Twenty five years ago Guy Routh published a book entitled ‘Economics: An Alternative Text’, proposing the outrageous idea that economic theory should be based on observation and an understanding of how things work. He quotes Richard Jones “if you want to find out how the world works, you must look and see.” This approach was, [...]
The dilemmas facing the new British government, though not them alone, in dealing with the biggest ever peace-time indebtedness, are how much of public expenditure to cut, what to cut and how to cut it and above all when to start. Do too little too late and “the markets” won’t like it and that would [...]
Economic progress has always had the unfortunate side effect of magnifying inequalities, between the rich and poor, the employers and workers, and between the providers of capital and providers of labour. These inequalities were accepted by some to be a necessary component of industrial progress and elaborate philosophical arguments were raised for their justification. Inequalities [...]
The “madmen in authority”, as Keynes characterised them, are still in thrall to “the markets” and the rating agencies. The people surrounding messrs Clegg and Cameron, as they struggle to an agreement, are more concerned that what they finally come up with will satisfy the markets, than that they will satisfy the electorate.
But, by definition, [...]
Profit is wilThe idea of profit has caused much aggravation over the years and even today is still the source of heated debate. Marx borrowed Ricardo’s idea that profit was no more than the wages earned by labour but stolen by the providers of capital. This explained the grossly unfair divergence between the poverty of [...]
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