Ill Fares the Land by Tony Judt

Ill Fares the Land Reviews

• 
  Kelly

  Tony Judt is attempting to do three things here: (1)- make an argument for the virtues of "the state" in general, (2) make a more specific argument for the particular system of social democracy and (3) to "give guidance to those- the young especially- trying to articulate their objections to our way of life." He wants people of my generation (at least those of a lefty disposition) to realize all the reasons they have to be angry about things and to be WAY angrier than most of us are now.
  
  The main ideas I found interesting here:
  
  - He really really hates that so much of political conversation is framed in economic terms of profit and loss. He wants ethics back in politics. He writes in a long and involved way about the need to redefine the conversation in ethical terms, redefining what the words "value" and "efficiency" really means (the argument most often rested on by those who argue that the private sector can do everything better). He quotes a student at the beginning of the book saying that: "What is most striking about what you say is not so much substance as the form: you speak of being angry at our political quiescence; you write of the need to dissent from our economically-driven way of thinking, the urgency of a return to an ethically informed public conversation. No one talks like this anymore." He wants to change the conversation.
  
  - He spends a lot of time addressing the question: Why is there no socialism in America? I found this fascinating- he points out that before the 1970s, socialism was not a dirty word in America. From the 1940s-1970s, social democracy was actually the majority consensus. Those who wanted to take it apart in any way (such as Barry Goldwater for instance) were considered mad, self interested and generally confined to the margins. It took the baby boomer generation growing up in a world of unprecedented security and resenting the "costs" of all the social programs that had been implemented in order for the disrespect and disdain for the state to begin. It's a good reminder that there was nothing "inevitable" about socialism being derided in America- nothing in the independent pioneer spirit or anything like that.
  
  - One fascinating small point was his idea that the selfish economic spirit that came about in the 80s with Reagan and Thatcher was partially to be blamed on the individualistic movement of the 60s which focused on self-expression: "What united the '60s generation was not the interest of all, but the needs and rights of each. Individualism- the assertion of every person's claim to maximized freedom and the unrestrained liberty to express autonomous desires and have them respected and institutionalized by society at large- became the left-wing watchword of the hour. Doing 'your own thing,' 'letting it all hang out,' 'making love, not war': these are not inherently unappealing goals, but they are of their essence private objectives, not public goods... The politics of the '60s thus devolved into an aggreggation of individual claims upon society and the state."
  
  - Judt also spends a lot of time focusing on the idea that societies where people are more equal are demonstrably safer and happier societies. I found this argument somewhat troublesome because of the aspect where he essentially argues that: people are more inclined to trust each other if they feel they have a lot "in common" with them- ie, not only economic equality, but cultural and racial identity as well. He makes the uncomfortable assertion that "Frankly, the English and Dutch peoples are not much interested in sharing their social systems with their former colonial subjects." So.. basically socialism can only work in homogenous societies? He doesn't really give an answer to how this can then work in a heterogeneous, melting pot world where it is unlikely that you will find that 98% of people are of the same ethnic background. Is he saying that social democracy works best in Scandanavia because of the relatively low levels of diversity? Or just that we should substitute economic "sameness" for ethnic "sameness" in order to get that same feeling of trust? I wasn't quite sure what he was doing with this argument, but I didn't like it.
  
  - I also really liked the parts where he was trying to inspire lefties to not give up on their ideals in the face of people spitting crap about "freedom" at them. I really liked his question that, esssentially: Why is it that these free-market Republicans are all for "freedom" in the economic sphere, but when it comes to civil liberties and civil rights, their shouts about "freedom" are nowhere to be found? An oft repeated idea, but seeing it laid out in such a well supported, damning way was pretty satisfying.
  
  - He also seems to have a lot of faith in "young people," which I appreciated. He says that my generation is a new "lost generation," which needs a moral framework to inspire them to fight for something. I liked that he didn't just dismiss the young as a selfish, me-centered generation, but one that's looking for something to believe in and feeling like they get disappointed at every turn. I was also really interested by his discussion of single issue groups: the idea that so many young people who want to get involved choose organizations like Amnesty International or Greenpeace, rather than forming any kind of sweeping movement that stands for general moral principles or rebellion. Single issue groups offer clearer moral choices and are easier to work for with a clear conscience- but these single issue groups do battle with each other for attention and time rather than coalescing into a larger movement that might be able to get something done. It was an interesting way to look at these movements.
  
  Overall? I'd say the biggest flaw with this book is that I felt like a lot of his ideas could be considered rather romanticized, based on big ideas of philosophy rather than being always grounded in as many facts as they should perhaps be. For instance, he goes off on some old style Left flights of fancy- like the whole chapter he devotes to the virtues of the railroad as symbolic of modernity and an ethical collective project that binds people together.
  
  But I do think that the book serves as a good reminder of what those of a Liberal disposition stand for or should stand for, why they should be proud to stand for it, and what conversations we should really be having in this country. Since I think that the biggest problem plaguing is the absolutely horrible state of our political discourse, this book was more than worth it for me.
  
  (Here's an excerpt of the first chapter for the interested:
  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/17/boo...)
• 
  Kuszma

  „A közjó érdekében társadalmi cselekvést javasolni a londoni Citynek olyan, mint hatvan évvel ezelőtt egy püspökkel beszélgetni A fajok eredeté-ről.”
  (John Maynard Keynes)
  
  Aggodalommal átszőtt elemzés arról, hogy nagy baj van. A szkeptikus olvasó megvonja a vállát, na ja, nagy baj van, mindig nagy baj van, most éppen miért? Judt 2010-es szövege a baloldal kiüresedésére hívja fel a figyelmet, amire megint csak - rövid időn belül másodszor - megvonja a vállát az elébb említett szkeptikus olvasó, sőt, ha mellesleg jobboldali is, még pezsgőt is bont. Pedig a baloldal kiüresedése egyben a demokrácia kiüresedését is jelenti, érvel Judt, mégpedig azért, mert a piac túlhatalmának ellensúlyozására mindig szükség van egy határozott, markáns baloldalra, enélkül a jövedelmi egyenlőtlenségek brutálisan megszaladnak. (Ahogy azt amúgy tapasztaljuk is.) Csakhogy napjaink baloldala minden, csak nem markáns, hogy mást ne mondjak, a magyar baloldali pártok csak annyiban különböznek a kormánypárttól (ami mérsékelten jobboldali, de erről később), hogy más nevek vannak a taglistájukon. Jó, hát akad némi eltérés a retorikájukban, kevesebbet karattyolnak például Istenről, hazáról és nemzeti szuverenitásról. Különben meg olyanok, mintha a fidesz kispadja lennének: ott üldögélnek és várják, hátha véletlen lesérül az első sor, és akkor majd pályára léphetnek. De amúgy ugyanaz a csapat.
  
  (No most itt rögtön szükségessé válik bizonyos definíciók tisztázása. Amit Judt véd, az nem a szocializmus. Hanem a szociáldemokrácia. A szociáldemokrácia abban különbözik a szocializmustól, hogy elfogadja a kapitalizmust – és a liberális demokráciát – mint keretet, azon belül akar küzdeni a társadalmi igazságosságért. Elsődleges eszköze az állami újraelosztás, vagyis a beszedett – többnyire progresszív – adókból arányosan többet juttat vissza a szegényeknek. Úgy gondolja, ez az újraelosztás az állam legfontosabb feladata, amit a szabadpiaci kapitalizmus nem képes elvégezni, hisz nem jár számára számszerűsíthető haszonnal. Ezt a kiegészítést még akkor is meg kellett ejtenem, ha közben tudom, azok, akik zsigerből utasítják el a baloldalt – pontosabban mindenkit, aki tőlük balra áll -, az efféle finomságokra nem fogékonyak. Nekik alkalmasint mindenki komcsi libernyák, oszt kész.)
  
  No de miért vesztette el nimbuszát a baloldal? Judt szerint elsősorban azért, mert a második világháború utáni években a kontinentális Európában szinte minden célját elérte. Ekkor (talán a kommunizmustól való félelem miatt is) egy párt sem volt, aki elzárkózott volna egy széles társadalmi konszenzustól, aminek következtében ekkorra datálható nyugaton a ma ismert (és megszokott) szociális védőháló létrejötte. Csakhogy amikor ezzel megvoltak, a ’60-as évek során a baloldal irányt váltott, és a gazdasági egyenlőség helyett áttért a különböző identitáskérdések képviseletére. Kisebbségi jogok, nők jogai, illetve az USA-ban a feketék jogai lettek a slágertémák, az egyéni méltóság zászlaját emelték magasra, hanyagolva a monstre társadalmi kérdéseket. Amivel igazából nincs baj, ha csak az nem, hogy ha egy irányzat ennyire a kisebbségek mellett kötelezi el magát, akkor maga is szükségszerűen kisebbségi irányzattá válik. A gazdasági-jóléti kérdésektől való elfordulás pedig egy űrt teremtett, amire a konzervatívok egy idő után reagáltak, létrehozva a neoliberalizmus eszméjét, amely szerint a jóléti programok csak pénznyelők, hagyjuk hát gazdagodni a gazdagokat, és majd lecsorog a pénzük a szegényeknek is. Mivel a baloldal erre a kérdésre nem tudott markáns választ adni, a Reagan illetve Thatcher nevével fémjelzett politika úgy tudta hirdetni magát, mint aminek nincsen alternatívája. Így elkezdődött a szociális juttatások durva visszavágása, a privatizáció és a szakszervezetek letörése. Ebben a szituációban pedig még bénultabbá tette a baloldalt a Szovjetunió és csatlós országainak összeomlása, ami kissé magát a baloldalt is magával rántotta, hisz a jobboldal össze tudta mosni a szocializmus kudarcát a szociáldemokrácia eszméinek életképtelenségével.
  
  (Még egy közbevetés. Mindaz, amit eddig írtam és amiről Judt ír, elsősorban Nagy-Britannia és az USA helyzetére igaz, másodsorban és kisebb intenzitással pedig az európai kontinens országaira. A posztszocialista országokra, köztük hazánkra megszorításokkal vonatkozik. Azért, mert a posztszocialista jobboldal valójában sosem tudott/akart igazán konzervatív és igazán jobboldali lenni, legalábbis gazdasági értelemben nem. Ugyanis az ortodox jobboldal alapvetése a kis méretű állam és az alacsonyan tartott adók, ám Magyarországon a kádárizmusban szocializálódott szavazók megszokták az állami védőernyőt, ezért kifejezetten rosszul reagáltak, amikor azt megpróbálta valaki nyirbálni. Erre a fidesz is rájött. Magyarán a hazai viszonyokra kifejlesztett jobboldalnak ügyelnie kell, hogy fenntartsa a szociális védőernyő látszatát közmunkaprogrammal, színleg ingyenes oktatással és egészségüggyel*, 13. havi nyugdíjjal, ésatöbbi. Különben a választásokon beleállna a földbe. Nyilván ez egy költséges játék, ezért kell rekordszintű forgalmi és jövedelemadókat fizetni, de még így is csak addig működik, amíg 1.) jelentős a nemzetközi gazdasági növekedés, ami valamennyire az országhatárokon belülre is becsorog 2.) meg lehet pumpolni az EU fejlesztési forrásait 3.) el tudják terelni a szavazók figyelmét a fizetések reálértékének csökkenéséről a maguk „ostromlott vár vagyunk” retorikájával. De amíg működik, addig a jobboldal hagyományainak megfelelően mindent megtesznek, hogy Magyarországon is óriási jövedelmi szakadékok alakuljanak ki a gazdagok és szegények között.)
  
  Szóval a baloldal a padlón, a jobboldal pedig akadálytalanul végigviszi a maga elképzeléseit. Aminek következtében megint ott tartunk, hogy az USA-ban a leggazdagabb 1%-nak annyi pénze van, mint a legszegényebb 40%-nak. Ami egyfelől nyilván morális kérdés: nem marxizmus azt állítani, hogy akinek ennyi pénze van, annak igenis kutya kötelessége lenne csepegtetni belőle másnak is. De nem csepegtet. Mert valahogy elolvadt a társadalmi szolidaritás is – hiába hirdeti büszkén az államelnök, hogy mind egy nemzet fiai vagyunk, a bankszámláját csak magának hizlalja. (Jó, ha közeleg a választás, akkor oszt egy kis alamizsnát. Nyilván nem a sajátjából, hanem a költségvetési keretből, de akkor is.) Ugyanakkor ez az egész több, mint puszta moralitás. Ugyanis az egyenlőtlenségek társadalmi feszültségekhez vezetnek, amelyek minden esetben a demokrácia, sőt, az állam életesélyeit rontják**. Erre lehet példának felhozni az amerikai zavargásokat is, de akár a jobboldali populizmust is***. Pedig államra szükség van, hiszen neki vannak eszközei és legitimációja ahhoz, hogy meg tudja védeni állampolgárait a globális gazdasági folyamatoktól. De olyan államra, ami egyformán védeni kívánja minden polgárát, az alsó jövedelmi decilis tagjait éppúgy, vagy tán még kicsit jobban is, mint azt, aki megveszi magának a Balatont, ha pancsolni támad kedve. Mert ez már nem XIV. Lajos kora, hogy az ország vezetője (és a rokonok) maga legyen az állam – az állam lenn kezdődik, a nincsteleneknél.
  
  * Merthogy ugye az egészségügy ingyenes, ki tagadná. Úgyhogy ha komoly bajod van, akkor nyilván elmehetsz az ingyenes egészségügyet igénybe venni. De ha meg is akarsz gyógyulni, akkor inkább összekaparsz egy csomó pénzt, és elmész valami magánkórházba.
  ** Fontos update: az egyenlőtlenségnek gazdasági értelemben is vannak hátrányai, ugyanis a profitként leszívott tőke jelentős része inaktívvá válik, tehát nem pörgeti a gazdaságot, ehelyett parkolópályán piheg mondjuk egy Kajmán-szigeteki bankszámlán.
  *** Lenin kiröhögött volna, ha azt mondom neki, a nincstelen proletárok nem baloldali forradalmat robbantanak majd ki, hanem besorolnak a jobboldali pártok populista retorikája mögé. Mert nemzetiszínben még a nyomor is valahogy más.
• 
  Zanna

  Yawn yawn. The world is a miserable mess, billionaires are greedy, politicians do nothing because the dogma of free markets and small government is running the show, pretending private sector booms aren't just cashing out years (decades) of careful public sector investment and development. Nod nod nod. I can't figure out why Judt thinks he's so original here. he must be hanging out with the wrong crowd.
  
  He certainly isn't hanging out with the crowd I read anyway. Didn't Naomi Klein write a much less cringey (but still cringey) critique of 'identity politics' in No Logo? Seriously Tony, if you're going to complain about 'political correctness' 'relativism' 'excessive influence of special interests' 'narcissism' etc don't count on my vote. No matter how 'moral' the frustrated young folk you are addressing are in their approach to politics, they will have to do better than this. When you compare gated communities to African American Studies courses you are talking ahistorical assimilationist caca.
  
  Early on, talking about the benefits of social democracy (for which he thanks Keynes, extensively), Judt states that people trust each other more in ethnically homogenous countries (the data he uses comes, I think, from Wilkinson and Pickett's book The Spirit Level) and those with 'little anxiety about immigration' I was a little concerned that he left that hanging, but I waited patiently for him to return to this point in his 'What is to be Done?' chapters. I waited and waited! And he didn't come back to it, so we have to conclude that diversity is the problem, and it's immigration that destroys trust. Careless. Or he really means that.
  
  Oh the politicians of today. Pygmies! Not like Churchill!
  
  I wish I was irresponsibly satirizing, but I'm not, just condensing what he actually said.
  
  It gets my goat that I agree with him about many things. Yes, mixed economies work quite well. Yes, welfare is a good thing and governments need to stop stripping it away. Yes, the NHS is totally awesome. Yes it would be horrible if supermarkets were run by the state. Yes, Margaret Thatcher screwed us all. Too bloody right we need more economic equality.
  
  This makes me think that I might be voting for one of those white guys who comment on blog posts and articles saying 'forget about race, it's all about class' or 'it's sad that you feel this way. We're all just human' *shudder*
• 
  Mariel

  We no longer ask of a judicial ruling or a legislative act: is it good? Is it fair? Is it just? Is it right? Will it help bring about a better society or a better world? Those used to be the political questions, even if they invited no easy answers. We must learn once again to pose them.
  
  
  Last night a citizen in my county had another citizen Marchman acted because they "fit the profile" of a mass murderer; bullied in school and a loner now by choice. I expected the reaction to the recent school shooting to be another call for the removal of arms. I expected suspicion to turn on the different, and the mentally ill. That is what always happens. Why isn't the question posed about why it is so hard for the mentally handicapped that they couldn't get the help that they needed? James Holmes no longer had access to help for his schizophrenia when he went into a movie theater and killed Batman moviegoers. This doesn't happen because there are guns in the world. The recent killings in China were not done with guns. Society (I'd do air quotations here if we were in the same room) is a cold place. I don't see how disposing of people as garbage, or ignoring them into corner, isn't as an important issue as bounding people up tight in laws written across the sky. Surrender Dorothy. There is no place like home and I'd sell my own back yard to keep you from BBQing in it.
  
  Tony Judt agrees with me that society has forgotten about the people that live in it. Mine, mine, mine is the stick of the day. I don't see eye to eye with him on everything. A main thing is that I don't have a lot of faith in a set of unmovable laws (the charge that decides the sentence in courts of law widens the cracks for people to fall through) that is going to be right for everything and everyone (break your mama's back). I can't grasp a picture of everyone because I am depressed to my soul about how it is a-okay with many of my countrymen to target Muslims with a different set of laws. Change the group in history and it would be seen as bad. How can I grasp society if all you have to do is change the name and the rules change? It's okay to point fingers at one political party or the other and do fuck all to fix anything. No one is to blame as a whole or in segments by pointing at the peel.
  
  It's a weird book because sometimes he states that, for example, England wouldn't want to have their lives dictated by, say, Somalia. Moreover, they wouldn't want to shoulder anyone else. That is because people are not the same. I know that I would never borrow or lend outside of my own immediate family. It is different when you share your life with someone else. Individualism doesn't have to mean we pretend that we are not all people who are capable of wearing other hearts on our sleeves. From what I've read of Judt elsewhere (and hints here) he recognizes that these once well functioning societies don't really want to open their arms to everyone. WWII (with the exception of Russia and Bosnia, and look what happened there) moved everybody back to their "own place" (air quotations). Love, peace and harmony, as the great poet once said. Maybe on the dirty welcome mat next door. I don't want to be like that. Maybe there's a way to not pretend that everyone are brothers (who are not always nice, anyway) and also not pretend that you don't live together. That would be my utopian dream. Judt's heart was in the right place in writing this book. He cautions against idealizing the past and yet there is a whiff of nostalgia as strong as stepping into an elevator with a woman who liberally uses her perfume. I don't believe in the liberals in my country anymore when all of our representatives on both "sides" (my air violin) voted for indefinite detention (how anyone can still pretend there is a difference in light of this fact is beyond me). Why must one person rot in prison without trial or evidence so that someone else can "feel safe"? Visions of community rot away like a flashback on Saved by the Bell: The New Class. I read that he wrote this book before he died for his children and their generation. It is an emotional book. I liked a lot that he doesn't write people off as not giving a shit about their lives, as if it HAS to be a certain way even if it is that way now and has been too many times before. If you are going to have hope that would be necessary. My hope is in and out based on how many shitty news articles I've heard of the day. Based on people I've witnessed acted like a good person or an unmitigated asshole when they didn't have to be. Also, this book was written before the European bank bailouts. The landscape has changed already in a short couple of years. It is still kind of all over the place. It seems that looking for someone or some place to lead the way isn't going to work.
  
  
  I have felt many a pang of envy when reading about life in Germany, myself. Their treatment of juveniles (kids do not get executed as they do in Florida), or the safety nets in place if you lose your lob or get sick. I wish I could move to Germany. The United States is cruel. I'm not sure it is because of a lack social programs as much as it is corruption from officials. That people have easily fallen into calling social security (paid for by citizens all through their working lives) entitlements when it was stolen by the feds to fund their war (also, Judt makes a comment about how they can't just print money as if they weren't actually doing just that). This happens because people don't WANT to help each other. Myths about welfare queens are readily applied to all, nevermind that drug tests required to get the welfare cost a lot of money that people who need welfare to begin with cannot afford. A lot of untruths are sold on society. Is it because people don't give a shit about people on hard times, or is it because someone (government? media? Colluding forces?) want them to buy these stories? Never mind that people paid for their retirement that they are taxed on, that no one should have to work FOREVER, that social security actually had a surplus and our government lied to us (and they get away with it). What is all of this for, then? Never mind that "cuts have to be made" (Judt had a great point how they talk about making hard choices as a virtue instead of trying to help anyone) when the military budget was increased and billions are spent on Israel every year. Why aren't questions about this asked by every American? Why doesn't the UK ask why they have to be monitored on cameras as if they were all criminals? Why don't we. People don't trust each other and they don't ask why their government doesn't trust them.
  
  It is like how in the UK a board of directors can decide that women with faulty breast implants don't deserve medical care. In France they decided that it was going to be paid for by their national health care. I think this is probably too murky of an issue to get into for a book like this one (it is only just over 200 pages long). Socialism to work would have to be applied equally to all. Laws to work, it goes without saying, and that is something we do not have. Is it possible when people can decide that THAT group doesn't deserve what is a right for all? The European Union made a lot of mistakes, as I see it, anyway. That one doesn't have to pay taxes to where they move to within the union was a pretty big one. In Germany the rich all over the EU have bought up affordable homes for tax purposes. Laws are not written with the benefit of people in mind, that is for sure, even in the best of places. Why not? I agree with Judt that instead of throwing systems away that one should work on how to fix the problems within them. I'd work on how tax dollars are funneled out of one school district and given to another one based on falsely trumped up statistics. But, as Judt points out, when jobs are based on these problems the incentive to fix them isn't there. Isn't that the problem with leaving everything up to the government instead of people owning their own lives?
  
  Judt kept referring to what we have as a free market. I cannot fully embrace his book for all of his good intentions because of this. We do not have a free market and I am at a loss how he could have even written that we do. We have fascism. If government interference existed for the good of the people they would never have been allowed to move jobs overseas for corporate benefit (and not doing the Chinese slave laborers any favors there either). MUCH of the book is focused on the privatization of formerly federal institutions. He also failed to mention the rampant corruption and illegal moving between the private and public sectors. I thought that was a pretty important point. It isn't about saving Americans money in their tax dollars and turning a one time profit. Prisons are privatized and then laws are written to ensure more inmates to make those companies money. I can't trust a government that has sold us out on purpose. If there is an answer I don't think it is to write more laws. Florida sold away our water rights to the Nestle bottling company for a profit. Under the table. The bail outs no strings attached? That were used to given bonuses to the heads. More bail-outs were given AFTER this had happened with the same results. No provisions in place. There is a lot more at fault here than the citizens of the USA and Europe dismantling the old systems in place. It is virtually impossible for new businesses because of the laws written by the federal government. Not a free market.
  
  
  Judt mentions the loss in religious belief as a reason in the loss of any movement towards common goals. I have heard it said before that people don't have morals if they didn't have a religious background to rally around. I have thought about this a lot in the past because I wondered how I came on my opposing beliefs from some adults in my family. If people have some kind of frame to know people, if it is based on just themselves or the people they know intimately, if they take the time to care enough and think about those things, then shouldn't you be able to know right and wrong without a higher power giving you permission to think it? I'm also conscious that my widening of my world came from people I interacted with and the books that I read. This shit matters for all that we have our own minds. It should be both, is the best I can come up with. From everything I've seen and read, people should talk to each other. I believe that everyone should have the right to have the life they want to live. I wish I could live in that world and not be alone. Why can't society just not pretend that we don't have our own head and heart spaces and everyone else does too? Why is it so hard for people to not want innocent people to go to prison forever with no trial because the government says so? That's not individualism. That's just fear of other people and losing your own. If people truly are going to keep those beliefs they should have them because they are capable of growing with them. I don't get society. I really don't. I don't want to feel hopeless about it or feel that people just don't give a fuck about people because they are too lazy (is that it?) to stand up when something wrong is happening to their fellow citizens.
  
  I guess I don't care about the economics as much as Judt does. I know that he's right that people turn on each other over economic issues. In Malaysia they call their McDonald's "Happy meals" "Prosperity meals". I don't know why I just thought of that except that I had been thinking a lot these days about this friend I had years ago who was a Malay. She liked me in spite of ideologically different than her in almost all things. I liked that she didn't pat herself on the back for being open minded about it the way that some people feel the need to tell me that I'm weird. But yeah, "Prosperity meals" is it. I just wish that it was the most important thing to think about people as their own people. Like how you would want your parent to respect you as your own person. You live together and care about each other but you want to spread your own wings too. Why can't society be that? That's my utopian dream. I was happy when I thought his book was going to be about how people don't trust each other and what do do about it. But pretending that the liberals we have are really liberals and we should put our trust in something that only pretends to be something it isn't? No. I can't do it. Ernest Hemingway said that the only way to trust people is to do it. He killed himself. Hope for the good day when people are willing and hope it won't be the day when you could fall through the cracks too.
  
  Oh yeah, so the reason that things were better before than they are now... It's when you don't take care of something, right? If people asked for better.... I liked the points Judt made about "anti voting" under Communist countries where the vote was mandatory and false choices being totally different than what it is now. We have false choices BECAUSE of anti-votes and people not caring. It is hard to have hope in face of that. I can't fault Judt for writing a book asking people to care, I guess.
  
  "But trying to see eye to eye with the faceless
  just ain't working the way the manual paints it." - Aesop Rock 'Bent Life' (my heart of my heart favorite rapper/writer/voice)
  
• 
  Maru Kun

  When I finished Tony Judt’s “Ill Fares the Land” I finally understood the complicated feelings I had held inside of me for so long. Here at last was someone who knew the real me. I could imagine the emotional turmoil a teenager feels after he finishes “Death in Venice” and realizes he is gay. I can now come out. I can now stand proud as a Social Democrat.
  
  I realize I have a lot of challenges in front of me. Those on the left will pretend to like me but secretly despise me. Those on the right will openly persecute me. My contribution to society will be denigrated or ignored merely because of my ineluctable nature. Although I will always be accepted by a small number of highly educated people, the majority of the population will only see me as a stereotype based on years of propaganda from a biased media.
  
  Many politicians will say they are disgusted by the way I choose to live, offended by my most treasured values of compromise, moderation and rationality. They will say that these values are those of a perverted minority, that they are not part of what it is to be a voter but instead are evil lifestyle choices I make of my own free will. They will try and force me to change.
  
  But I am not ashamed. I know, despite all the trials and humiliation I can see in front of me, that as a Social Democrat I can be true to myself. Thank you, Tony Judt, for helping me understand.
  
• 
  Kaggelo

  Το κείμενο εστιάζει στην περίοδο από τον Β' Παγκόσμιο Πόλεμο και μετά, αναλύοντας τον ρόλο και τις οικονομικές και κοινωνικές πολιτικές του δυτικού κράτους και πως αυτό συνετέλεσε στο κλείσιμο ή άνοιγμα της ψαλίδας μεταξύ πλουσίων και φτωχών και στον περιορισμό ή την διεύρυνση των οικονομικών και κοινωνικών ανισοτήτων και του κράτους πρόνοιας. Ο Tony Judt εξετάζει την κατάσταση στο σήμερα, κάνει μια αναδρομή στο παρελθόν και τελειώνει με προτάσεις για το αύριο. Η κεντρική θέση του είναι πως το κράτος πρέπει να έχει βασικό και πρωταγωνιστικό ρόλο στην άσκηση συγκεκριμένων λειτουργιών και υπηρεσιών προς το σύνολο της κοινωνίας σε συγκεκριμένους τομείς όπως π.χ. της κοινωνικής πρόνοιας, της υγείας, της ασφάλισης και των μεταφορών. Το βασικό επιχείρημα είναι ότι αξίζει η θυσία λίγων βαθμών ατομικής ελευθερίας μέσα στη ζωή της οικονομικής σφαίρας, προκειμένου να διατηρηθεί η συνοχή της κοινωνίας. Γιατί το τελικό κέρδος από μια κοινωνία σε κατάσταση συνολικής ευημερίας και χωρίς μεγάλες οικονομικές ανισότητες, είναι μεγαλύτερο και έχει πολλαπλάσια οφέλη στη ζωή κάθε μέλους αυτής.
  Το θέμα του βιβλίου είναι εξαιρετικά επίκαιρο λόγω κοροναϊού και της πρωτοφανούς κατάστασης που βιώνουμε σήμερα παγκοσμίως στην δημόσια υγεία.
  Το ότι το βασικό υλικό του βιβλίου προέρχεται από μια διάλεξη του Tony Judt στο Πανεπιστήμιο της Νέας Υόρκης το 2009, έχει θετικά και αρνητικά. Από τη μία προσδίδει ζωντάνια, πάθος και δύναμη στο κείμενο. Από την άλλη όμως υπάρχουν κάποιες επαναλήψεις και μια γενικότερα χαλαρή δομή που ρίχνουν ενίοτε τον ρυθμό, όχι όμως στο βαθμό που να ενοχλούν ή κουράζουν.
  
• 
  Justin Evans

  
  Last night I told a lawyer that I was a professor in a department of Liberal Education. He took this to mean that I taught people to vote Democrat, although he wasn't so completely oblivious to assume that that meant I myself voted Democrat. He went on to describe his experience in a 'Peace and Justice' university course, which he'd thought would be about world war II, but ended up being, and I quote, "propaganda way to the left of Communism". Anyway, lucky for both of us that I hadn't read this book before we had that conversation, or I might have tried to throw him out of a window. I would have failed, and been punched in the face.
  
  As for the actual book: three stars for the argument plus one for the style. It already feels like a period piece (it doesn't help that chapter six has as an epigraph a quotation from Dominique Strauss-Kahn. That's a bit uncomfortable); I can imagine that history professors in sixty years time - should any such beings still exist - would set this for their class 'Intellectual History of the Great Financial Crisis.' The prose is practically transparent, the argument is quite clear, and, although it's a little repetitive, there isn't too much padding. I could've done without the paean for trains, much as I appreciate them; and there's some slightly silly guff about how going to the Nationalized post office to wait in line with your fellow citizens makes everyone into one big happy family. But other than that, it's a great read.
  
  The argument itself is a good one, hence my narrowly avoided defenestration of a 'conservative.'* Judt points out the great good that post-war social democracy did for most people in the developed world, and suggests that the parliamentary left actually defend that heritage, rather than cringing when it's brought up. He glosses over the failures of the post-war governments (i.e., stagflation), which is a shame- I would have liked to see a well put together argument showing that the economic turmoil of the seventies was due to contingencies rather than due to social democracy as such. I sometimes felt like I'd read it before, in part because I have. The first chapter is taken more or less from 'The Spirit Level,' which I skim-read. The second and third chapters are highly condensed versions of Judt's own magnificent 'Post War,' with additional material on America.
  
  High points include the historicisation and of the Austrian godhead of contemporary economics (e.g., Mises' main aim was to avoid Nazism; he blamed Nazism on Communism; therefore we must avoid Communism: is that really a solid foundation for your thought?) and the general good advice that some things can only be done by government, and to assume that government can't do anything is no less ideological than the Stalinist assumption that government ought to do everything. Of course, Edmund Bourke thought that too.*
  
  Finally, two great quotes:
  
  The 'reduction of society to a thin membrane of interactions between private individuals is presented today as the ambition of libertarians and free marketeers. But we should never forget that it was first and above all the dream of Jacobins, Bolsheviks and Nazis: if there is nothing that binds us together as a community or society, then we are utterly dependent upon the state.'
  
  'It is the Right that has inherited the ambitious modernist urge to destroy and innovate in the name of a universal project. From the war in Iraq through the unrequited desire to dismantle public education and health services, to the decades-long project of financial deregulation, the political Right has abandoned the association of political conservatism with social moderation which served it so well from Disraeli to Heath.'*
  
  
  
  * Yes, I'm referencing this three times. By calling my lawyer friend a 'conservative' I of course mean liberal. American liberals insist on calling themselves conservative, even though they are knee-jerk, ideological free-marketeers who despite the very idea of community. And it's time to call people on that nonsense.
• 
  Bryan Alexander

  Ill Fares the Land is passionate, brooding, ultimately hopeful analysis of Western politics. Judt applies his vast knowledge of the 20th century to political recommendations.
  
  Remarkably, this is a short, elegant book. Drawn from speeches, it aims at a general, non-academic audience. Judt compresses huge swathes of history, economics, and ideology into brief, accessible chapters.
  
  Ill Fares the Land is a jeremiad against neoliberalism. From the title/epigram on (Goldsmith: "Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey/ Where wealth accumulates, and men decay") the book rails against our culture's current embrace of market thinking. We've extended the market to many sectors of life, and this has had ultimately disastrous effects. The financial crisis of 2008 and following economic stall are Judt's killer evidence.
  
  The book's main focus is "the West", primarily Britain, the United States, and France. In that respect Ill Fares the Land makes a nice companion piece to Piketty's Capital (
  my review). Both reference other nations - Judt is, unsurprisingly for the author of Postwar, very comfortable with the rest of Europe and also some of the former Soviet Union - but the West remains the main arena.
  
  To sum up: the rise of neoliberal thinking (although Judt doesn't use the n-word) has lead to a massive decline of people's trust in each other (66), especially in non-homogeneous societies (70). Things used to be better, especially in the 1945-1980 era. Not perfect: Judt is careful to criticize bad bureaucracies (82). But cradle-to-grace welfare states worked built decent societies, healing the terrors seared in by economic collapse and global wars. This depended on a massively expanded state, and a popular engagement with politics and government.
  
  Then came the 1960s, and baby boomers. Growing up without any lived experience of 1914-1945's horrors, this new generation didn't appreciate the apparatus which built their very good life. They turned away from its supporting politics in favor of identity politics, hyperindividualism, disengagement, and ultimately an embrace of the market.
  

  This is not to say that a new generation of radicals was insensitive to injustice or political malfeasance: the Vietnam protests and the race riots of the '60s were not insignificant. But they were divorced from any sense of collective purpose, being rather understood as extensions of individual self-expression and anger. (90)

  
  Judt here sounds a bit like an Old Left party activist, or Ralph Nader, or an American conservative. He even cites Camille Paglia (85). He really hates boomers.
  
  After two generations of Keynesian economics, the West turned instead to Hayek, Schumpeter (creative destruction) and von Mises. First came revolutionary conservative politicians like Reagan and Thatcher. Next came baby boomer leaders like Blair, Bush(2), and Clinton, whom Judt slams as passive mediocrities.
  

  This cohort of politicians have in common the enthusiasm that they fail to inspire in the electors... They do not seem to believe very firmly in any coherent set of principles or policies... They convey neither conviction nor authority...
  [T]hey are all Thatcher's children: politicians who have overseen a retreat from the ambitions of their predecessors... Convinced that there is little they can do, they do little. The best that might be said of them, as so often of the baby boom generation, is that they stand for nothing in particular: politicians-lite. (133-4)
  

  
  These boomer politicians led a transformative wave which sapped popular engagement with politics, demobilized participatory coalitions (132), undermined the welfare state, and saddled governments with the costs of privatization's failures. "The outcome has been the worst sort of 'mixed economy': individual enterprise indefinitely underwritten by public funds." (111)
  A key point here is that the state doesn't wither away, but mutates or is reduced to something powerful and grim:
  

  The result is an eviscerated society... the thick mesh of social interactions and public goods has been reduced to a minimum, with nothing except authority and obedience binding the citizen to the state. (118)
  

  
  Let me share more on this last point, which is striking and not fully developed elsewhere in the book. This is, I think, the dark heart of Judt's vision:
  

  [I]t was first and above all the dream of Jacobins, Bolsheviks and Nazis: if there is nothing that binds us together as a community or society, then we are utterly dependent upon the state. Governments that are too weak or discredited to act through their citizens are more likely to seek their ends by other means: by exhorting, cajoling, threatening and ultimately coercing people to obey them. The loss of social purpose articulated through public services actually increases the unrestrained powers of the over-mighty state. (119)
  

  This makes for powerful insight into the age of drone warfare, government surveillance, and global war on terror.
  
  So what is to be done? Judt asks this classic question, and, to his credit, offers a program. He wants us to set aside the term "socialism" and instead inscribe "social democracy" on our banners. Target #1: "the reduction of inequality must come first." (184) And her Judt offers a fine, brief account as to why:
  

  Whether in Delhi or Detroit, the poor and permanently underprivileged cannot expect justice. They cannot secure medical treatment and their lives are accordingly reduced in length and potential. They cannot get a good education, and without that they cannot hope for even minimally secure employment - much less participation in the culture and civilization of their society. (184)

  That's a handy passage to have ready when people wonder what's so bad about growing inequality.
  
  Making this movement happen entails re-igniting public debates about what kind of government powers we want and accept. "We need to rediscover how to talk about change: how to imagine very different arrangements for ourselves, free of the dangerous can of 'revolution'". (153) (That last point is key: no calls for uprisings, here, despite the book's final citation of Marx) Judt doesn't want neo-social-democrats to slavishly celebrate state power; citing James Scott, he understands that the state fumbles (201). But he still wants us to reorganize the state against the market.
  
  A key part of the program is, intriguingly, literally, conservative. For Judt the right is the radical change agent, so the left/neo-social-democrats can argue for conserving the welfare state. This is something we need to figure out how to celebrate, not just to defend. "The Left has always had something to conserve." (222)
  
  Another essential element is, well, scaring people. Judt wants us to remember the terrors of world war and depression, and to remind people of "the ease with which any society can descend into Hobbesian nightmares of unrestrained atrocity and violence." He cites the 1990s Yugoslavian wars as a ready example. "[I]f social democracy has a future, it will be as a social democracy of fear" ! (221)
  
  And this neo-social-democratic movement needs to convince the young. That's where the greatest possibilities lie. Judt seems to have given up on baby boomers, and has no notice for my generation X.
  
  So what did I make of Ill Fares the Land, and should you read it?
  
  The book is a pleasure to read. It's very well organized and accessible. Judt's style is elegant and concise. He's also very pithy and quotable, as I've shared above. Here's another fun sample:

  Whatever Americans fondly believe, their government has always had its fingers in the economic pie. What distinguishes the USA from every other developed country has been the widespread belief to the contrary. (200)

  
  
  His analysis is valuable and timely. Like I said earlier, Judt goes well with Piketty, complementing the Frenchman's economic focus. And boomer-bashing goes down well for people of my generation (X; born 1967).
  
  His neo-social-democratic program is intriguing. In the American scene it's counterintuitive in many ways, although it chimes in nicely with Obama's Affordable Care Act. It would lead us to defend Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Judt also offers Americans in 2014 a welcome alternative vision to Hillary Clinton's Democratic
  dominance. And, as a student of the Gothic, I applaud his politics of fear.
  
  However. Objections:
  
  1: Judt's emphasis on the national arena (197) is wrong-headed, especially in reference to Piketty's call for global action. Not only is the world increasingly connected across national boundaries, but capital's mobility defies the actions of single nations.
  
  2: his condemnation of recent politics fails to notice real gains. Civil rights advances for minorities, the successes of multiculturalism, women's progress, and some civil liberties gains are real. Setting them aside vitiates any left movement.
  
  3: I was surprised at the book's lack of attention to technology. On the one hand, he doesn't make the Huxley/Postman/Hedges argument about entertainment tech seducing people into complacency. On the other, Judt doesn't see any possibilities in new media and new practices. That's an odd omission given present debates and concerns, not to mention the historical roles of technology.
  
  4: I don't think Americans or Brits have the guts to go for the fear approach. The war on terror's terrifying aspects have dulled with the passage of time; we're weary of fear. Meanwhile, an aging population seems to prefer basking in the glow of the past's perceived glories, and the young have a weird optimism.
  
  5: Judt underestimates the power of financialization in the US. That means both the huge growth of the FIRE sector as a slice of our economy, and the way that sector has boosted its influence over government, a/k/a regulatory capture.
  
  Taken together, I'm skeptical of the program. But I admire this book, and commend it to your attention.
• 
  Will Ansbacher

  the last book Tony Judt wrote before The Memory Chalet. This is a really insightful and searing look at what has gone wrong since the concept of social democracy went off the rails in the 70’s. Fundamentally it is due to the rise of the Chicago School and how disastrous it has been for everyone except what is now called the 1%. The only thing I didn’t really agree with him on was what caused the change. He says it was a reaction to the counter-culture. But I remember those times; we were young and did not have any influence on the way the world was run – in fact that powerlessness was the driving force behind much of the revolutionary confrontations at the time. Judt wrote this, he says, for “young people” but everyone should read it.
• 
  Murtaza

  I read this on the heels of Judt's opus, Postwar, and found it to be a fitting summation of many of the points implicitly contained in that work. Social democratic states are something that, at best, we have begun to take for granted. Created in response to the experience of the wars and the degradations of industrial capitalism, these states were laboriously created as a means of preventing a repeat of these human calamities.
  
  Having let our memories recede, over the last several decades we have begun tearing up this shared inheritance. In doing so we are opening ourselves up to a repeat of the historical disasters that arose about before social democracy became the Western norm, while creating a world of extreme inequality that would be profoundly unsustainable.
  
  The book begins by going through a familiar appraisal of the economic (and correspondingly social) follies of the post-1970s era. Judt then proceeds to make an impassioned and nuanced argument in favor of the "benevolent state" (stopping off to respond to the Austrian School economists and their admirers), and this is where the book gets interesting.
  
  It is not so much his arguments, which I think would strike the already-converted as common sense, but the superbly eloquent means he uses to unpack them. Judt argues that a social democratic state doesn't just provide people's material needs, it binds them together in a moral community by creating a sense of shared interest and identification. This is not just a guarantee against penury, but against conflict and a range of other social ills born of distrust and alienation.
  
  For example, the simple reality of shared physical presence in a shared space that is provided for by a shared effort (for instance, a grand public railway station, or a post office where individuals congregate to receive benefits) helps create a sense of community that makes society more robust. Judt is obviously deeply concerned about the effects of atomization and anomie, as well as the retreat into "gated communities" both physically and psychologically. Without a shared investment in a welfare state its not clear what people have in common with each other, or what binds their interests together. Without a shared sense of inheritance the only thing that can prevent social breakdown are ever greater levels of coercion.
  
  Throughout the book Judt really proves a font of interesting ideas, including the concept of the train and train station as the perennially "modern" signifiers of civilization (as opposed to say, airports) as well as the importance of physical markers of shared identity - say, for instance, yellow New York City taxi cabs, or even school uniforms. The loss of these (ie. replacing an iconic transport institution with Uber or a privatized train service) causes harm not just economically but psychologically. It undermines the idea that society as such exists at all.
  
  Written in 2010, this book really was a warning about the consequences of our ongoing political decay. Thanks to privatization, the cult of self-interest and a number of other maladies, Judt warns that we could soon be heading back into the dark days before social democracy took hold. As a historian of modern Europe, Judt is better placed than anyone to give this warning. He does so here in a manner that is impassioned, detailed, and beautifully written.
  
  He is hard on the Left and points out how lost it has become since it lost its grand narratives of History. He also calls for discarding terms like "socialism" laden as they have become with historical baggage, arguing instead for Social Democracy as a goal. Above all, before technical solutions, we need to find a vocabulary that will mobilize people and that articulates what it is we find so objectionable about the present state of affairs, Judt argues. Its too bad he is no longer around to help us do that, but he leaves behind some crucial guidance here.
• 
  Vincent Masson

  Extremely dry, albeit quite informative. This isn't the kind of book designed to draw you from one side to another with a plethora of facts and statistics, but more of a confirmation for those whose beliefs align with the themes of this book. At the end of this book, the author says that he hopes he's enlightened young people about some of these issues, but the book is written in such a dry, academic style, and requires a familiarity with American politics, that it's hard for me to believe this.
• 
  Micah

  I disagree with Judt on a whole slew of things, but I do enjoy reading his work and wish he was still around to debate with (and probably shit on) the rising radical left that I'm a part of.
• 
  Darran Mclaughlin

  Tony Judt's final book, written under the burden of Lou Gehrig's disease and paralyzed from the neck down, is the swansong of one of the greatest public intellectuals of our age. It is essential reading. Judt casts a critical eye upon the current political, economic and moral situation in the West, lamenting what we have lost and trying to nudge us back onto the righteous path. He is a Social Democrat and moderate leftist, critical of both right and left wing ideologies, and he would argue that the Western world from the end of World War II to about 1980 was the high point of human civilisation, a belief that I think many would agree with. This was an era that delivered huge economic growth, declines in poverty and hunger, massive improvements in healthcare and education, increased equality and great advances in personal freedom and opportunity. Ever since then, with the victories of Thatcher and Reagan, the deregulation of the financial sector and the ascendancy of the ideas of economists such as Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek, we have been abandoning the advances our civilisation has made and returning to a Victorian state of affairs. Poverty and inequality have increased, social mobility has declined, almost all of the economic growth has disappeared into to the offshore bank accounts of a rapacious plutocracy and our political systems have become increasingly worthless. Our current overarching concern is what does it cost and how can it be made more 'efficient' and cost effective? We have subordinated every other concern or value to this question, which is a frankly disgusting basis for a civilization.
  
  Judt argues that our discourse has become corrupted and that it is necessary to change the way we discuss political and economic matters. People are under the impression that the state is necessarily and universally less efficient and successful than the private sector and that the state should be stripped back to the bare minimum to allow the private sector to flourish. This is demonstrably, provably untrue. Only someone who has been brainwashed by right wing ideologues could possibly believe this, and then only by not making any effort to look at the evidence themselves. Judt believes in Social Democracy because it is a practical, pragmatic compromise between the blinkered, lumbering fantasia of total state control and the untrammelled savagery of a libertarian, free market society. He gives an example of one area in which it is perfectly obvious that only a state monopoly can deliver the goods, which I see one or two reviewers have criticised as boring, eccentric and unnecessary. He discusses trains, in the west in general but focussing upon Britain in particular. Trains are an unqualified public good. They connect different people and places, open a country up, transport huge numbers of people quickly and efficiently in an environmentally friendly manner, reducing our reliance on cars and planes. The French and Italian governments had invested two to three times as much money per head into their railways as the British because they saw it as a public good. The British chronically underfunded British Rail, it came to be seen as dreadful, allowing the government to make the claim that the private sector could do a better job. The the government sold the railways off cheap, guaranteeing the private rail companies against losses with huge public subsidies. Today there is only one train line that is in the hands of the state, East Coast, and it is the most efficient service we have, costing less money to the tax payer than we are paying in subsidies to the private operators of the other train lines. Of course the government is making plans to sell it off as soon as possible. There is no way of introducing any of the virtues of free market competition to the railways because every route is operated by one monopolist. They can't compete on price, or service or quality. There is no consumer choice.
  
  I think Judt does a superb job of identifying the problems in our current society and showing how it was not always thus. He tells us how and why we were able to work together to achieve great things in the past and is optimistic that we will be able to do so again soon. However, I'm sad to say I don't know where his confidence in the future comes from. He says that the only way to make things better in the democratic west is by voting and being engaged in politics, but he doesn't discuss the fact that British and American politics is held in a stranglehold by a bunch of elitist politicians in different coloured ties who are in thrall to business and finance. The barriers to a new political party entering either of these political systems with a new message and new policies and getting anywhere seems overwhelming to me. He also writes inspiringly about how a generation came together with a common purpose to build a better future founded upon higher values than mercenary self interest and says there is no reason this cannot happen again. However, this generation was forged by two world wars and the great depression. They had great experience in working together towards higher goals, putting your country, or your values or your comrades before yourself, and they had experienced enough poverty, degradation and horror to know that it was well worth fighting to make the world a better place. I don't know where he thinks this solidarity and common purpose is going to come from today. Today we are facing the gravest threat to the human race there has ever been in climate change, but we seem to be completely unable to pull together and do anything about it because, as Judt has observed we have become dominated by selfishness, individualism and an accountant mentality. We apparently lack the ability to come together towards a higher purpose to combat a threat which is bigger than the black death, or World War II, or the possibility of nuclear holocaust. If Martians were to invade tomorrow I think that the world would band together to fight against a common enemy. Unfortunately climate change isn't a vivid or direct enough enemy for people to conceive of to allow us to work together to fight it. I do not share Judt's optimism.
• 
  Sandra

  
  ELOGIO DELLA SOCIALDEMOCRAZIA
  
  
  Quando ero studentessa, ricordo che mi ponevo la domanda, durante le lezioni di storia e filosofia, di cosa fosse la socialdemocrazia. Ho sempre collegato alla socialdemocrazia un’immagine, quella di una scatola vuota, una bella scatola da regalo, che ognuno riempiva con quello che voleva, mettendoci dentro un po’ di tutto: il socialismo anche nella fase più avanzata, secondo le teorie marxiste, e contestualmente realismo e concretezza circa la necessità di operare in un mondo capitalistico evidentemente non agli sgoccioli, come invece sosteneva il filosofo tedesco nel XIX secolo. Per me, il termine “socialdemocrazia” voleva dire tutto e niente. Questa lettura non ha cambiato il mio pensiero, anzi è lo stesso Judt ad affermare che la socialdemocrazia è un ibrido, un compromesso tra diverse ideologie, e come tale da riempire con contenuti variegati; tuttavia lo scrittore è stato davvero abile nell'analizzare l’evoluzione delle vicende politico economiche che si sono succedute nel secolo scorso nei paesi occidentali, con particolare riguardo agli Usa e alla Gran Bretagna.
  In questo saggio ho trovato un appassionato pamphlet e un’accorata esortazione a ritornare al significato e ai valori che originariamente le socialdemocrazie europee, a partire dal 1945 fino agli anni ’80, perseguirono, sotto forma di istruzione pubblica, cure mediche e assicurazione sanitaria pubblica, parchi e giardini pubblici per far giocare i bambini, assistenza collettiva per gli anziani, gli infermi e i disoccupati, cioè ad uno stato che Judt definisce “Stato della protezione sociale”. Attraverso un breve ma approfondito excursus storico, lo scrittore mette in evidenza come a partire dagli anni ’80 e all’indomani della caduta del muro di Berlino, la “sinistra” abbia abdicato al suo ruolo e non abbia fatto altro che abbracciare le regole del libero mercato, accettando passivamente che si affermassero l’ammirazione acritica per i mercati liberi da lacci e lacciuoli, il disprezzo per il settore pubblico, il culto della privatizzazione e l’illusione di una crescita senza fine. Questo smantellamento del welfare, iniziato dopo gli anni ’80 ed ancora in pieno corso, oltre a creare un pericolo concreto di deficit democratico –che stiamo vivendo sulla nostra pelle oggi- pone in essere soprattutto diseguaglianze sociali così profonde che –dice Judt- corrodono la società dall’interno.
  Unica soluzione per non lasciare macerie ai nostri figli è, scrive Judt, non disfarsi del passato, ma costruire il futuro basandoci sulle conquiste ottenute in passato, da noi stessi e dai nostri predecessori, perché, richiamando le parole del filosofo britannico Edmund Burke, “la società non è solo un’associazione tra quelli che sono viventi in un determinato tempo, bensì tra i viventi e i trapassati, ed anche tra questi e i nascituri”.
• 
  Clif

  Rush Limbaugh is dead. Tony Judt might be the man most opposite to Limbaugh in philosophy and certainly is so in terms of education and erudition. A British historian, Judt has written outstanding, thoughtful material rather than loudly talking off the top of his head. It will be interesting to see how history will see these two men, opposite poles that they are.
  
  Ill Fares the Land is a very short and easy read. It makes many good points but none that struck me as new (2010 publication date). Judt advocates what has been tried and proven successful in the past, capitalism modified by democratic socialism as was the case in the US during the 1950's and 60's and still remains in effect in large parts of Europe.
  
  Judt distinguishes socialism, the top down disaster that was the USSR, with democratic socialism in which the people have a say, but that nevertheless provides a way for government to intervene either in running certain industries such as the railroads or regulating industries. He denies that the free market is always and everywhere superior to government in providing services, using the railroads of Europe as an example where a decision is made to provide a national resource that people use and have shown that they need regardless of whether it could make money if privately owned. This is the book in a nutshell - provide for people before profit.
  
  The growth of income inequality Judt sees as directly connected to letting the market rule, with no end in sight short of social unrest of government intervention. He joins the chorus of those citing the United States private profit making health care system as a disaster.
  
  The book draws many good arguments into a compact read. I give it three stars only because I have heard it all before. What's needed now is action to change the one railroad in America that really works and that has expanded over the entire world: the Billionaire Express.
  
  
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  Lazarus P Badpenny Esq

  There is much to admire in Judt's reasoned and reasonable defence of social democracy (in the form of 'acceptable' State intervention - and therein lies the rub). In the light of the banking crisis he has turned a personal displeasure (which I share) of unregulated capitalism into an effective political call-to-arms. Nonetheless to this political innocent there seems something counter-intuitive about suggesting long term social cohesion can be built upon a basis of civil dissent. This only seems to work if we are all dissenting in the same way. Maybe it has some traction in the revolutionary Middle East (to take a recent example) where the situation is driven by such clear moral extremes. Democracy may be the rallying cry but what about when they all start squabbling about exactly what kind of democracy they want? Meanwhile in the West where our tired political class have come to resemble nothing less than the corporate middle managers of public life our systems may not be good but are they bad enough for enough people to do anything about it. Clearly it's going to have to get a lot worse before it can begin to get better.
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  John David

  It has often been said that Americans know the value of everything and the worth of nothing. This book serves to historicize why precisely that is the case, and is also a clarion call extolling the virtues of social democracy. According to Judt, we need to completely re-think how we view our neighbors and human community.
  
  Social democracy, as I said, is at the heart of the book, and Judt makes it quite clear that this isn’t just a generic term for liberalism. “They [social democrats] share with liberals a commitment to cultural and religious tolerance. But in public policy social democrats believe in the possibility and virtue of collective action for the collective good. Like most liberals, social democrats favor progressive taxation in order to pay for public services and other social goods that individuals cannot provide themselves; but whereas many liberals might see such taxation or public provision as a necessary evil, a social democratic vision of the good society entails from the outset a greater role for the state and the public sector” (p. 7). Note the terms “collective good” and “collective action.” They are at the center of reconceptualizing society in terms of something other than market share or a growing economy. Judt offers much evidence toward the beginning of the book showing how inequality – not wealth, but inequality – within a society is directly correlated with “infant mortality, life expectancy, criminality, the prison population, mental illness, unemployment, obesity, malnutrition, teenage pregnancy, illegal drug use, economic insecurity, personal indebtedness, and anxiety” (p. 18).
  
  But matters didn’t always look so bleak. After the Great Depression and World War II, it quickly became the consensus economic opinion that the state had an integral role to play in keeping events like this from ever happening again. Judt is especially interested in the arguments and contributions of John Maynard Keynes here. The trust and cooperation of the interventionist state, largely the work of Keynes, provided England and the United States with security, prosperity, social services, and greater equality” (p. 72). For a generation, no one questioned that these ends were also public goods, or if they were questioned, they were by the most marginal of political figures.
  
  What happened? Ironically, Judt lays much of the blame for the disintegration of the welfare state on the radical political movements of the 1960s, which he claims “rejected the inherited collectivism of its predecessor.” (Christopher Lasch similarly blames this set of movements in “The Culture of Narcissism” – a book which complements this one in subtle and complex ways.) Judt argues that social justice wasn’t central to the mission of liberal sixties activism. In fact, it even co-opted the rhetoric of fierce individualism; it was all about “doing your own thing” and “letting it all hang out.”
  
  This consequently left a vacuum into which Austrian economics and its various supporters could rush – Karl Popper, Ludwig von Mises, Joseph Schumpeter, Peter Drucker, and Friedrich Hayek. These men – all Austrians – were all profoundly influenced by the “introduction into post-1918 Austria state-directed planning, municipally owned services and collectivized economic activity” (p. 99). Of course, this attempt was a failure which seemed to leave a gigantic psychic wound on these thinkers and their future thought about the possibility of state interventionism or even short-term economic planning. Also, these men knew a Left that believed in human reason and (Marxist) historical laws whereas the Fascists acted, and acted violently. Judt therefore reminds us that most contemporary recapitulations of this debate are really just variations on this one-hundred year-old theme.
  
  The prominence of Austrian economics and neoliberal policies allowed for the ascendancy of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, whose reigns saw a liquidation of much of the public sector in their respective countries during the 1980s. For Judt, these massive efforts at privatization were largely responsible for a loss of community and communal trust. We now live in our gated communities with closed-circuit cameras, terrified of our neighbors, rules by feckless, soulless politicians like Bill and Hillary Clinton (someone has to say it, so thank you, Tony), as well as Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. With people like these, it’s a small wonder why we’re so cynical about politicians and political efficacy.
  
  Judt ends the book with a call for both a renewed fervor for political dissent and the recasting of public conversation. Intellectuals used to be respected for broadcasting their unpopular opinions, but today that ability too seems to be enervated. Through a sheer act of moral will, we have to rediscover how to think through these issues and learn how to express disapproval in a country that has historically been incredibly conformist.
  
  To this end, we need to “think the state” and “think the community” in radically different ways, which means brushing away old shibboleths like “We all want the same thing, we just disagree on how to get there” and “You either believe in freedom or tyranny, capitalism or communism.” These slogans, so totally inculcated into popular political “thinking” and the gruel offered up by media pundits, should be recognized for what they are: simplistic and reductive, aimed at making one think that there are no middle ways, no third (or fourth, or fifth) options. Old habits are hard to slough off. Acts of pure imagination and appropriating the political world anew are terrifically difficult. But, at least according to Judt, now is the time.
• 
  Joe

  This is an extended essay on the benefits of social democracy. It is also an extremely good potted history of the development of political thought/discourse in Western Europe and North America since the last war.
  
  He is not averse from criticising the indulgences and absurdities of the left, but his main target is neo-liberal ideology and the damage it has wrought. However, this book is by no means a rant, but rather a carefully considered assessment of the role of ideas/ideology in contemporary society and how they have shaped the way we live.
  
  This book provides a much needed historical perspective on our political/economic condition and why we view things as we do. As such it makes an excellent companion piece to The Spirit Level.
  
  
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  Lauren Albert

  "Ill Fares the Land" is Judt's cri de coeur for social democracy, an interventionist state and the return of a feeling of common purpose. "One of my goals is to suggest that government can play an enhanced role in our lives without threatening our liberties" (5). I found his analysis of American's suspicion of centralized government interesting. I also liked his use of national railroads as a concrete example of successful and unsuccessful social and economic policies. I would like to read it again.
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  Sandra Štasselová

  Great reading! I highly recommend to everybody who was growing up in a post-socialist country. In Slovakia "right wing " is the only "correct" opinion on any politics. The liberal (or libertarian?) economy is being presented as the only path to democratic and developed society. Even now, after 27 years of deep shit a.k.a hypercapitalism.
  
  The worst thing about the communism is what comes afterwards.
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  o

  Leído hace un par de años ya, pero considero pertinente destacar la tremenda habilidad de Judt como narrador. Este es el tipo de texto que debiera considerarse propiamente un "ensayo político", en la línea de figuras como Orwell.
  
  Cabe mencionar que está disponible en castellano como "Algo anda mal", pero en mi calidad de gringo aspiracional (además de haberlo leído en inglés) califiqué esta edición.
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  J.

  This is fine, but feels like a watered down version of other works by political theorists...
  
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  Alberto

  Muy bueno. En ensayo del conocido historiador Tony Judt al calor de la crisis de 2008 puede leerse como si estuviera escrito para la crisis de 2020. En él defiende la socialdemocracia nacida tras la IIGM y la labor de Keynes ofreciendo respuestas a la erosión de lo público que llevamos soportando décadas y ofreciendo soluciones que recompongan el Estado en un contexto de confianza y solidaridad tanto nacional como internacional. Muy bueno.
• 
  Ian Beardsell

  I wish I had discovered Tony Judt earlier and that he had lived longer to write more books! I had just finished his impressive Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945, when I came across a couple more of his books at my library.
  
  Ill Fares the Land is a short, little book that packs quite a punch as Judt asks how is it possible that we have so quickly and easily forgotten the value of the hard-fought economic reforms of the 20th Century. After two horrific world wars, Keynesian economics and social progress seemed to yield a Western society that valued universal health care, unemployment insurance, social security and other progressive economic reforms and protections. Furthermore, we collectively felt some moral responsibility towards each other as a society and did not mind paying the tax bill for these provisions, as we seemed to understand the benefits of collective and universal social protections. Somehow the last 30 years has eroded much of this, as we have a crop of politicians who like to hand out tax cuts and voters willing to accept them and the resulting cuts to social security.
  
  Judt parses the current and past situations quickly and adroitly in this book, and spends an equally short time (perhaps too short) reminding us of the importance of serious political discourse, constructive political dissent, and the morality of caring for others. These are items that I wish he had spent more time building up, as we seem to have largely lost this ability in our busy, narrowly focused lives. Judt points out how the term liberal has become essentially an insult in the US and how we need to get past that; however, even in Europe where liberalism is not a dirty word, the social progressives are struggling with complex issues of globalization. Woe to Margaret Thatcher who preached that there is no such thing as society...
  
  I agreed with much of what Judt says in this book, my only regret is that he didn't go farther and was not more specifically prescriptive. However, perhaps this is a particular fault of my own generation (Generation X). We look too much with envy at the advantages the baby boomers had and sit with apathy, doing little to protest the "tearing down of the dykes laboriously set in place by our predecessors..." Will we simply gape in horror at the floods to come?
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  Patrick

  It's interesting that this book has been so frequently referred to as a 'polemic'; the word suggests a deliberately controversial and opinionated tirade when for the most part this book is simply a clear and sustained explanation of how and why western societies (mainly the UK and USA) have turned out the way they are in the early twenty-first century, and what we should do to bring about a better world. Above all this involves a serious effort towards social equality and a recalibration of economic terms like 'wealth' and 'efficiency', but it's also about a way of talking about political issues that avoids the party political muck-throwing that tends to dominate debate and alienate voters across the developed world. To call all this a 'polemic' is verging on the dismissive; it's a convenient way of categorising this book as the ramblings of an academic at the end of this tether, of sidelining its arguments as something not to be taken overly seriously; when in fact, this is something much more careful and considered which deserves the attention of a very wide audience.
  
  It's very good. Read it.
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  Michael Lindgren

  Last week I drove down to Lansdale, Pennsylvania, to discuss this book with my father and old friend and classmate Dan Mayland -- the inaugural session of our famous "Men's Book Club." What a nice time we had! I had suggested Prof. Judt's book to my father, who found it very simpatico indeed. We sat outside and drank iced tea and pontificated. Mayland makes no more sense than he did in 1991, but the late Prof. Judt carried the day. This book is a wonderfully concise overview of the political developments of the past half-century as narrated by a dyspeptic liberal and lover of justice and equality. It is part scathing polemic and part elegy for a bygone era. As such it made for much general agreement around the discussion table; the phrase "preaching to the converted" comes to mind. As for Prof. Judt I mourn the loss of another steadfast defender of the traditional liberal values that made the Anglo-American democracies of the last half-century so vital a force for good. All is now encroaching darkness.
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  Gina Scioscia

  A short but sweeping overview of the political and economic tides of the 20th Century and our present political climate. I don't usually read in these areas, but Judt is a teacher and historian who makes you want to learn more. He indicts the short sightedness, shorter memories, and ill formed opinions of those who rant "get the government out of my Medicare" and who are blind to the idea of the common good, the fact that the state exists for the sake of its citizens. Judt gives us language for the discourse that needs to take place, and puts the public good, the ethos of social democracy, back into the forefront. Great book!