Wealth, wellbeing and change
Tony Judt has died. In his important last book, Ill Fares The Land, dictated under the impact of his fatal motor-neurone illness, he reflects on why social democracy has failed to offer effective resistance to the onslaught of late 20th century capitalism, let alone organise an alternative to it. In a striking section he argues that in the late 18th century the revolution had already been won as enlightenment arguments changed the language and terms of debate in which society was conceived.
August 11, 2010