Showing posts with label judt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label judt. Show all posts

Sunday, 1 April 2012

Thought Prompted by the Petrol Strike Debacle

"We are likely to find ourselves as intellectuals or political philosophers facing a situation in which our chief task is not to  imagine better worlds but rather to think how to prevent worse ones."
Tony Judt
In a week where cabinet ministers appear to be urging voters toward Buddhist-style self immolation, I thought that perhaps an automobile metaphor might be apposite. If you imagine society as a motor vehicle then the capitalist market is its engine and social democracy is its braking system. Hands up everyone who wants a car without brakes. OK, just Osborne and Clarkson then...

WIDENING GYRE

The world appears too crazy at the moment to step back far enough (or for long enough) and say anything joined-up -- so I'll fudge it by...