Political economy after the end of history

If most of the economic forecasts are correct, global growth in 2007 will exceed four per cent for the fifth year running, economic fortunes in advanced countries will become more balanced and emerging market economies will continue to power ahead. Against this background, the task of the left may be to make a virtue of this necessity - by pressing the case for socially useful public investment and job creation, to offset the retrenchment of the private sector; more determined redistribution of income and working time, to mitigate the social costs of weakened demand for labour; and new cultural, environmental, and democratic initiatives that the necessary curtailment of consumerism might now allow more space for.