Multipolarity, neutrality and peace
Why the world peace depends on small counties’ not taking sides?
Economics
Global Inequality and More.
Branko Milanovic on global inequality, economic systems, and geopolitical economy.
Recent essays
30 of 51Between South Korea and South Vietnam
A review of Volodymyr Ishchenko’s “Towards the Abyss: Ukraine from Maidan to War”
Destruction and despair
A review of “A Sentimental Journey 1917-1922” by Viktor Shklovsky
Against purposeful activity and Abrahamic religions in a world of abundance
A note on Keynes’ “Economic Possibilities…”
My cousin, a non-person
A twentieth-century story
Three types of literature regarding the world of AI
Economics, politics and philosophy for a new era
Lions of today, sheep of tomorrow
Review of Odd Arne Westad’s “The Coming Storm”
On European hypocrisy and warmongering
When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the world reactions were predictable.
The spirit of the nineties and the malaise of today
It does not require great originality nor insightfulness to contrast the world of the 1990s and that of today.
Apocalypse, When?
On a new film about the Reagan-Gorbachev 1986 summit in Reykjavik
The strange case of China’s urban consumption
Why are rich not consuming?
Ukraine, Lenin and Sultan-Galiev
Re-reading Richard Pipes’ "The Formation of the Soviet Union"
More on Trotsky and interpretation of Trotsky
A quick reply to Alex Callinicos
Sketching the new dysto-utopian world with massive presence of artificial intelligence
A four-class society (a long read)
Don’t ask me about my profits, but let’s talk about your wages
How Western capitalists use China-bashing to deflect attention from their soaring profits
A self-absorbed giant
Dearth of Chinese lessons for the rest of the world
International development: From moralizing to calculations to laissez-faire to rhetoric
A review of Christian Christiansen’s “Designing Global Economic Equality”
A different game
On football’s extreme commercialization
Artificial intelligence and future of capitalism from a Marxist, and a neoclassical, point of view
What would be the likely effects of massive introduction of artificial intelligence in the economy, from the Marxist point of view?
99 percent Utopia and money
For full happiness is possible only in stagnation.
How the “virtues” of neoliberal globalization paved the way to its demise
Cosmopolitanism and competition find their nemesis
Asia’s Rise and the Self-Undermining Logic of Neoliberalism
My conversation with Alice Liu from the Carter Center
How severe is China’s growth slowdown (in historical perspective)?
There are many alarmist articles on China’s growth slowdown (for a nice specimen, see here).
The facts of the European (EU27) income convergence
How is Europe becoming more equal
Yuri Andropov: A man who could have become another Deng Xiaoping...or not
A review of Zhores Medvedev’s “Andropov”
“There is a great disorder under the heaven. The situation is excellent”
A review of Westad and Chen, The Great Transformation: China’s Road from Revolution to Reform
To work or not to work
Can nations not work hard and continue to prosper?
The ideological implications of China’s economic success
This essay is a (modest) attempt to look at the meaning of China’s experience as the country is being poised to become this year or the next, according to the official World Bank classification, a high-income economy.
A pedagogical tax
Why the rich should be Uber-taxed
Why We All Care About Inequality (But Are Loath to Admit It)
Is it envy or justice?