The Chancellor has been celebrating the recent estimates showing that the economy has grown by 0.8 per cent in the third quarter of this year. However, these forecasts do not tell us anything about what is most important: well-being. National well-being is the only object of economic growth, but GDP data says nothing about it. … Continue reading The folly of George Osborne

I don't wish to examine the structure of George Osborne's emergency Budget, but to analyse its logic. On the structure I have only this to say: the balance between increased taxes and reduced spending is probably right. It is right to demand sacrifices from all sections of the community, though I doubt the attack on … Continue reading By George, he hasn’t got it: What would JM Keynes think of George Osborne’s Budget?

Expect plans for higher borrowing, tax cuts, and more spending in Monday's pre-Budget statement. With Britain sliding into depression, it is not surprising that the old Keynesian tool kit is being ransacked. But Keynesian economics is not just about fixing damaged economies. You don't need very sophisticated economics to spend your way out of a … Continue reading What would Keynes have done?

The endgame is in sight in the Middle East. It has been brought into view by the growing recognition that Syria and Iran have to be involved, not just in negotiating an Iraqi settlement, but in underwriting peace in the Middle East as a whole. It is increasingly accepted that the American-British-Israeli policy of reshaping … Continue reading Opinion: A peace deal for the whole of the Middle East

For 20 years in the middle of the last century, John Kenneth Galbraith, who died yesterday at 97, was the "best known living economist". But he was not, and will never be, regarded as a great economist by economists. He is best thought of as a sociological economist, who tried to develop a theory and … Continue reading Obituary J. K. Galbraith

TONY BLAIR'S view of the history of education is one of state neglect with occasional exceptions. I don't want to say there's no truth in this story. But there is an alternative story to be told, which is not one of neglect but one of creeping collectivisation. On the resources side, this culminated in the … Continue reading Opinion: Beware the collectivisation of education

ONE OF the oldest divides in politics is between the moralists and the prudentialists. Moralists have a passion to make the crooked path of humanity straight; prudentialists to make the best of an inherently imperfect world. I know that prudence is itself a moral virtue, and moralists are also capable of discarding the sandals of … Continue reading Podium: The flaws in the new world order

IN RECENT weeks the newspapers have been full of the world financial crisis. Experts have seriously wondered whether it will lead to a global recession, even another Great Depression. Underlying that question is an even deeper one: will the new globalism that arose from the ruins of Communism and statism in the Eighties have an … Continue reading Essay: The real problem with capitalism is the markets

The death of Nicholas Wahl at the early age of 66 is a grievous loss to his many friends and to the study of French politics. Nick Wahl was one of the small band of outstanding American scholars of post-war France. His knowledge of French culture and politics was encyclopaedic; he cultivated everyone in France … Continue reading Obituary: Professor Nicholas Wahl

Jacques Delors, stepping down as President of the European Commission at the end of this month, seemed to be fashioning his political epitaph in a newspaper article before Christmas. "Thatcher defeated, says Delors", the headline ran. The Commissi on President was reported as saying that socialism had defeated her brand of "ultra-liberal economics". The claim … Continue reading Opinion: Brussels cannot know best