Michael Oakeshott was one of this country's and one of this century's leading writers on politics, contributing both a series of incisive commentaries and a number of profoundly original essays to our understanding. Chiefly through his writings on Hobbes — many of which were collected in Hobbes on Civil Association (1975) — and through his two major sets of essays on original themes — published as Rationalism in Politics (1962) and On Human Conduc (1975) — Oakeshott secure1 established himself in the pantheon of great political theorists.2

The Conclusions Reached at the meeting of the European Council in Maastricht, on 9 — 10 December 1991, on economic and monetary union and also on political union, form an impressive and complex whole, in which undertakings of major importance coexist with other more timid ones. A detailed analysis would overstep the limits of an article. Moreover, there are still some problems to be cleared up before the final drafts are agreed, even if the principal political decisions have already been taken. The remarks which I would like to submit here will therefore deal more with general questions, and I will limit myself to the more significant provisions of the Maastricht agreements.

A Great Deal of Macro-Sociological theory in Germany since Max Weber has been devoted to the inquiry into the 'special German road to development' and to the incompatability of developments in the economic and political sectors. Germany, after its first unification in 1871, developed quickly into an important economic power. In the late-nineteenth century Germany overtook Britain in economic strength and seemed to be second only to the United States. Britain, however, remained the unmatched model of development: it was, together with the United States, the only country which synchronized effectively the development towards democracy and towards modern capitalism. Even France — the second successful model in Europe — went through various breakdowns of its political development in 1830, 1848, 1870–71. Even later, threats of a breakdown of the constitutional parliamentary systems were latent.

If There is any teaching of MARX from which the leadership of Vietnam might bitterly demur, it would be his claim that society raises only such problems as it is ready to solve. Although this magisterial myth provided solace to generations of revolutionaries (who could conclude from it, 'We are, therefore we will prevail'), the Communist Party of Vietnam has been buffeted since its victorious national reunification of 1975 – 76 by challenges from within and without for which it was not prepared. As a result, the politics of Vietnam for the past fifteen years has been more a response to crisis rather than the execution of a political vision. Reform and international openness have become essential parts of these efforts at coping with crisis, but they have been strongly tethered to the need to preserve order and to prevent larger crises.

ECONOMIC HISTORY IS FAR REMOVED FROM PRECISE SCIENCE and cannot offer an unambiguous explanation of the initiation, pace and causes of rapid industrial growth. Nevertheless, few economic historians would disagree that the pattern of growth is not random; and that in evaluating it, technological innovation must be a central element.

The landmarks of industrial development are conventionally thought of in terms of science and technology. From the adoption of the stirrup and the plough, which heralded the feudal age in Europe; to the spread of the silicon chip and the microprocessor, which lie at the core of the emergent IT economy, the development of society can be charted in terms of technological change. And just as the analysis of technological change has become one of the dominant tools of the economic historian, so ‘futurology’ is centred around trajectories of innovation. Over the next century changes are projected which are just as profound as those experienced since 1890. The world of 2090 will be different, and while the fundamental political differences may be unpredictable, there is a presumption that it will be technologically very different from the present. It is appropriate that popular speculation about future society is termed not ‘future fiction’ but ‘science fiction’.