As Olympic mania swept the world in recent weeks, it transported the host country, Great Britain, to a rare display of public exultation. Indeed, the successes of “Team GB” produced an upsurge of patriotic rejoicing akin to victory in war. Britain finished third in the gold medal count, behind the United States and China, much … Continue reading Olympian Economics
Author: Robert Skidelsky
Economist and member of the House of Lords
The Bad Society
How much inequality is acceptable? Judging by pre-recession standards, a great deal of it, especially in the United States and Britain. New Labour's Peter Mandelson voiced the spirit of the past 30 years when he remarked that he felt intensely “relaxed” about people getting “filthy” rich. Getting rich was what the “new economy” was all … Continue reading The Bad Society
Enough is enough of the age of consumption
Co-authored with Edward Skidelsky Until fairly recently economists envisaged three stages of economic development. First, there was the stage of capital accumulation started by the industrial revolution. The Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm called it the age of capital. Society saved a large part of its income to invest in capital equipment. The world gradually filled … Continue reading Enough is enough of the age of consumption
Let’s abolish retirement
Retirement is not as old as you think. According to the Bible, God expelled Adam from Paradise with the terrible words: "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground." And that's more or less how it was until about a hundred years ago. Most people worked till … Continue reading Let’s abolish retirement
How Much Is Enough?
By Robert Skidelsky and Edward Skidelsky Published by Allen Lane, 2012 ISBN: 978-0241953891 Read reviews at: The Guardian New York Times Buy at Amazon
Labour’s Paradise Lost
As people in the developed world wonder how their countries will return to full employment after the Great Recession, it might benefit us to take a look at a visionary essay that John Maynard Keynes wrote in 1930, called “Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren.” Keynes’s General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, published in 1936, … Continue reading Labour’s Paradise Lost
Too much faith in markets denies us the good life
Co-written with Edward Skidelsky John Maynard Keynes’s generation of economists assumed that as people became more efficient at satisfying their wants, they would, and should as rational agents, work less and enjoy life more. Yet power relationships and the insatiability of human wants are such that we have maintained an ethic of acquisitiveness. International rivalries … Continue reading Too much faith in markets denies us the good life
Nick Clegg’s U-turn for the better
The deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, has promised a "massive amplification" of state-backed investments in housing and infrastructure. Words only. But if the words mean anything, they amount to a huge U-turn – a belated acknowledgment that austerity has not brought recovery. The realisation that austerity is having a dampening effect on economic activity has … Continue reading Nick Clegg’s U-turn for the better
Why China Won’t Rule
Is China poised to become the world’s next superpower? This question is increasingly asked as China’s economic growth surges ahead at more than 8% a year, while the developed world remains mired in recession or near-recession. China is already the world’s second largest economy, and will be the largest in 2017. And its military spending … Continue reading Why China Won’t Rule
How Keynes would solve the eurozone crisis
Co-authored with Marcus Miller Almost 100 years ago, a young official in the UK Treasury sought to advise European policy makers on how daunting external debts might best be managed. There was, he argued, a limit to the national capacity to service debts. Those expecting further payments were bound to be disappointed. More than that, … Continue reading How Keynes would solve the eurozone crisis
Robert Skidelsky 