By Robert Skidelsky and Edward Skidelsky Did you think that it was only in Victorian England that debtors were forced into the workhouse? Think again. This week a leaked letter revealed that Greece's eurozone creditors are demanding a six-day week as a condition of the latest bailout. Of all the far-out ideas for solving the … Continue reading Why we need weekends
Category: Journalism
Leisure Time
To the Editor: Richard A. Posner’s critical review of our book, “How Much Is Enough?: Money and the Good Life” (Aug. 19), hinges on one argument. He says that if, as we suggest, people in rich societies (and we are talking about rich societies) worked 20 hours a week on average rather than 40, they … Continue reading Leisure Time
The Olympics should have taught us the benefits of picking winners
Despite the Olympic euphoria, there is growing pessimism about the short-term prospects of the British economy. The new orthodoxy is that Britain is too sickly to be cured by a short-term fix; policy should concentrate on bringing about sustainable long-term growth. This rules out an immediate boost to public spending and swings the debate to … Continue reading The Olympics should have taught us the benefits of picking winners
Dear George… Advice to George Osborne
Dear George, Cutting public spending when there is no other source of growth in the economy is a sure-fire strategy for recession. As if the lack of recovery wasn't bad enough, the lack of growth also scuppers your deficit-reduction goals – the very reason for austerity in the first place. Like throwing away the engine … Continue reading Dear George… Advice to George Osborne
Olympian Economics
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
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
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
Robert Skidelsky 