slump whose origins […]
Big Tech Cannot Be Regulated – Project Syndicate op-ed
, 01/11/2023
Big Tech is so profoundly different from other industries that it cannot be regulated like the trusts, cartels, or conglomerates of the past. After all, if regulators tried to break up Facebook or TikTok, they would be confronted by enraged users for whom the universal nature of these platforms is the reason they use them. […]
Christine Lagarde’s Gifts to Populists – Project Syndicate
, 27/09/2023
Since taking over as president of the European Central Bank in late 2019, Christine Lagarde has committed three major errors that play right into the hands of right-wing populists. Now, one can only hope that these parties’ own incompetence will sink them before next year’s European Parliament elections. ATHENS – Christine Lagarde’s three blunders as president […]
New AI Germ Busters Can Also Bust Unions – Project Syndicate op-ed
, 18/07/2023
Humanity has now developed AI algorithms capable of fully decoding a killer bug’s proteins and creating an effective antibiotic. Was there ever any doubt that conglomerates like Amazon would seize upon this opportunity to shrink workplaces along their supply chain where AI predicts a higher probability of unionization? ATHENS – Last week brought a rare good-news […]
Austerity Ruined Europe, and Now It’s Back – Project Syndicate op-ed
, 17/07/2023
The United States is experiencing an investment boom, owing to industrial policies that grant enormous subsidies – including to European firms – for investing in America, largely in green tech. Europe, meanwhile, is responding with a return to the austerity policies that caused it to fall behind the US in the first place. ATHENS – […]
Who’s Afraid of Central Bank Digital Currencies? Project Syndicate op-ed
, 01/06/2023
Once upon a time, the greed of tobacco companies was channeled through libertarian outrage over the restriction of smokers’ freedom to choose cancer. Today, the outrage is serving the interests of bankers panicking at the prospect of central bank digital currencies. ATHENS – When First Republic Bank failed, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation organized a […]
The Strange Death of the Liberal Individual – Project Syndicate op-ed
, 01/06/2023
Only a comprehensive reconfiguration of property rights over the increasingly cloud-based instruments of production, distribution, collaboration, and communication can rescue the foundational liberal idea of liberty as self-ownership. Reviving the liberal individual thus requires precisely what liberals detest: a revolution. ATHENS – My father was the epitome of the liberal individual, a splendid irony for […]
Time to Blow Up the Banking System – Project Syndicate, March 2023
, 09/04/2023
The banking system we take for granted is unfixable. The good news is that we no longer need to rely on any private, rent-seeking, socially destabilizing network of banks, at least not the way we have so far. This time the banking crisis is different. It is, in fact, worse than in 2007/8 when we […]
Will China Dump Its Dark Deal with America? – Project Syndicate
, 20/02/2023
A new cold war is upon us, but only China is in a position to push it beyond the point of no return. That moment will come when China’s policymakers cross the Rubicon and decide to wean Chinese economic growth off the US trade deficit. ATHENS – True hegemons prevail not by force but by […]
Is Europe Deindustrialising? – Project Syndicate
, 23/01/2023
The real problem confronting European manufacturing is not the threat of factory closures. It is that, compared to the United States and China, Europe has fallen far behind in the race to accumulate, and benefit from, the cloud capital that represents the future of profit in industries like electric cars and green energy. ATHENS – […]
My prediction on what 2023 will bring – Project Syndicate
, 01/01/2023
This will be the year that Europeans realize the designed irrelevance of the European Union. The quagmire in Ukraine’s killing fields will bring on the realization of the need for a diplomatic process to end the war, but also the realization that the EU is radically incapable of playing any significant role in it. Who […]
The Techno-Feudal Method to Musk’s Twitter Madness – Project Syndicate op-ed
, 06/12/2022
Immediately after taking over Twitter and pronouncing himself Chief Twit, Elon Musk affirmed his commitment to safeguarding the platform as the “public square” where anything and everything is debated. It was a smart tactic, because it successfully diverted the public’s attention from what Musk is really up to. ATHENS – Elon Musk had good reasons […]
Should electricity markets be reformed or disbanded? My debate with Michael Liebreich on Cleaning Up
, 01/11/2022
The other day, Michael Liebreich and I had a lively discussion on his CleaningUp podcast provoked by my call “to blow up the electricity markets”. It was fun but, of course, fell short of a comprehensive analysis of the complex issues pertaining to the political economy of electricity generation and distribution. Following our debate, Michael […]