My memories are of my dad taking me to football on Saturday mornings, and my mum taking me swimming. Those are the things I remember from my childhood, not sitting around the table debating capitalism and the profit squeeze.
In Britain, the centrally prescribed welfare to work system short-changes the young unemployed. Transport, housing and education are over centralised.
One of the jewels in the crown of Labour's time in office was the rescue of the National Health Service. As the Commonwealth Fund, the London School of Economics and the Nuffield Foundation have all shown, health reforms as well as additional investment were essential to improved outcomes, especially for poorer patients.
The biggest novelty of 2013 will be new leadership in China. Very little is known about the views of the new leaders - who will rule the country for ten years. But we do know they're the first generation of Chinese leaders who have spent the majority of their lives in a China 'opening up' to the rest of the world.
The test of leadership for David Cameron was actually to bring the British Conservative Party back in to the mainstream.