Mikhail Gorbachev's “restructuring” of the Soviet economy has, in his words, created “turmoil”. It has also led to protests on moral grounds. This restructuring attempts to decentralise decision making, introduce effective cost accounting, expand consumer choice, and relate production to...

Neither Marxists and Hegelians nor most supporters of market economies believe that we can really choose an economic system. Historical laws and economic realities undermine our attempts. Explores the problem of predicting any human future and examines background views of human nature which...

Lenin argued that nationalism should be supported against colonialism, though ultimately subordinated to the interests of the working class. He admitted there were linguistic and cultural issues, but associated the nation state chiefly with capitalist economics. Contrasts Lenin′s historical...

Examines the relationship between economics and culture. Discusses the role of Protestantism, Calvanism and Catholicism in the affluency of societies. Refers to the article by D.J. O′Neil in this issue which discusses the works of Horace Plunkett, Edward Banfield and George Foster, who applied...

It is easy to show that economists are involved in questions with moral aspects. It is harder to show that any of the involvements arise within economic theories and harder still to show that the problems are capable of being dealt with by extensions of those theories. In this article, I shall...

Civilisation is not possible unless aggression can be brought under control. It is armed aggression – aggression by governments and by groups that hope to become governments – that most strongly threatens human survival. About this, Freud’s theorizing most strongly captures the...

Communication systems are structured by economic forces which use them to optimise sales, and politicians who increasingly live by slogans and repeated sound bites. Both want people to act without much reflection, and may threaten to turn human beings into imitiations of the computers they use....