The United Kingdom’s protracted attempt to leave the European Union has upended the two illusions by which the world has lived since the end of the Cold War: national sovereignty and economic integration, the twin end points of history, according to Francis Fukuyama’s celebrated 1989 essay.
Category: Project Syndicate
The AI Road to Serfdom?
LONDON – Surveys from round the world show that people want secure jobs. At the same time, they have always dreamed of a life free from toil. The “rise of the robots” has made the tension between these impulses palpable.
Rhymes from Central Europe
LONDON – On December 3, 2018, the Central European University announced that from September 2019 it would relocate most of its teaching from Budapest to Vienna. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government had, in effect, closed down the CEU, founded by Orbán’s favourite bogeyman, George Soros. “Arbitrary eviction of a reputable university is a flagrant violation of academic freedom,” declared the university’s rector, Michael Ignatieff. “It is a dark day for Europe and a dark day for Hungary.”
The Continuing Agony of Brexit
LONDON – So British Prime Minister Theresa May lives to fight another day. The Conservative Party in the House of Commons reaffirmed its confidence in her leadership by a far-from-resounding 200-117 vote. It is hard to think of another British prime minister whose leadership has been in such continuous crisis. Not so much an iron lady as a stubborn and dogged one, May has begun another round of effort to extract a few further concessions from European leaders to make her divorce agreement more palatable to her party, if not a majority of the public.
The Case for Compensated Free Trade
Almost all liberals support globalization and oppose economic nationalism. They ignore the mounting evidence that, in its current form, globalization is dangerously incompatible with democracy.
The Brexit Endgame
LONDON – The United Kingdom’s “Remainers,” who still hope to reverse Britain’s decision to leave the European Union, have placarded British cities with a simple question: “Brexit – Is It Worth It?” Well, is it?
Good Politics, Bad Economics
LONDON – Bad economics breeds bad politics. The global financial crisis, and the botched recovery thereafter, put wind in the sails of political extremism. Between 2007 and 2016, support for extremist parties in Europe doubled. France’s National Rally (formerly the National Front), Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), Italy’s League party, the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ), and the Sweden Democrats have all made electoral gains in the past two years. And I haven’t even mentioned Donald Trump or Brexit.
Protectionism for Liberals
LONDON – Liberal revulsion at US President Donald Trump’s mendacious and uncouth politics has spilled over into a rigid defense of market-led globalization. To the liberal, free trade in goods and services and free movement of capital and labor are integrally linked to liberal politics. Trump’s “America First” protectionism is inseparable from his diseased politics.
The British History of Brexit
LONDON – Since June 23, 2016, when 52% of British voters backed withdrawing from the European Union, the “Brexit” debate has been tearing British politics apart. Although the Brexit referendum was non-binding, then-Prime Minister David Cameron’s government, expecting a vote in favor of “Remain,” had promised to honor the result. Britain, late to join the EU, will be the first member state to leave it, with the exit date set for March 2019.
Putin Family Values
LONDON – The fixation on the ongoing World Cup, during which an estimated one million foreign football fans, many from Europe and the United States, are expected to converge on Moscow and other Russian cities, risks masking the extent to which Russia and the West have drifted apart. In fact, relations between the two sides nowadays are purely functional; a new Cold War has started.
Robert Skidelsky 