The Welfare State is dead – long live the Kinky State

March 30, 2014June 27, 2019 Karl H RichterLeave a comment

I don’t mean the type of adulterous scooter socialism enjoyed by French President Francois Hollande – I mean an agile and nimble State that is deftly able to do more with less. Kinky like an inflection point in a trend line. Kinky as in ‘crinkled’ and ‘intertwined’ and ‘complex’ and ‘strikingly unconventional’. Kinky like talk about the rise of smart power in a multi-polar world – because this is the new practical reality, not because the laissez-faire types won the ideological debate about the size of the state. Quite the contrary, it’s dangerous to mistake coincidence for causality.

Social investing : fixing capitalism with capitalism

July 19, 2012September 11, 2012 Karl H Richter2 Comments

Capitalism – in its current form – has let us down. We have seen this truism manifest itself globally, from the disruptive protests of the “Occupy” movements to mainstream debates such as Capitalism in Crisis, the in-depth series that the Financial Times ran at the beginning of 2012.

#OccupyLSX camp outside London Stock Exchange/ St Paul’s Cathedral in 2011 (image digitally altered from original)

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Global Impact Economy Forum. US State Dept, Washington DC, 26 & 27 April 2012

May 7, 2012March 2, 2017 Karl H Richter3 Comments

I recently went to Washington to learn about the new global impact economy being advocated by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and specifically to find out whether it is aligned with social business and social investment initiatives in Europe. Indeed, there is much more commonality than disparity, and (hopefully) this is the beginning of […]

The Future of Economic Governance in the EU: And where does this leave Britain [and the other 26]?

March 11, 2012March 12, 2012 Karl H Richter1 Comment

“The real issue at stake is how the EU can maintain its influence and its relevance in a changing world”, said Lord David Howell, UK Minister of State for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, in his keynote speech of the conference. “There is no distinction between Eurozone and non-Eurozone members at all”.