ISSUE 153 DECEMBER 2008

Contributors to this issue

RACHEL ASPDEN is a journalist and writer

RICHARD BARRY is a former petroleum engineer

PETER BAZALGETTE was an independent television producer for 20 years

HASSAN BLASIM is a writer and filmmaker

TIM BUTCHER is a journalist and writer

EDWARD CHANCELLLOR is the author of Crunch Time for Credit?(Harriman House)

MARK COUSINS ’s collection Widescreen is published by Wallflower Press

JAMES CRABTREE is senior editor at Prospect

CHRISTOPHER DE BELLAIGUE is the author of The Struggle for Iran(NYRB)

JONATHAN DERBYSHIRE is writing a book about philosophy in Britain in the 1950s

KISHWER FALKNER is a Liberal Democrat peer in the House of Lords

ANDREW FEINSTEIN is a former ANC MP

MARY FITZGERALD is assistant editor of Prospect

JONATHAN FORD is deputy editor of Prospect

DAVID GOLDBLATT is the author of The Ball is Round (Penguin)

DAVID GOODHART is editor of Prospect

AC GRAYLING is a philosopher

JULIAN GOUGH is a novelist and writer

GERALD HOLTHAM is a former director of the IPPR

THIERRY KELAART is Prospect’s intern

PETER KELLNER is the president ofYouGov

MARTIN KETTLE is aGuardiancolumnist

MARK KITTO runs a café near Shanghai

MARK LAWSON is a journalist

ELLIE LEVENSON is a journalist and writer

BEN LEWIS presents BBC4’s Art Safari

MICHAEL LIND is senior fellow at the New America Foundation, Washington DC

RORY MACLEAN is a travel writer

PETER OBORNE is a Daily Mail columnist

JONATHAN RÉE is a freelance philosopher

IAN STEWART is a mathematician

DAVID WALKER is director of communications at the Audit Commission

MARTIN WALKER is senior scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center

THOMAS WRIGHT is an executive director at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs

TOBY YOUNG is a journalist and writer

contents

Coverstory 22The meaning of Obama The messianic cult around Obama was always in contrast to his modest policy proposals.But events can force politicians to be bold.The new president has a chance to redefine American liberalism,writes Michael Lind.Plus,what Obama means for foreign policy,identity politics,the economy and Washington

Opinions

14The curse of Leopold China’s grab for Congo’s mineral wealth is behind the current wave of fighting, not ethnic tensions. TIM BUTCHER

15Girl power David Cameron’s drive to attract women voters is misconceived. ELLIE LEVENSON

16Sarah Palin for poet laureate She’s not to everyone’s political taste, but she’s a mean poet. JULIAN GOUGH

16Out with the outsourcers? The recession may derail some cherished government public service reforms. DAVID WALKER

17Rainbow’s end A split in the ANC means that South Africa may finally become a multi-party democracy. ANDREW FEINSTEIN

Essays

46More mobile than we think Britain has more social mobility than is often assumed. But there is least movement where it matters most for meritocracy, at the very top and the bottom. Can Gordon Brown help? DAVID GOODHART

Plusfifty years after Michael Young’s The Rise of the Meritocracy, his son TOBY

YOUNG argues that we never got the meritocratic elite predicted in the book. Instead, we got the celebrity class. p50

MELTDOWN IN FOCUS

Essays

34A second tulip mania The prices of contemporary art works have risen to astonishing levels in recent years. Insiders say it’s because we have been living through a golden age of art—but it’s a classic investment bubble. BEN LEWIS & JONATHAN FORD

38Workers of the world compete Central bankers and politicians have seen inflation as the enemy of prosperity. In fact, we are suffering from a lack of demand caused by profits outstripping wages in a world of excess labour. GERALD HOLTHAM

41Fixated on Friedman The world’s central bankers might have foreseen the credit crunch had they not been intellectually enslaved by the ideas of Milton Friedman. EDWARD CHANCELLOR

54Blame it on the Brits Iranians are deeply suspicious of British motives. These feelings are irrational, but are grounded in history. CHRISTOPHER DE BELLAIGUE

58A cultured recession In Britain, state funding means that critical art not only survives recessions, but has a better chance to be heard. MARK LAWSON

4 Prospect DECEMBER 2008