In the early 1950s, Britain was an industrial giant. Today it is an industrial pygmy. Manufacturing was industry’s bedrock. In 1952 it produced a third of national output, employed 40% of the workforce, and made up a quarter of world manufacturing exports. Today manufacturing is just 12% of GDP, employs only 8% of the workforce, … Continue reading Meeting our Makers
Category: Journalism
Natural-Born Pianists?
The editor of The Guardian, Alan Rusbridger, has written a book about how he decided to practice the piano 20 minutes a day. Eighteen months later, he played Chopin’s fearsomely difficult Ballade No. 1 in G Minor to an admiring audience of friends. Could anyone have done this? Or did it require special talent? The … Continue reading Natural-Born Pianists?
Models Behaving Badly
“Why did no one see the crisis coming?” Queen Elizabeth II asked economists during a visit to the London School of Economics at the end of 2008. Four years later, the repeated failure of economic forecasters to predict the depth and duration of the slump would have elicited a similar question from the queen: Why … Continue reading Models Behaving Badly
One more chance for Osborne to change course
On Wednesday in his Autumn Statement George Osborne, the chancellor, is expected to admit that it will take three more years of austerity than originally planned to bring borrowing under control. Extravagant hopes are being placed on Mark Carney, the newly appointed Bank of England governor. There will be talk of an incipient recovery meeting … Continue reading One more chance for Osborne to change course
Inequality is Killing Capitalism
It is generally agreed that the crisis of 2008-2009 was caused by excessive bank lending, and that the failure to recover adequately from it stems from banks’ refusal to lend, owing to their “broken” balance sheets. A typical story, much favored by followers of Friedrich von Hayek and the Austrian School of economics, goes like … Continue reading Inequality is Killing Capitalism
Happiness Is Equality
The king of Bhutan wants to make us all happier. Governments, he says, should aim to maximize their people’s Gross National Happiness rather than their Gross National Product. Does this new emphasis on happiness represent a shift or just a passing fad? It is easy to see why governments should de-emphasize economic growth when it … Continue reading Happiness Is Equality
Does economic growth make you happy?
Adair Turner is the jewel in the crown of British public servants. He is one of a tiny minority in public life today capable of thinking and acting at the highest level. Economics after the Crisis, based on three lectures he delivered at the London School of Economics in 2010, is a thinking person’s delight, … Continue reading Does economic growth make you happy?
Go left, go right… go downhill
Refreshed by his summer holiday, David Cameron vowed to “get Britain moving again”. A slew of kick-starting initiatives has followed, most of them the brainchild of his government’s one-man think tank, Vince Cable. The figures are dire. After a tepid recovery from the collapse of 2008, the British economy has started shrinking again. Most forecasters … Continue reading Go left, go right… go downhill
Hayek, the market and the good life: an exchange
Robert Skidelsky and Karen Horn This exchange is in response to "Self-appointed messiahs of the nanny state", a review of How Much is Enough? by Karen Horn in the July/August issue of Standpoint. Robert Skidelsky: Everyone is aware of the political collapse of socialism, victim of an overambitious attempt to plan the future. Less clearly … Continue reading Hayek, the market and the good life: an exchange
Big Countries, Small Wars
US President Barack Obama has vowed to avenge the murder of J. Christopher Stevens, America’s former ambassador to Libya. How he proposes to do this is unclear – historical precedent is of little use. In 1864, the Emperor of Abyssinia took hostage the British consul, together with some missionaries, in the country's then-capital, Magdala. Three … Continue reading Big Countries, Small Wars
Robert Skidelsky 