Never mind the evidence – feel the ideology!
It’s not economic “growth” that matters, says Colin Tudge. It’s equality Lest we thought the madness of Trussonomics had disappeared with her own assisted abdication a senior Tory MP popped up on Channel 4 News to tell us once more (a) that the only way to solve Britain’s mounting problems is by economic growth, apparently … Read more
The importance of being idle
In a brief but brilliant soap-box speech (albeit delivered from a Paris balcony), and in the midst of on-going strikes, Jean-Luc Melenchon** argued that the present-day economy and the politics and mindset behind them are, quite simply, mad. We are all of us obliged to work harder and harder in effect to stay in the … Read more
Of billionaires and bombs
Extreme wealth is potentially as dangerous as any weapons of war, says Colin Tudge. So why are we so relaxed about it?
Green Economic Democracy: in place of “isms”
A (fairly long) shopping list of what seem to be promising ideas.
It’s a huge mistake to treat economists as gurus
Economists are wont to cluster in think tanks and pop up on television to explain not only what is wrong with the economy but what is wrong with the world in general. In other words, because they are good at what they do and are wont to dazzle us with jargon and acronyms and mathematical … Read more
Algorithms, ideologies, and principles
The belief that economics can be a science has led many an economist to search for the economic equivalent of E=Mc2 or the elusive Grand Unified Theory; a search for huge if not quite all-embracing truths that can be expressed as mathematical algorithms or, more simply, as slogans. Examples include Karl Marx’s “the workers must … Read more
Economics is not and cannot be a science – and science is not the royal road to truth
As the Cambridge economist Joan Robinson (1903-1983) put the matter in 1962 in Economic Philosophy: “All along [economics] has been striving to escape from sentiment and to win for itself the status of a science … [but] … lacking the experimental method, economists are not strictly enough compelled to reduce metaphysical concepts to falsifiable terms … Read more
The brief ascendency of Kwasi and Liz
A cautionary tale for all humankind for all time. Truly, Kwasi and Liz are the stuff of legend. If they had lived deep in antiquity they would still be remembered in fables and folk-tales, not as role models but as a warning to us all. For besides trashing the British economy in a few brief … Read more