Thomas Fazi

Hi, I’ve got a new piece up the economic agenda of Britain’s new prime minister, Liz Truss. There’s not much to be hopeful about: her radical free-market ideology is the last thing the UK needs, as the country tackles precisely the disastrous consequences of decades of Thatcherite policies of privatisation, deregulation and liberalisation.

On a completely different topic, last week I wrote about the many questions around the Covid lab-leak hypothesis that still remain unanswered, and why Jeffrey D. Sachs, chair of the Lancet Covid-19 Commission, is calling for an independent inquiry into the virus’s origins. He believes there is clear proof that the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the primary US public health agency, and many members of the scientific community have been impeding a serious investigation into the origins of Covid-19 in order to cover up evidence that US-funded research in Wuhan may have played a role in the creation of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Thanks for reading.

Dear all, I had a piece out last week in UnHerd on why the European elites’ disastrous management of the Russia/gas supplies issue is likely to spark civil unrest on a level unseen in a very long time. I’ll return on the matter soon, in particular to explain why the only way forward at this point is nationalising the energy companies – which is the point that sparked the greatest controversy (see the “comments” section at the bottom of the article).

I’ve also just got a piece out on why Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s likely next prime minister, is not Mussolini 2.0 – but rather another representative of the Single Party of Neoliberalism, the EU and NATO. Those who will vote for her in the hope that she will deliver change will be disappointed.

Finally, an article on the growing monkeypox hysteria, and how we are repeating the same flawed approach we saw with Covid – spreading misinformation about the nature of the disease, and sowing unnecessary panic and fear among those who risk little or nothing from it, while denying those who actually are at risk the kind of targeted messaging and protection they deserve.

I’ve got a new piece up on UnHerd on the fall of Mario Draghi’s government. Even though the establishment is reeling in horror, the truth is that Draghi has been a disaster for Italy – in economic, social and political terms. And it couldn’t have been otherwise from a man who is literally the bodily incarnation of neoliberalism (as I explained here) – and who was called in to do the EU’s (and Pfizer’s) dirty work. So the end of his techno-authoritarian reign is good news. But there’s little to celebrate: the reality is that whoever gets elected next, the country will continue to be essentially run from the outside by the EU. And this is how things will continue to be until Italy frees itself from the EU’s neocolonial rule.

Speaking of which, I’ve also written a short piece about how the pandemic hasn’t fundamentally altered the functioning of the eurozone: elected governments continue to be dependent on good will of the ECB – a democratic disgrace – and the recent launch of the ECB’s new “anti-fragmentation” Transmission Protection Instrument (TPI) simply confirms that.

Finally, Toby Green and I have also written a piece about the return of anti-science Covid fear-mongering, on how the latest Omicron subvariant and Long Covid are now being weaponised by the usual suspects to demand the return of Covid restrictions. But these measures have failed on all accounts – not least that of stopping the spread of the virus.

I haven’t written anything in a while since I’ve been busy completing our upcoming book (with Toby Green) The Covid Consensus: The Global Assault on Democracy and the Poor – A Critique from the Left (it’s gonna be awesome – stay tuned!).

However, I’ve got two new pieces out. One is an article for UnHerd on how elites, just like in the 1970s, are exploiting an inflationary surge of their own making to engineer a recession and drive up unemployment in order to pre-empt a potential rise in labour bargaining power.

The second one is a review of Sahra Wagenknecht’s book on the neoliberal left in Compact – in which she makes her case for “left conservatism”: a left that returns to its original mission of improving the lives of the working and middle classes, but which also recognises people’s need for “recognition, belonging, and community”.

I’ve been falling a bit back with the posts, so here you’ll find links to three articles I’ve written over the past few weeks.

In the most recent one I take a deep look at Macron and Le Pen’s track records and electoral manifestoes, to see if the labels we attach to politicians – left-right, progressive-conservative, etc. -, and the political compass we use to navigate contemporary politics, still make any sense.

In this other article, I explain the real reasons for the EU’s arm-wrestling with Hungary and Poland. Hint: it has less to do with culture-war issue than one may think, and much more to do with the age-old question of where sovereignty ultimately sits in the EU – in Brussels or in the member states?

Finally, in this article from a few weeks back, I explained why the Western sanctions – being based on economic orthodoxy (i.e. fantasy) – would totally fail in their aim of “crippling” the Russian economy, and would actually backfire on the West. Update: yesterday the ruble has surpassed pre-invasion levels.

Hi. In this article I explain how the conflict in Ukraine is a godsend for America, allowing it to reassert its economic and military hegemony over Europe under the guise of a new Cold War against Russia/China, relaunch a declining NATO, replace Russia in the field of gas exports and turn the clock of West-East relations back by several years. The Old Continent, on the other hand, will pay a heavy price for all this.

Toby Green and I have a new article out on the way in which the pandemic (or better, the governments’ response to the latter) has fundamentally altered the landscape of Western capitalism, dramatically accelerating pre-existing trends and heralding the rise of an even more concentrated, oligarchic and authoritarian capitalist mode of power – what we might call hyper-neoliberalism or neo-feudalism. In particular, we are witnessing the rise of a new ultra-powerful complex — the techno-media-pharma (TMP) complex — capable of shaping every aspect of our lives. An unprecedented collective effort will be needed to fight for a different future.

We were told Brexit would cause massive damage to the British economy; it turns out it’s doing pretty well, at least compared to many of its European counterparts, as I explain in this article.

Sergio Mattarella has been re-elected as Italy’s president. In this article, I explain why this will further strengthen Draghi’s authoritarian and anti-democratic grip on the country. Indeed, the Draghi-Mattarella regime puts Italy at the forefront of the technopopulist revolution: a deeply disturbing mix of anti-democratic technocracy and populist demagoguery.

In this article Toby Green and I make the left-wing against compelled — and in places mandatory — Covid vaccinations: while vaccines have proven very effective in reducing mortality among the elderly, vulnerable, and most at risk from the disease, it’s hard to see the collective or even individual benefit of vaccinating everyone against a virus that targets only a minority of the population – especially if this achieved through highly discriminatory and segregational policies.