Housing has become one of the most politically charged economic issues in Spain. Rising rents, the difficulty of finding available apartments, and the increasingly delayed transition of many young people into independent living generate understandable frustration. When access to an essential good becomes difficult, the temptation quickly arises to identify a visible culprit: landlords, property platforms, investment funds, speculators, or simply “the market.”
Continue readingPolitical Economy
Zhao Ziyang, Zhu Rongji, and the Limits of the Chinese Market Reform under the Communist Party Rule
The death of former mainland Chinese premier Zhu Rongji on August 12 has renewed discussion of his economic legacy. Zhu, who served as premier from 1998 to 2003 after previously overseeing much of mainland China’s economic policy as vice premier, was one of the principal architects of the market-oriented reforms of the 1990s. He restructured state-owned enterprises, strengthened the central government’s fiscal capacity, promoted housing reform, and used mainland China’s accession to the World Trade Organization as a means of exposing domestic firms to greater competition.
Continue readingWhen Democracies Get It Wrong: Political Correction, Presidential Judgment, and an Uncertain World
The international environment of 2026 has forced governments to reconsider assumptions that seemed relatively comfortable only a few years ago. The continuing war in Ukraine, the U.S. operation in Venezuela, the war involving the United States, Israel, and the Iranian regime, severe disruption in the Strait of Hormuz, tensions across the Taiwan Strait, and renewed arguments over European defense have all changed how political leaders evaluate power, credibility, and risk. These events are interconnected not because they form part of a single conflict, but because every government watches what happens elsewhere and updates its expectations about what allies and adversaries are willing and able to do.
Continue readingExtremism, Interventionism, and Political Polarization
One of the least productive habits in contemporary politics is the assumption that criticizing one political party automatically means supporting its principal opponent. In Spain, criticism of the PSOE is frequently interpreted as evidence that one must therefore support the Partido Popular or Vox. The same binary reasoning increasingly appears elsewhere: if one criticizes the progressive left, one must be “far right”; if one criticizes Donald Trump, one must belong to the left.
Continue readingFrom Marxist Materialism to a Material Measure of Progress
It would nevertheless be too easy to say that mainland China’s consumer materialism has nothing to do with Marxism simply because Marx himself criticized commodity fetishism. Marxist historical materialism and consumer materialism are conceptually different, but ideas also matter through the political institutions and policy priorities constructed from them.
Continue readingPolitical Correctness: Voluntary Respect or Politically Enforced Conformity?
Political correctness has become one of the most controversial concepts in contemporary Western societies. Ironically, much of the debate begins before any substantive discussion even starts, because people rarely agree on what the term actually means.
Continue readingPolicy Should Come Before Party
Recently, someone asked me why I’m willing to discuss politicians, public policy, and even my informal opinions about political figures in the classroom, yet I rarely post those views on Facebook or X.
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