THOUGHT LEADERS

Against the Current

Robert Skidelsky

Are markets moral? What does the East expect from the West? Has globalization killed the idea of equality? Has the concept of “humanitarian intervention” been discredited? Is authoritarian capitalism a viable development option?

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The Bogey of Inflation

Robert Skidelsky Series: Against the Current

2010-01-19

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

Comments: 2 Recommended: 1 Read: 3953

In Regulation We Trust?

Robert Skidelsky Series: Against the Current

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the steady encroachment of market logic in areas traditionally governed by non-market norms, the language of trust has been replaced by the regulatory language of "accountability" and "transparency."...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

Comments: 1 Recommended: 0 Read: 3783

How Much is Enough?

Robert Skidelsky Series: Against the Current

2009-11-19

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

Comments: 1 Recommended: 1 Read: 6748

Keynes versus the Classics: Round Two

Robert Skidelsky Series: Against the Current

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

Comments: 0 Recommended: 1 Read: 7086

Is Stimulus Still Necessary?

Robert Skidelsky Series: Against the Current

2009-09-21

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

Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 4005

Fictional Sovereignties

Robert Skidelsky Series: Against the Current

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

Comments: 1 Recommended: 0 Read: 5602

Risky Risk Management

Robert Skidelsky Series: Against the Current

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

Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 5962

The Lost Continent

Robert Skidelsky Series: Against the Current

2009-06-19

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

Comments: 1 Recommended: 0 Read: 7026

Anatomy of Thatcherism

Robert Skidelsky Series: Against the Current

2009-05-19

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

Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 8546

The Treason of the Economists	Robert Skidelsky
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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Constitutional Politics

Ralf Dahrendorf Series: Against the Current

2003-09-12

A cynic might be tempted to say that when politicians run out of ideas, they turn to making or changing the constitution. Take the European Union. Its last big project was the single market as conceived by Jacques Delors, the European Commission's then-President. That project has still not been completed, but the missing bits are a continuing process, not a new idea. ... read

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A New Anti-Semitism

Ralf Dahrendorf Series: Against the Current

2006-03-08

These are violent times. Some believe that we are experiencing a new kind of conflict: “culture wars,” such as those between Sunni and Shiite Muslims or tribal groups in Africa and Asia, or indeed Islamists and Westerners. However, the deeper reasons for some of these conflicts may well be more traditional.... read

Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 25350

The Limits of Democracy

Ralf Dahrendorf Series: Against the Current

2006-02-09

The election of the militant and hitherto extra-parliamentary group Hamas in the Palestinian territories reminds us of what democracy cannot achieve. No one in a more established democratic state is surprised if one’s own side does not win. Democracy is about competing parties, and, unless they form a “grand coalition,” they cannot all win. But what if an election’s winners have no intention of abiding by the rules that are part and parcel of the democratic process?... read

Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 25094

The Dilemma of Multiculturalism

Ralf Dahrendorf Series: Against the Current

2005-08-10

Many people have suddenly become very hesitant about using the term “multicultural society.” Or they hesitate to use it approvingly, as a desirable ideal that social reality should at least approximate.... read

Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 24977

The Politics of Frustration

Ralf Dahrendorf Series: Against the Current

2005-10-14

Does extreme poverty breed violence and ultimately revolution? Many people believe that it does, and seek to explain phenomena ranging from guerrilla insurgencies to Islamist terrorism accordingly.... read

Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 24197

Inequality and Discontent

Ralf Dahrendorf Series: Against the Current

2006-01-19

In the last two decades, the world as a whole has gotten richer, but, while some national economies have advanced sharply, others have fallen farther behind. The increase in aggregate wealth has not led to the abolition, or even reduction, of poverty.... read

Comments: 1 Recommended: 0 Read: 24139

Elections are Not Enough

Ralf Dahrendorf Series: Against the Current

2005-11-15

There can be no liberal order without political democracy, but today we are frequently reminded that political democracy alone does not guarantee a liberal order. Free and fair elections may lead to the ascendancy of a president of Iran who wants to “wipe Israel off the map of the Middle East.” Or to a president of Venezuela whose intolerance of the business class causes jubilation in the streets, but emigration by those whose initiative is crucial for the welfare of the people. Less damaging, yet problematic, is the election – as in Poland – of a minority government that ruthlessly pursues its members’ personal interests and breaks all promises of cooperation made before the polls.... read

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The Nation State Revisited

Ralf Dahrendorf Series: Against the Current

2006-04-14

It has become fashionable to claim that the nation state has lost its place. Globalization, it is said, means that nations can no longer control their own affairs. They must join with others, as in the European Union or ASEAN or Mercosur, and they must increasingly rely on global institutions like the United Nations, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization.... read

Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 22880

Germany’s Five Election Unknowns

Ralf Dahrendorf Series: Against the Current

2005-09-08

On September 18, Germany will hold an election that contains at least five unknowns. If it were an equation, it would be impossible to solve. Fortunately, politics is not mathematics – though, unfortunately, this means that there are no clear solutions. Indeed, even in the opaque terms of contemporary politics, the German case is particularly vexing.... read

Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 22854

Today’s Counter-Enlightenment	Ralf Dahrendorf
Not long ago, one might have concluded that, at least in Europe, there were no taboos left. A process that had begun with the Enlightenment had now reached the point at which “anything goes.” Particularly in the arts, there were no apparent limits to showing what even a generation ago would have been regarded as highly offensive. ... read
Back to the Politics of Cultural Despair	Ralf Dahrendorf
Some years ago the historian Fritz Stern wrote a book about Germany entitled The Politics of Cultural Despair. He used the example of three (now forgotten) bestselling authors of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to show the deep aversion of many Germans to the modern world, notably to market economics and democratic politics. For Stern, this was part of the cultural soil in which National Socialism flourished.... read

AUTHOR INFO

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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THOUGHT LEADERS

Against the Current

Robert Skidelsky

The Bogey of Inflation

In Regulation We Trust?

How Much is Enough?

Keynes versus the Classics: Round Two

Is Stimulus Still Necessary?

Fictional Sovereignties

Risky Risk Management

The Lost Continent

Anatomy of Thatcherism

Constitutional Politics

A New Anti-Semitism

The Limits of Democracy

The Dilemma of Multiculturalism

The Politics of Frustration

Inequality and Discontent

Elections are Not Enough

The Nation State Revisited

Germany’s Five Election Unknowns

AUTHOR INFO

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