Robert Skidelsky
Robert Skidelsky, a member of the British House of Lords, is Professor emeritus of political economy at Warwick University, author of a prize-winning biography of the economist John Maynard Keynes, and a board member of the Moscow School of Political Studies.
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2010-02-19
| Premature rejection of bank nationalization when the financial crisis erupted in 2008 has left us with the same two alternatives that Franklin D. Roosevelt faced in 1933: break-up or regulation. What advocates of regulation miss is that the battle between the two approaches is a question of political power, not of technical financial economics.... read |
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2010-01-19
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If inflation has succeeded recession as today’s main problem, as many conservative economists contend, governments should withdraw their stimulus policies as soon as possible. But the fact that there is no evidence of higher prices in the pipeline in Europe and the US means that there is no real evidence of economic recovery – and thus that officials there should increase spending.... read |
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2009-12-18
| A free society requires a high degree of trust to reduce the burden of monitoring and control, and trust requires internalized standards of honor, integrity, and fairness. But, with the steady encroachment of market logic in areas traditionally governed by non-market norms, the language of trust has been replaced by the regulatory language of "accountability" and "transparency."... read |
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2009-11-19
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In 1930, John Maynard Keynes predicted that in 100 years – that is, by 2030 – growth in the developed world would, in effect, have stopped, because people would “have enough” to lead the “good life.” Instead, the accumulation of wealth, which should be a means to the “good life,” has become an end in itself because it destroys many of the things that make life worth living. ... read |
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2009-10-20
| Chicago School economics has never been more vulnerable than it is today – and deservedly so. But, as a recent exchange between two economic heavyweights showed, the attack on it will never succeed unless its Keynesian rivals are willing to work out the implications of irreducible uncertainty for economic theory.... read |
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2009-09-21
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Conservative-minded economists argue that economic stimulus produces only higher prices, because people spend more money on the same quantity of goods and services. But stimulus packages around the world arrested the slide into depression, and the time to start worrying about inflation is when the recovery is entrenched.... read |
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2009-08-19
| The trend over the past century has been towards a continuous increase in the number of small states, mainly owing to nationalist revolts against multi-national empires. Provided we do not deceive ourselves about where power really lies in the international system, let presidents and parliaments be three a penny if it makes people feel good about themselves.... read |
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2009-07-20
| Since the financial breakdown last autumn, regulators have begun to embrace “macro-prudential” models to manage “systemic” risk, rather than leaving banks to manage their own risks. But both banks and regulators lumber on in the untenable belief that all risk is measurable (and thus controllable), ignoring John Maynard Keynes’s crucial distinction between “risk” and “uncertainty.”... read |
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2009-06-19
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With refugees spilling over borders, pirates hijacking ships, and terrorists finding shelter, it is clear that, although Africa’s solutions are its own, its problems are not. But, while the rest of the world can no longer afford Africa’s poverty, the evidence of 50 years of failed efforts is that no one has a clue what to do about it.... read |
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Anatomy of Thatcherism
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Robert Skidelsky 
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Thirty years ago this month, Margaret Thatcher came to power, lending her name to a set of ideas that inspired policies to free markets from government interference. Three decades later, with world is in a slump, many on the left attribute the global crisis to these very ideas, but not all of them should be discarded.... read
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2008-09-15
| The looming bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, and the forced sale of Merrill Lynch, two of the greatest names in finance, mark the end of an era. The market optimism that led to de-regulation of financial markets in the 1980’s and 1990’s is over, and will be replaced by a new cycle of government intervention.... read |
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2008-03-11
| Today, there seems to be no coherent alternative to capitalism, yet it remains morally vulnerable. Because the market system has become dangerously dependent on economic success, any large-scale economic failure – such as the crisis we are witnessing today – will expose the shallowness of its moral claims. ... read |
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2008-06-19
| John McCain has been calling for the creation of a “League of Democracies” that would allow the US and its partners to bypass the UN. THe idea is incoherent and impracticable, but that doesn't make it any less dangerous.... read |
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2008-05-19
| Faith-based science seems a contradiction in terms, because the scientific worldview emerged as a challenge to religious superstition. But important scientific beliefs can now be said to be held religiously, because they feed our seemingly endless appetite for doomsday scenarios.... read |
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2008-07-18
| Almost everyone seems to believe that Iran must be prevented at all costs from acquiring nuclear weapons. But, while every effort should be made to dissuade Iran from “going nuclear,” the floodgates to nuclear proliferation would not open if such efforts fail; a more likely outcome would be a “balance of terror” between Israel and Iran, as exists between India and Pakistan.... read |
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2008-04-18
| Kosovo's recent unilateral declaration of independence has been as damaging to the international system as the 1999 war by NATO that wrested it from Serbia's control. Indeed, that war laid the doctrinal groundwork that led to the unfolding disaster in Iraq.... read |
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2009-04-21
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There is increasing agreement that four factors interacted to cause the current economic slump: financial innovation, global macroeconomic imbalances, cheap money, and the wrong theory of financial markets. But if we are going allocate blame, economists deserve more of it than anyone else, for they established the ideas that bankers, politicians, and regulators applied.... read |
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2008-12-23
| Economics, it seems, has very little to tell us about the current economic crisis. Whereas the dominant paradigm in finance – the “efficient market hypothesis” – assumes that everyone has perfect information, and therefore that all prices express the real value of goods for sale, any finance professional will tell you that imperfect information is king.... read |
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2008-08-19
| When a British court decided that the News of the World violated FIA President Max Mosley's right to privacy by publishing details and pictures of a "sadomasochistic orgy" involving Mosley, the tabloid protested that press freedom was being curtailed. But the court was right: the Mosley case proves that there can be too much press freedom.... read |
2010-01-19
