Ann Pettifor – Political economist, author and public speaker

The market for dystopia – my choice of a book for our time.

December 13, 2019 February 23, 2020 / Uncategorized

My review of Karl Polanyi’s The Great Transformation appeared in Nature magazine on 13 December, 2019. From the introduction to the editor’s choice of seven books: “From planetary change to geopolitical recalibrations, 2019 has been convulsive. The year saw millions worldwide protesting against governmental inaction on the cascading crises in the global environment. Anxiety over …

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The City of London’s distress because real change may be coming…

December 10, 2019 December 10, 2019 / Uncategorized

Alarm bells are distress signals. As this election campaign reaches its climax the Financial Times registers high levels of investor distress as its wealthy readers panic over the possibility that real change is coming. The change they fear is not automation and AI. No, it’s the possibility that “If Labour come to power on this …

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Notes for a speech to a meeting of TUC leaders

November 19, 2019 December 10, 2019 / Uncategorized

These rough notes were prepared by me for an informal address to a gathering of British and German trade union leaders, hosted by the TUC and by the German Social Democrat think-tank, the Friederich Ebert Stiftung. The address took place just as Britain’s General Election of 2019 was launched. There have been three big issues …

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Quincy Jones, Bono, Willie Colón – and the burden of sovereign debt.

October 11, 2019 October 11, 2019 / Debt, Globalisation, Sovereign debt, Sovereign Insolvency

On the eve of the 2019 annual meetings of the World Bank and IMF, we are once again alerted to a rise in the debt burdens of low-income countries. Last year the total external debt of both low- and middle-income countries climbed 5.3 percent to $7.8 trillion, while net debt flows (gross disbursements minus …

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The Green New Deal – Chatham House interview

October 4, 2019 October 4, 2019 / Credit, Credit Creation, Ecosystem, Green New Deal

What is at the core of the Green New Deal? What is it trying to do? The Green New Deal as developed in Britain in 2008 is based on the understanding that finance, the economy and the ecosystem are all tightly bound together. Protecting and restoring the ecosystem to a balanced state cannot be …

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How the sexist ‘Nobel Prize’ in economics has warped the world

September 25, 2019 September 25, 2019 / Economic Orthodoxy, Financial Crisis, International Financial System

The following hastily written piece appeared in Left Foot Forward on 25th September, 2019. The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics will be 50 years old next month. One thing unites all its winners, bar one: they have all been male. This is not just an affront to equality. In overlooking brilliant female economists, the Swedish …

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Balance of Power: The Economic Consequences of the Peace at 100

September 25, 2019 October 4, 2019 / Anglo-American Financial Crisis, Banking Crisis, Book Reviews, Financial Crisis, Keynes

My review of John Maynard Keynes’s The Economic Consequences of the Peace Macmillan (2019) appeared in Nature – the International Journal of Science – on 23 September, 2019. “Ann Pettifor finds astonishing contemporary resonance in John Maynard Keynes’s critique of globalization and inequity.” In December 1919, John Maynard Keynes published a blistering attack on the …

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How the Green New Deal was born by Hettie O’Brien, New Statesman

September 25, 2019 September 25, 2019 / Biz and corporations, Green New Deal

The following article appeared in the New Statesman on 24th September, 2019. Please note the error at the end of the piece: Since the Paris Climate Agreement three years ago, J.P. Morgan Chase have reportedly lent $196 billion, not $1.96 billion to fossil fuel industries, oil, coal and gas. The figure is drawn from the …

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Interview at The World Transformed, Brighton, 21st September, 2019

September 21, 2019 October 4, 2019 / Uncategorized

Open Democracy’s ‘OurEconomy’ took part in this year’s edition of The World Transformed, a political and cultural festival with over 6000 attendees running alongside the UK Labour Party conference that aims to build progressive power. We took the opportunity to catch up with some of the figures leading the movement for a new economy, …

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Visions for a zero carbon economy from two generations of climate activists

September 20, 2019 October 4, 2019 / Uncategorized

The climate crisis has been forced back on to the front pages by Greta Thunberg and the climate school strikers. In the upcoming first issue of the New Economics Zine, Jamie Margolin, a teenage climate activist, and Ann Pettifor, a seasoned economist and member of the original Green New Deal group, share their motivations …

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