Michael Roberts blog
Blogging from a Marxist economist
Recent Analysis
Adam Smith: 250 years
This week 250 years ago, Adam Smith published An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations – and invented economics. Made up of five ‘books’ over 1000 pages, the Wealth of Nations is really the ‘old testament bible’ of classical political economy, with David Ricardo’s Principles of Economics, written in 1819, as the…
Trump’s Hobson’s choice
Today the crude oil topped $95 per barrel, despite the International Energy Agency (IEA) approving its largest-ever release of emergency oil reserves, with member states set to release 400 million barrels. That had little effect on the oil price because Iraq had to halt operations at its oil terminals after two oil tankers were targeted…
China: the 15th National Plan
The Chinese government is just completing its annual ‘two sessions’ or lianghui. The ‘two sessions’ refers to two major political gatherings: the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), a political advisory committee; and the National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s top legislative body. These are ostensibly not meetings of the Communist Party, but instead are meetings…
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