Economic Conditions

The environmental crisis under way is unique in human history. It is a true existential crisis. Those alive today will decide the fate of humanity. Meanwhile, the leaders of the most powerful state in human history are dedicating themselves with passion to destroying the prospects for organized human life. At the same time, there is a solution at hand, which is the Green New Deal. Putting meat on the bones of the Green New Deal starts with a single simple idea: we have to absolutely stop burning fossil fuels to produce energy within the next 30 years at most; and we have to do this in a way that also supports rising living standards and expanding opportunities for working people and the poor throughout the world. This version of a Green New Deal program is, in fact, entirely realistic in terms of its purely economic and technical features. The real question is whether it is politically feasible. Chomsky and Pollin examine how we can build the political force to make a global Green New Deal a reality.

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THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

‘This is a brilliant book. Buy it, read it and weep’ The Times

‘The antidote to naivety that our political class needs’ Sunday Times, Book of the Week

‘A treasure trove of killer facts’ Guardian

‘Read it, absorb it, and understand how the country works’ Laura Kuenssberg

‘If you want to understand why crazy politics routinely trumps economic rationality in government choices, read this’ Robert Peston

Paul Johnson and the enormously respected Institute for Fiscal Studies aim to hold Government to account – without which politicians will get away with their half-truths, elisions and dubious claims. This is a forensic examination – by the man best placed to do so – of the way the state raises and spends £1 trillion of our money every year. To follow the money. To provide an explanation, of where that money comes from and where it goes to, how that has changed and how it needs to change.

Government decisions determine the welfare of the poor and the elderly, the state of the health service, the effectiveness of our children’s education, and how prepared we are for the future: whether that is a pandemic or global warming. As a society, we are a reflection of what the government spends.

Johnson looks at what happened following the financial crisis of 2008-09 and the austerity years that followed. He examines the way that the government tackled the economy during Covid – when the UK budget shot up to over a trillion for the first time – and he analyses prospects for our future as we grapple with looming recession and the cost of living crisis.

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The revival of a classic work of journalism which exposes the gap between the official story and reality

Proxy wars, it seems, are more openly practiced than ever–and yet one of the worst of these was suppressed and “forgotten” even in its own time. At the height of the McCarthy era and the inception of the Cold War, the great journalist I.F. Stone released The Hidden History of the Korean War, a courageous work of investigative journalism that demolished the official story of America’s so-called “forgotten war.” As the war spiraled to its conclusion, Stone closely analyzed openly available U.S. intelligence narratives on the war’s official start, and the actions of key players like John Foster Dulles, General Douglas MacArthur, and Chiang Kai-shek. The result of his investigations was a controversial book that raised questions about the origin of the war, made a case that the U.S. government had manipulated the United Nations, and gave evidence that the U.S. military and South Korean oligarchy dragged out the war by sabotaging peace talks. With a new introduction by Tim Beal and Greg Elich, 70 years after its initial publication The Hidden History of the Korean War remains a powerful dissemination of the ‘hidden history’ behind the dominant historical narrative, as relevant as ever.

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