In this paper (given at a GPI seminar “The Challenge of Populism to Representative and Federal Democracy”, 18 July 2019) I make three main arguments. On Populism I tend to the analysis put forward by Isaiah Berlin, among others, which refers back to ideas of agrarian fellowship and community. Most particularly to pre-revolutionary Russian peasantry...Read More

This paper draws attention to Max Weber’s commitment to federal democracy in a series of newspaper articles in 1917, which he wrote in the face of Germany’s military dictatorship.  He argued for the division of executive, administrative and political functions between the Reich and the separate German states, not unlike the constitution of today’s German...Read More

“It is as hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven as a camel to pass through the eye of a needle.” This was one of the pictorial worms inserted in our minds by an earnest and persuasive Sunday School teacher. It was a fantastical image that I turned over in my...Read More

Weber’s writings on economic history, economic policy, and schools of economics, and his teaching of economics are outlined. His engagement with, and expertise in economics, are revealed to be more extensive than is generally appreciated. The full potential of his major work Economy and Society has yet to be exploited, and this requires a clearer...Read More