"The World We're In" by Will Hutton

[Chris Burford <cburford@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Does anyone know this new book? It is clearly a reference to his earlier
book "The State We're In" which attacked the lack of social coherence in
neo-liberal Britain under the Conservatives from a reformist capitalist
perspective. It is starting to influence commentators.

Hutton was the economics editor of the Guardian, then Editor of the
Observer, and knows his political economics very thoroughly. The latest
book appears to be an attack on US financial hegemony.

All I have seen so far is a critical article in the International Herald
Tribune taken from the Washington Post, by Sebastian Mallaby, today,
lamenting "Insults back and forth over the Atlantic".


It ends with a deliberately ominous warning:

> The effects of this dynamic are visible across a range of
> European-American issues, from the fractious trade relationship to the
> doubts about NATO's future to the clash over multilateral initiatives such
> as the International Criminal Court. Alliances, however deep their roots,
> cannot withstand endless mutual acrimony.


The article appears to be based on a review in the FT of May 4 by John
Lloyd, described as "another prominent leftist intellectual". Lloyd's
review shows his own loyalty to globalised neo-liberal values:

> Finally, it pits the EU against the US. It insists that since the former
> has the right view of society and the globe, it must be more determined in
> repelling the US model and more aggressive in promoting its own. But that
> is both undesirable and unlikely. Undesirable, because for the sake of the
> world as for themselves, accord between the two greatest economic centres
> in the world on the most important matters of life, morals and economy,
> dictates continuing broad agreement - as on the present serious trade
> disputes, which Hutton, characteristically, blames entirely on the US.
> Unlikely, because the US and western Europe - indeed, increasingly, the
> rest of Europe, which Hutton ignores - are part of a common "civilisation"
> whose rules, thankfully, are becoming more general in a globalising world,
> and which offer the best hope to counter its many and obvious dangers.


But even though Hutton is funamentally a moralist and will indulge in vivid
journalistic  formulations, his economic criticisms will not be nonsense,
and will probably suggest viable reforms from a social democratic point of
view.

Even if the rival imperialist blocs patch over their differences, some
changes may be part of the agenda.

Has anyone read even bits of the book, in the original?


Chris Burford

London