October 2016

October 2016 issue

Past issues

Essays

©PATRIC SANDRI/ REX SHUTTERSTOCK

Updated: Industrial policy—hands-on economics

Mexican army soldiers guard $15m in cash seized from Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman's drug cartel, November 2011 ©YURI CORTEZ/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Is it time to phase out (most) paper currency?

A sheep in sheep's clothing: Attlee campaigning in his Limehouse constituency leading up to the July 1945 election. ©POPPERFOTO/GETTY IMAGES

Clement Attlee's progressive pilgrimage

Fantasy island: Utopia navigates the tempestuous sea between the real and the ideal. ©ILLUSTRATIONS BY MAT ROFF

Thomas More’s vision for all seasons

Joanne Paul plus other contributors

"Stiglitz once hailed globalisation. But now his verdict on the next stage is: 'you might not want to do it'" © PAUL HEARTFIELD

Interview: Joseph Stiglitz—economics and its discontents

A "proudly feminist" Justin Trudeau (front row, second from the right) with his gender balanced cabinet in 2015 ©XINHUA/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK

New female leaders: the ascent of woman

Scrapping cash: don’t let the banks coin it

The lure of sovereignty: the March for Independence, Glasgow 2016 ©COLIN MCPHERSON/CORBIS VIA GETTY IMAGES

British, American and European politics: federal flaw

©Andrew Matthews/PA Wire/Press Association Images

A real industrial revolution

Mariana Mazzucato

Regulars

Stephen Collins's cartoon: Identity thinkpiece generator

Stephen Collins

Foreword: October 2016—Don't stop thinking about tomorrow

The Duel: Should party whips be abolished?

James Graham & Julian Baggini

Billy Budd is Benjamin Britten's most psychologically complex opera

Prospect recommends: The best opera this month

Surreal dream: James Ensor's The Intrigue (1980) ©DACS 2016

Prospect recommends: The best art this month

Emma Crichton-Miller

Prospect recommends: The best classical music this month

Alexandra Coghlan

©Norwich Science Festival

Prospect recommends: The best science exhibitions this month

Prospect recommends: The best theatre this month

Michael Coveney

If I ruled the world… I’d let the truth out

Yuval Noah Harari

Sasha Lane plays Star in American Honey ©UNIVERSAL PICTURES

Prospect recommends: the best films this month

(From the left) International Trade Secretary Liam Fox, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and Brexit Secretary David Davis leave 10 Downing Street, London, for a Cabinet meeting, as European Union migrants will need to secure a job before they are allowed t

Your Brexit journey planner

Wolfgang Munchau

Opinions

Jeremy Corbyn speaks to supporters at a rally in Parliament Square in late June ©Dominic Lipinski/PA Wire/Press Association Images

Labour's death by enthusiasm

Chinese President Xi Jinping, right, shakes hand with British Prime Minister Theresa May, prior to their meeting, at the West Lake State House, in Hangzhou, China., Monday, Sept. 5, 2016 ©Etienne Oliveau/AP/Press Association Images

Trade deals will take time

Brexpat blues

Scott Morgan/AP/Press Association Images

Is Gary Johnson magic?

The flag of the European Union ©Lukas Schulze/DPA/PA Images

Let’s see off a Brexit of human rights

Shami Chakrabarti

Pupils sit an exam ©David Jones/PA Wire/Press Association Images

Grammar schools and hard knocks

Arts & Books

Angela Carter paid the price for being so resolutely wayward and opinionated ©LIAM WHITE/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

Angela Carter's taste for the fantastic

Norbert Wiener, the father of cybernetics, with the robot known as Palomilla

Rise of the robots: I feedback, therefore I am

Busts of Karl Marx for sale in Germany, 2008 ©DPA PICTURE ALLANDE ARCHIVE/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

Karl Marx: Soho revolutionary

Books in brief: The History Thieves

Books in brief: The Arab of the Future 2—A Childhood in the Middle East, 1984-5

Books in brief: The Water Kingdom

Books in brief: The Wealth of Humans

Books in brief: The Pigeon Tunnel

The great enrichment: Wentworth Works, file and steel manufacturers and exporters of iron in Sheffield c.1860 ©EVERETT COLLECTION/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES

Economic history: ideas that built the world

Deirdre McCloskey

Books in brief: The Ethical Carnivore

Books in brief: Another Day in the Death of America

Books in brief: That Was the Church that Was

Books in brief: The Journalist in British Fiction and Film

Society and Culture

©Wikimedia commons

Life of the mind: a way with words

©Giorgio Galeotti

DIY Investor: the Bank knows best

©Tomas Castelazo

Wine: tantalising taste of another Turkey

©Robert Harding/Alamy stock photo

Matters of taste: flocking to Shetland

Wendell Steavenson

Leith on life: hitting the rocks