MATTHEW HAWKINS applauds a psychotherapist’s disection of William Blake
A book of pedestrian economic and political prescriptions
BRIGHTON BEACH: Occasional 'culturally required' purchases, such as a holiday
[G-Man/CC] 
New releases from Christina Alden and Alex Patterson, Odette Michell, Clementine Lovell
JOHN GREEN is fascinated by a very readable account of Britain’s involvement in South America
Strip cartoons used to be the bread and butter of newspapers and they have been around for centuries. MICHAL BONCZA asks our own Paul Tanner about which bees are in his bonnet
GORDON PARSONS acknowledges the authority with which Sarah Kane’s theatrical justification for suicide has resonance today
RON JACOBS welcomes a timely homage to one of the IWW and CPUSA’s most effective orators
Foundational Economy: The infrastructure of everyday life
by The Collective Foundational Economy
Manchester University Press £11.99
THE opening chapters of this book reminded me of president John F Kennedy’s trenchant and moving attack on the idea that a country’s progress can be judged by GDP figures. The Gross Domestic Product, he said “measures everything... except that which makes life worthwhile.”
Many proposals to re-focus economy theory and policy away from national income accounting have been published. In this case the focus is the “foundations” of an economy – consisting of zones “producing daily essential goods and services which are critical to citizens flourishing.”
There are three main areas: the “material” Foundational Economy (FE) consists of those pipes and networks “which continuously connect households to everyday life including water, electricity, food, transport and telecoms.”
More from this author
For Britain, direct military aid is just the tip of the iceberg compared to the spiralling energy crisis that has fueled inflation, driven millions into fuel poverty and inflated corporate profits, reveals HELEN MERCER
HELEN MERCER welcomes an account of how US labour leadership collaborated with the state and betrayed their membership
A look at the writing of war correspondent James Aldridge 40 years ago reminds us of the eastern perspective when a second front was finally opened on D-Day, 1944, says HELEN MERCER
HELEN MERCER casts an experienced eye over an ambitious exhibition that nevertheless contains painful gaps
