The Thin End

We need to see the bigger picture. While populist politicians turn inward and argue about migration, the world burns literally.  Instead of erecting barriers, they need to address the causes of migration.  We need international action on climate change.  Climate change is the biggest challenge we face. It is the bigger picture.  When I started The Thin End blog, it was heavily focused on the political aftermath of the financial crash.  In the UK, and elsewhere, politicians made the poorest, and least able bear the brunt of the banking scandal.  The capitalist system could 'no longer afford' to help the poor, to house the homeless and heal the sick!  The stark naked truth of its objective - growth for profit - was revealed. Any growth would do, even if it killed the planet.  A self-destructive growth on which a few grow very, very rich.  Of course, we all benefitted, didn't we?  Growth creates jobs and income we are told.  S...

The Thin End considers how growth has become a political mantra and how bad trade pollutes the planet and fuels climate change, and the suggestion that there should be carbon taxes. Subscribe to The Thin End Follow @Ray_Noble1

Whether we leave the European Union or whether we stay, the United Kingdom must put environmental protection and climate change at the top of our agenda.  We must break the link between economic growth and habitat destruction. This is a major political challenge because it requires us all to change our expectations about how we live in the future, and it requires the government to make bold decisions, where currently lip-service is paid.   It means breaking the neoliberal mythology of free markets and growth.  We need a new economic and social narrative. Brexit is not a solution; nor is it a start.  It takes us in the wrong direction - the direction of seeking trade deals at any cost, an not least with the United States. One problem with the financial crisis of 2008/9 is that it focused attention on the banking system as if it could be separated from global economics.  It fostered the notion that all that was needed was to reform the banks and all would be...

President Trump is right. There is something wrong with global trade, and with the deals that make them possible. What we need, however, are the right kind of solutions. Solutions that help the producers, the farmer and farm workers, as much as the consumers. Solutions that help the planet heal itself from pollution and loss of habitats. Solutions that lift people out of poverty. Solutions that prevent the 'need' to grow crops destined to destroy lives through narcotics abuse. a new deal on trade We need a new global deal that produces sustainable economies with social and environmental objectives. The G7 scurry around trying to repair a broken system. They are rightly angry that Trump has given up on that system, but neither Trump nor the G7 have the right solutions. So they fight over the entrails of a broken system. The neoliberal view of 'free markets' meeting needs is a myth.  Markets are neither 'free'  nor good at meeting social and  environmental n...