Political economy

Arguing for a limit on the power of money, [John Maynard Keynes] was faithful to a long tradition of political economy that was concerned with the balance of interests and the dangers of financial domination.

Ten years ago, David Simon’s iconic TV series The Wire portrayed contemporary Baltimore as wracked by illegal drug use, violent crime and failing institutions. But underneath the symptoms were the structures of political economy. As the show’s tagline had it, “everything is connected”.

Everywhere, international opposition to capitalism's global reach would have been fiercer; the Wall Street–City of London–Frankfurt axis that was to shape so much of global political economy in the 1990s and beyond would have been weaker.