Ferraris for all

Yesterday spiked ran a critique by me of the campaign for a Robin Hood tax. Proceeds from the proposed levy on financial transactions would go to offset spending cuts in Britain, tackle climate change and help deal with global poverty.

Labels: finance, Fund Strategy, inequality, media appearances, spiked

An extract from my recent spiked review on growth scepticism was published today in the Washington Times.

Labels: media appearances, review, spiked

My recent spiked review on growth scepticism is featured on Arts & Letters Daily today.

Labels: media appearances, review, spiked

Spiked has published a review by me looking at three American growth sceptic books. It is essentially an introduction to some of the key themes of my new book.

Labels: book, growth, media appearances, review, spiked

Real Clear Markets has published my latest comment from Fund Strategy.

Labels: media appearances

Real Clear Markets has published my latest comment from Fund Strategy.

Labels: economics, finance, Fund Strategy, media appearances

My spiked review of Neal Lawson’s All Consuming is the featured book review on Arts & Letters Daily today.

Labels: book, media appearances, review, spiked

Real Clear Markets has published my latest comment from Fund Strategy.

Labels: economics, finance, Fund Strategy, media appearances

The Independent, a British daily newspaper, has published a comment piece by me on “greedy bankers”.

Labels: economics, finance, media appearances

Laura Piccinini of Repubblica, a leading Italian newspaper, has written an article on John Naish’s idea that humans have Stone Age brains including a reference to my critique of his work. A summary and partial translation of the article by Maria Grasso can be found below. A link to my article on “Enoughism” is in the reviews section on the left hand column of my homepage.

The article starts by talking about Naish and his anti-consumerism (we need to cutback, the crisis won't be enough, we need to take action to cut back even more); he cites approvingly Rutgers Trivers' evolutionary biology idea that the reason we're so greedy and consume so much is that we've been pre-planned through survival strategies/instinct to accumulate in order to deal with future scarcity. As such, we haven't evolved since then and keep behaving irrationally towards planet/ourselves/future generations because we're biologically pre-planned in the same way that the first homo sapiens was - we're stuck there mentally, seems to be his argument. As evidence, he cites a study from the Southern California University that we release opioids when we consume. He fears that "over-information" and in particular commercials will suppress our development as a species to do something more than consume. To set the example, he doesn't own a mobile or have a Facebook account - he says he lives in Brighton so he can network face-to-face.

[Then the article continues, translated word for word]:

"You're either with him or against him. As is the critic from the magazine spiked, an anti-conservative and counter-current newspaper which has already attacked the well-known environmentalist George Monbiot. The subject of the disagreement was precisely the thesis that our brains are stuck in the Pleistocene period. This thesis was undermined by scientific expert Kenan Malik, who instead argues that human nature is flexible and adapts and interacts with its environment. When we point this out Naish disagrees, "I am talking about a pre-rational state in which these decisions occur - and in any case, you should check out the website of the journalist who criticised me." We did: his name is Daniel Ben-Ami and his website is called, Ferraris for all - resources for the defence of economic progress against the growth sceptics. When we asked for his opinion, Daniel did not budge. "I am against Naish and all the pro-austerity folk such as Monbiot". You're either with Naish or with Mr Ben-Ami - make your choice. Perhaps after you've read the chapter "No more choices!" The one on (Young Experimenting Perfection Seekers) Yeppies (a syndrome diagnosed by Kate Fox from the Social Issues Research Centre), people who had the opportunity to leave when they didn't like something, who run the risk of finding themselves at home at 40: the life-time procrastinators. Or the one about ex-workaholics, sent home during the crisis. Naish continues: "I invite people to read the chapter "No more work!" and to find the hidden Keynes. What's wealth for? is also on Keynes' . Naish argues that people are reviving the wrong Keynes - the one of over-consumer spending. Naish is against Obama's faith in spending - even if he says he likes the Barack the man. "Why spend $900 billion when 1/10th of that would have been enough if he'd spoken to the alternative economists?" Would that be the ones that don't want growth like you don't want it Mr Naish? Obama's change is there, but only within a capitalist system where the market reigns king. It's not enough he thinks. The hidden Keynes that inspired him to a psychedelic Keynesianism is the one which authored Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren - the bisexual pre-hippy Bloomsbury man. Naish argues that: "Keynes predicted that in a few generations we would reach economic and technical abundance which would pave the way for worrying about greater issues. Not spending and creating money - to think instead about cultural evolution and the higher morals of our species. "That moment has come apparently. "Maybe this recession will finally convince us”. Since WWII we've finally arrived at maximum development he thinks. Then the crisis. After reading "Stop with stuff" "Stop with happiness" "Never enough!" one will certainly find a syndrome one is affected by. The chapter on "Stop with syndromes" isn't there, but it's there if you read between the lines. And before this one, Naish had published "Pocket handbook for hypochondriacs". Maybe he's trying to take advantage of our feeble Darwinian instinct which wants to have and know everything, including all possible diagnoses? In the last page he says sorry and invites us to say stop to this kind of book. Presumably only after we've read his though.

Labels: consumption, ethics, media appearances, review, science

Real Clear Markets has published my latest comment from Fund Strategy.

Labels: Fund Strategy, media appearances

I am on the BBC Radio 4’s Moral Maze this evening discussing Fred Goodwin’s pay and “moral capitalism”. It should also be available on BBC iPlayer after the broadcast.

Labels: consumption, economics, ethics, media appearances, radio, work

Real Clear Markets has published my cover story on the Green New Deal from Fund Strategy.

Labels: economics, environment, ethics, Fund Strategy, media appearances

Real Clear Markets has published my latest comment from Fund Strategy.

Labels: economics, finance, Fund Strategy, globalisation, media appearances

Real Clear Markets has published my latest comment from Fund Strategy.

Labels: economics, finance, Fund Strategy, media appearances

Real Clear Markets has published my latest comment from Fund Strategy.

Labels: Fund Strategy, media appearances

Highlights of my appearance at the Battle of Ideas 2008 can now be viewed on the latest Worldbytes programme (see 30 October 2008 post). I appeared on a panel on “Growing pains: the pros and cons of economic dynamism” alongside, among others, Martin Wolf of the Financial Times and Ha-Joon Chang of Cambridge University.

Labels: development, economics, growth, media appearances, speeches, Worldwrite

Real Clear Markets has picked up my Fund Strategy cover story on the global financial crisis.

Labels: economics, finance, Fund Strategy, media appearances

This evening I was interviewed by Al Jazeera on this week’s market and economic developments.

Labels: economics, film, media appearances, television

Real Clear Markets and Times Comment Central have picked up my article on yesterday’s spiked.

Labels: economics, finance, media appearances, spiked

This week my recent Fund Strategy news analysis on the market meltdown (see 6 October post) was reproduced on Real Clear Markets while spiked ran an updated version of my review of Robert Reich’s Supercapitalism. I was also invited to appear on the Al Jazeera English TV station and Sky News but could not do either as I was in Dubai. It seems that I am at my most popular during a global financial crisis!

Labels: book, economics, finance, Fund Strategy, media appearances, review, spiked, television

Worldwrite’s latest Worldbytes television programme includes an item with me talking about global inequality. Other stories include challenging China bashing, a scientist talks about waste and an alien’s take on carbon footprints.

Labels: china, development, environment, footprint, inequality, media appearances, Worldwrite

I am due to appear on BBC television this evening talking about the role of greed in the current financial crisis. Naturally I will be arguing that it is not the driving force behind the market turmoil. I am scheduled to be on BBC World at 7.30pm (London time) and later on the BBC News 24 channel.

Labels: economics, finance, media appearances, television

Real Clear Markets has picked up my Spiked myths article in its “off the street” section today.

Labels: America, economics, finance, media appearances, spiked

Worldwrite has launched its Worldbytes television channel (see 28 August post). The first programme includes an item with me talking about poverty in London.

Labels: inequality, media appearances, television, Worldwrite

Spiked has published an article by me on the row over Alistair Darling, the chancellor of the Exchequer, saying Britain is facing its toughest economic times for 60 years.

Also Real Clear Markets included a link to my Fund Strategy cover story on oil on Tuesday.

Labels: economics, energy, Fund Strategy, media appearances, spiked

You can see me talking about China and the environment at the recent Battle for China conference by clicking the link.

Labels: china, development, environment, media appearances, television

Yesterday I appeared on Colourful Radio, which describes itself as ‘talk radio with soul”, discussing the Progress lecture by John Hutton, Labour’s business secretary, where he apparently praised affluence. I cannot currently find a copy of his speech on the internet but according to a BBC article the Blairite minister said “more millionaires” are needed and the freedom to get rich is “a good thing”. It drew predictable complaints from vaguely leftist commentators such as Polly Toynbee and Neal Lawson. For example, Lawson argues that a “modern left” wants to offer the working class “social citizenship, real quality of life, sustainability and the right balance between what we need and wants as individuals and members of society”.

My argument, in contrast, is that affluence should not just be for the elite. Everyone should have access to the best that society has to offer. Coming from a website with the slogan “Ferraris for All” that should not be a surprise. I pointed out that, as today’s Budget would show, Labour is the party of green austerity.

Labels: economics, media appearances

The Arts & Letters Daily website has published a link to my spiked review on John Kenneth Galbraith as the “midwife of miserabilism”.

Labels: media appearances, review, spiked

My review essay on “Towards an age of abundance” has made it onto the Arts & Letters Daily website.

Labels: book, media appearances, review, spiked

Engineers Against Poverty has published a debate between me and David Nicholson-Lord, research associate of the Optimum Population Trust, in its July newsletter. Nicholson-Lord argues that the size of the global population is itself a problem. I counter that human ingenuity has enabled humanity to overcome apparently natural limits and is likely to do so in the future. The debate can be viewed on pages 3-5 of the newsletter: here (PDF).

Incidentally, Nicholson-Lord is also the deputy chairman of the New Economics Foundation (NEF). His involvement in both organisations suggests the NEF is more Malthusian than its radical reputation suggests.

Labels: consumption, development, environment, Malthus, media appearances

I appeared last night on 18 Doughty Street, an internet television channel, discussing a range of topics related to the recent G8 summit of world leaders. The other panellists on the Claire Fox News programme were Deepak Lal and Stuart Simpson. The programme can be watched by clicking: here.

Labels: development, globalisation, media appearances, television

Worldwrite, an education charity which produces films promoting third world development, has produced its first newsreel. The film is based on a critical discussion of the recent G8 summit of world leaders. I was on the panel along with Philip Cunliffe and Stuart Simpson (see 29 May post). It can currently be viewed from the Worldwrite homepage here.

Labels: Africa, development, film, media appearances, Worldwrite

I have come across so much on happiness in the last few days that I will have to resort to relaying it in bullet point form:

* Happiness debate in the Financial Times. Martin Wolf, the chief economics commentator of the Financial Times, had a belated review of Richard Layard’s 2005 book on happiness published in Wednesday (“Why progressive taxation is not the route to happiness” 6 June). A particularly interesting point he made was that the attack on happiness can be seen as a challenge to modernity itself. Developments such as improvement in life expectancy, the liberation of women from household drudgery or easier divorce do not increase reported happiness.

Two book hitters in the happiness debate replied to Wolf with letters. Layard says that there are some aspects of modernity that should be ameliorated. He gives levels of trust as an example. Meanwhile, Andrew Oswald, professor of economics at the University of Warwick and well-known happiness advocate, makes the familiar point that reported happiness has not increased over time in the rich countries over the last few decades. He goes on to state: “That graph could usefully be pinned up in every minister’s and president’s office”. Why he thinks it should be such a decisive argument is not clear.

* Debating Andrew Oswald at Debating Matters. Talking of Oswald, I will be debating him at the national final of the Debating Matters competition in London on June 29. We will both be “expert witnesses” debating whether happiness should be a goal of national policy. Later on the same motion will be debated by the high school students who are taking part in the competition. In conjunction with the discussion the Debating Matters team has produced a useful topic guide for the debate. (Last year I debated John Hilary of War on Want on globalisation at the same event).

* Quoted in Financieele Dagblad. Yesterday I was also quoted on the happiness debate in a substantial feature in the leading Dutch financial daily newspaper by Esther van Rijswijk. I am hoping to get it translated.

* Paradox of Prosperity essay republished. My spiked essay on the “paradox of prosperity” is to be republished by the Institute of Chartered Financial Analysts of India. The organisation is publishing a book in its professional reference series which is provisionally entitled: Prosperity Index: Assessing Growth Anew. It is due out in November.

* Happiness expert website. Ruud Veenhoven, one of the world’s leading experts on happiness, has a website: here. Evidently he also argues that a “paradox of prosperity” does not exist.

* Parenting-happiness link. A parenting expert made the point to me yesterday that the debates on happiness and parenting are linked. The likes of Oliver James argue there is a clear link between women not looking after children and the outbreak of “affluenza” in society.

Labels: affluenza, growth, happiness, india, media appearances, modernity, speeches, spiked

Sachs Sucks, my review of the first BBC Reith lecture by Jeffrey Sachs, has appeared on the Arts & Letters website today.

Labels: media appearances

This morning I appeared on Sky News debating Friends of the Earth on the raising of air taxes which came into effect today. I argued against the taxes on two grounds. First, they were in effect a form of rationing which would discourage people from flying. Second, to the extent that climate change is a problem the solution lies with investment in technological innovation. Friends of the Earth argued the taxes were welcome but the proceeds should be earmarked for green purposes.

Interestingly the Friends of the Earth representative made a big point of insisting that the science on climate change was certain and the Stern review proved it. Of course he did not make clear what exactly was certain. That the earth is warming? That humans are responsible? That catastrophe is imminent? That rationing is the only way forward? It seemed to me what was really being said was that it is illegitimate to challenge the consensus that there should be natural limits on human behaviour. In other words what is really being pushed is not scientific truth but a morality of low expectations.

Labels: climate, environment, media appearances, television

This morning I debated Oliver James, the author of a new book on “affluenza” on the Radio 4 Today programme (programme available on its website for the next seven days). His argument is that affluence is increasingly making us sick. Nico Macdonald has produced a summary of our debate which is available here. James has not put forward an original thesis - his book is the third with “affluenza” as a title - but two things were notable about what he said:

* His thesis takes the form of an attack on the rich. However, it is the poor who suffer as a result of attacks on affluence.

* He claimed that over the long-term working hours in America and Britain have lengthened. This is simply wrong. Long-term statistics on his this trend are tricky to interpret - for example, because of the rise of the number of women in the labour force - but there is no doubt the trend is for working hours to fall. Even apart from the working week people are spending more time in education and more time in retirement. The amount of back-breaking manual labour people have to do has fallen dramatically. Also, according to the latest figures from National Statistics, the average working week in Britain has fallen by one hour over the past 15 years. I intend to do more work on the subject of working hours in my book.

At lunchtime I had a rematch against Oliver James on the Jeremy Vine Show on BBC Radio 2. A summary of the debate can be read here. James made much of the fact he was talking about mental illness rather than unhappiness. He did not see the bigger picture of how his arguments relate to growth scepticism.

Labels: affluenza, America, happiness, media appearances, radio, work

Last weekend I debated the Battle for Affluence at the Battle of Ideas festival. The thrust of my argument was that affluence has proved enormously beneficial for humanity and will continue to do so. In contrast others, such as Professor Avner Offer of Oxford university and Mark Easton of the BBC, argued that our preoccupation with prosperity has gone too far. In their view other factors, such as well-being, should be the main focus of government policy. Others on the panel included Professor Nicholas Crafts of Warwick university and Jenny Davey of the Times (London). Later that evening I also debated Professor Offer on BBC Radio Five Live.

At the conference I also chaired a session in which Damned by Debt Relief, a film made by Worldwrite, had its world premiere. The film showed how the Highly Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) initiative imposes new conditions on the poor but does not offer any new money. A trailer for the film can be viewed here.

Other sessions at the weekend included a debate on the “happiness trap” and a series on the Battle over Nature.

Labels: affluenza, film, happiness, media appearances, radio, speeches, Worldwrite

I appeared on Sky News again this morning debating Ashok Sinha of Stop Climate Chaos. The subject of the debate was the announcement by David Miliband, the environment secretary, of a “climate revolution”. At the time of broadcast it was not clear what this would involve but it seems certain to be centred on the government’s favoured approaches of rationing and behaviour modification. Evidently he also wants to reward companies for energy efficiency rather than energy production.

I made the point that a strategy based on rationing was undesirable and unviable. Over time we will inevitably use more energy even if we become more energy efficient. The challenge is to make society richer so that it is better able to deal with climate change and other problems it faces.

Labels: climate, environment, media appearances, television

I appeared today on the Counterpoint programme on ABC Radio National in Australia talking about Bono's Product RED initiative as well as related issues such as ethical consumption and economic development. You can listen by clicking here.

Labels: consumption, development, ethics, media appearances, radio

This morning I appeared on Sky News debating the economics of climate change with Friends of the Earth. The environmentalist group had commissioned a report from Tufts university (PDF) which argued that immediate action was needed to stop climate change becoming a catastrophic problem. My counter-argument was that the richer we are as a society the better able we should be to tackle climate change and other challenges facing humanity. The debate can be viewed on YouTube by clicking here

Labels: climate, media appearances, television

Today I debated consumer debt on the Jeremy Vine show on BBC Radio 2. The peg for the debate was a report from Datamonitor, a business research group, which estimated that the average British resident has £3,175 of unsecured borrowing. That is about twice the average in continental Europe.

I argued that debt was not a problem for most people as long as the economy was growing strongly and unemployment was low. In addition, much of the anti-debt campaign has a puritanical edge to it: a dislike for ordinary people buying luxury goods. However, this does not preclude a small minority having debt problems. Usually these are a result of changes in life circumstances such as divorce or unemployment.

My opponent was David Nellist, a former Labour MP. He presented debt as a huge problem for ordinary people; seduced by advertising and enticed by junk mail.

Labels: debt, media appearances, radio

The slogan “Ferraris for all” comes for Worldwrite; an education charity campaigning for real development in the third world. Ceri Dingle, the director of the charity, was evidently asking some of its volunteers what they would really like to have. They said Ferarris. I am sure they did not necessarily mean it literally. No doubt Lamborghinis, McLarens or Maseratis would do for some. The point is that everyone should have access to the best that the world has to offer.

I appeared in the Bitter Aftertaste; a short documentary Worldwrite made criticising fair trade. To view the film on the internet click HERE. I have also written an article on the subject, called the coffee con , for Spiked.

On 28 October I will be chairing a discussion of Worldwrite’s new film Damned by Debt Relief at the Battle of Ideas festival. In 2005 I wrote an article on debt relief for Spiked.

Labels: development, film, media appearances, speeches, spiked, trade, Worldwrite