Anthony Barnett is the founder of openDemocracy.net.

A social entrepreneur of wide experience, Anthony helped launch Charter 88 in 1988 and was its first Director. Generating widespread support he turned it into a movement for the democratic reform of Britain (at the end of the 90s the Telegraph described it as the UK's "most influential pressure group of the decade"). Anthony is also a writer and journalist. He is the author of Iron Britannia; Soviet Freedom and This Time; and co-author and editor of among other books, Aftermath: the Struggle of Vietnam and Cambodia; Power and the Throne, Town and Country and a considerable range of articles and pamphlets covering politics and culture, such as (with Peter Carty), The Athenian Option – radical reform for the House of Lords (Demos, 1998) and the television film, England's Henry Moore. He writes regularly for openDemocracy and contributes to many of its debates.

Recent articles

Anthony Barnett (London, OK): As 42 days goes down so does the clause giving the power to order secret inquests which we OKd here. Well done to Inquest - see their letter in today's Guardian.

Anthony Barnett (London, OK): Among those joining the roll of shame of 118 peers who voted for 42 days are: Adonis, Campbell-Savours, Clinton-Davis, Darzi, Gould, Hollis, Kinnock, Lipsey, Malloch-Brown, Mandelson, Radice, Rooker, Soley, Triesman, Wedderburn, Whitty. You can find the full list of the disgraced here.

I was very disappointed to see that Lord Melvin Bragg abstained. So much for the great intellectual of broadcasting!

As Gordon Brown comes under increasing pressure to abandon 42 day detention ahead of Monday's crucial Lords vote, oD republishes Anthony Barnett's essay calling on Parliament to vote down a proposal that will undermine the basis of law and aid terrorism.

(This article was first published on 6 June 2008) 

Anthony Barnett (London, OK): There are reports that gleeful Labour MPs are celebrating the Prime Minister's handling of the banking and credit crisis as a 'Falklands' style triumph for him and the Labour Party, after he has slapped around Iceland with anti-terror laws. Somehow, I doubt it. It is true that Margaret Thatcher was responsible for triggering the Argentine invasion by insisting on the withdrawal of HMS Endurance, the only naval presence, as a cost-cutting measure. But Brown's responsibility for the over-exposure of the UK is of long-standing and the coming wreckage will be laid at his door even as he presents himself as providing 'world leadership'.

Anthony Barnett (London, OK):  Robert Peston has come up with a plan on his BBC blog. It is that the new pension scheme the government is going to introduce for the low paid shoul be given £50 billion to invest now in the big banks thus giving them desperately needed capital while hugely boosting the value of the pension scheme for the future.

The big point here is that for the past few years, there's been a massive widening in the gap between the rich and poor, because it's only been the rich and the super-rich who've been able to take advantage of the fabulous investment opportunities that presented themselves in the decade or so before the Crunch.

But the boot is now on the other foot. Probably only governments, through the deployment of taxpayers' money, can solve a financial crisis that was created in large part by the foolish financial risks taken by bankers and financiers whose common sense was wiped out by greed.

If we as taxpayers are cleaning up the mess, there should perhaps be a dividend for those in low paid jobs and insecure employment, who are hurt most by the economic slowdown precipitated by this crisis.

I think this was first floated on the Marxist left by Robin Blackburn. If I recall rightly, he suggested that pension funds be used appropriate the stock exchange. But his argument was based on the idea that society needed to get control of the corporate capitalism. Peston is saying that the corporate banks need us. so we should use Buffet style terms for egalitarian purposes. It might even make the bankers feel better about themselves (fat chance). I think it is really important to welcome such proposals and blog them and build on them - and not be cynical and say it could never happen. As the great Roberto Ungar says we need political inventiveness and experimentation. We have to do better than the Economist whose leader this week somewhat defensively says that governments have to help "when markets fail".

That's pragmatism, not socialism.

Well blow me down! Peston's approach seems more attractive: if you are going to do it, be wholehearted about it. Over in the Observer Will Hutton sets out a larger, integrated case for a Peston approach.He also adds this:

There was no effective opposition. The left and organised labour collapsed as intellectual, social and political forces; there was no conviction that any alternative to this shareholder value-driven, financial, 'securitised' capitalism existed, or any political muscle to support it even if there were. Mainstream culture moved away from public purpose and fairness; the new priorities were individual self-fulfilment, personal experience and loyalty to self.