Keynes, Hobhouse, Hobson

It seems that these days my mild social liberalism makes me a semi-marxist, a semi-communist when it comes to economic policy. The European and US political and economic elites have internalized some crazily un-empirical free market views (from Queen Victoria, I suppose) that seem to be unshakeable come hell or high water. (High water it seems will certainly come, would not be so sure of hell not appearing either, with these trends.) On some level, so far, if not farsically then at least not as seriously as last time, we have the 1930's come again: a classical Keynesian slump "addressed" (after the biggest crisis was remedied by cheap money and activist central banks) by mostly anti-Keynesian "remedies". Especially in Europe, especially by Frankfurt and Berlin (Germany really seems to have the knack to pave the way for right wing extremism in Europe). It is a curious process to follow from the sidelines - not much learned from history, it seems. Maybe not so surprising in these ahistorical times.