The City's Financial Services Authority has given Barclays Bank a massive fine for lying about its cost of capital in the obscure process that sets a key price in the financial markets. It shows again that finance is too important to be left to the so-called market.
The basis of taxation - especially of the super-rich, but also of the increasing numbers who feel no great traditional or ethnic attachment to the nation - must be solidarity, whose only sustainable basis is a common view of the good we're building. The State needs to recognise its duty in supplyi
Parts 2 (50 mins) and 3 (50 mins) of the generalists' introduction to modern Greek history take us from 1920 to the present day. Part 1, 1820-1920, is here, and the two articles that have served as anchors for the conversation are here (Doxiadis on the historical roots of current economic structur
The European debt crisis is political more than financial, as argued by George Soros. But the solution to the political problem needs to confront domestic political elites throughout Europe, jealous of their power, with the dishonesty of their stance. Hold on tight - this process provides hope for
In this hour-long informal conversation, Terence Mitchison provides the historian's background to the modern Greek state - from Venetian/Ottoman contestation to the Balkan wars of the 20th Century, the rise of Ataturk and the great population movements in the early 1920s. Parts 2 and 3 are availab
An attentive reading of the UK Chancellor's (finance minster's) latest speech to the City reveals the strain of ignoring what really limits Britain's ability to formulate a good response to its own double dip recession or to play a constructive role in the Eurozone crisis. In both cases, the root
The "Flame" worm is a reminder just how fragile is the digital space of freedom that we have known. I used to think that the dire warnings from Jonathan Zittrain of an end to generativity and network openness were unduly pessimistic. Here's why I've changed my mind
Rousseau, according to Simon Critchley, sees the problem of politics more clearly than many: if political institutions are to be self-created - autonomous - then what will motivate the "violent individualist" to assent to their constraints? Simon Critchley discusses his new book, The Faith of the
A short extract from the VociGlobali panel discussion at the Perugia journalism conference. Framed as an answer to James Curran's question: "Why has the Internet changed so little", the author proposes that the culprit was an optimistic confusion and causal reversal between Citizen and Journalist
A Scriberia animation describes the "Desertec" project - using solar power concentrators in North Africa and bringing power to Europe with High Voltage DC lines. Why not?
Our outgoing Editor-in-Chief introduces us to his successor, Magnus Nome, and invites us to share the kind of ambitions he has had for openDemocracy over the last six years and onwards into the future.
