Thursday 24 June, 2004
Trains and Votes and Brains - Financing our railway system
Quoting Abraham Lincoln, Network Rail's chief executive, John Armitt, recently described "the heart stopping cost" of railways. Noting that property near the Jubilee Line had increased by a factor of four, he then went on to wonder if the principle that the immediate beneficiaries, meaning the users and those whose property values were affected, should pay rather than the nation as a whole. But is this fair or even true to the economics of railways? Where would a nation be without a railway system? Can it really be replaced by roads, which even now are coming to a standstill? Or by air travel, with its negative environmental effects and lack of point-to-point service? Can the existing system not be tweaked so that there is a true mix of its private and public aspects and so that societal and individual interests can become balanced?
Tuesday 15 June, 2004
Unusual Business - Rudolf Steiner's Approach to Sustainability
An evening conversation based on a presentation by Dr. Christopher Houghton Budd, director of the Centre for Associative Economics, CanterburyMany commentators claim that business and sustainability are irreconcilable,especially because of the tendency of modern finance to lead a life of its own. When "money does business on its own account", every other consideration - economic, social and environmental - takes a back seat. In Steiner's view this is due to a misunderstanding of the role of both companies and finance. This event explores the relevance of what Steiner has to say to today's debate on sustainability.
Thursday 27 May, 2004
Keynes, Britain, and the Global Economy - Global partnership or yet more imperialism?
The world generally seems not yet to have woken up to the historical significance of the economist John Maynard Keynes. His economics described by biographer Robert Skidelsky as more New Testament than Old, Keynes identified characteristics of a global economy and the important consequences for a post-Empire Britain that few seem to have understood. How, for example, is one to understand the statement 'the principles of the sterling area, offensive to America in an imperial context, become acceptable, if they are universalised...' Partnership, not imperialism, is the hallmark of Keynes's economic vision. Does this not ring true even now?
Thursday 29 April, 2004
A Question of Balance - The meaning of equilibrium in economics.
For many years taken as the lynchpin of economic theory, more recent times have seen a profound questioning of the concept of equilibrium. Some go as far as to dismiss it altogether as an impossible notion in a dynamic system. Yet if the idea of equilibrium gives us the possibility of orientation, then might we not rescue it by showing how it is related to the human being, not just as a concept but an everyday experience? After all, without a sense of balance one cannot move.
11 March 2004
Whither Fair Trade?
Guarantee mark or global brand?
Now that Fairtrade products are available in almost every supermarket, the spotlight will fall increasingly on what defines this new 'brand'. It may not yet be apparent, but only conceptual integrity can ensure the future fairness of this way of doing business. Who, for example, should own the fair trade concept and what if umpteen new brands appear, each proclaiming its own version of fairness? Can the roots of 'fair trade' go deeper than the soil of commercial interests?
12 February 2004
To Profit or Not to Profit
Financing NGOs
We often assume that charitable organisations operate out of a different financial logic to either government or business, but is that really so? Likewise, we tend to think that for-profits and not-for-profits are worlds apart, although the future may have a very different story to tell. In all domains there is a call for clarity and accountability - a call, that is, for consciousness in the way we use money and a call to recognise the dynamic that works between money given, money invested, and money spent. In the future, might a working relationship not arise between for-profits and not-for-profits based on such awareness and no longer on the idea of 'making it here, giving it away there'?
15 January 2004
Globalisation - Localisation
Two sides of one coin?
Arguments may rage and camps can clash in favour of one or other perspective, but what if they are two sides of the same coin, as indeed the slogan 'think global, act local' indicates? Is the individual not a player in the global economy in his/her own right? Indeed, one could say that the individual is the true 'local' and humanity the 'global'; therefore the real necessity is to act individually but with humanity's regard. What landscape might we then find ourselves in? And how then would we distinguish between the global, national and local levels of our lives?
Retirement Revisited
Grasping the Pensions Nettle
4 December 2003
Modern pension funding makes assumptions about demography and growth that may no be longer valid. It also tends to work through inflationary investment in property or playing the stock market, and relies on casting values forward. Could we not fund pensions in a more direct manner by investing in new activities, rather than buildings and the stock exchange, and by using present-time money transfers. More radically, should we simply abandon them altogether or have they become an inalienable right?
The Visible Hand
Growing beyond the Enlightenment
6 November 2003
Modern economic life is permeated by assumptions about the earthly-only nature of the human being. 'Unable to act nobly, we need the invisible hand of an omnipresent but invisible god.' So said Adam Smith … until close to his death, that is! Now, 250 years later, what can we say about this 'invisible hand' and its economic consequences. Has the time come to make the hand visible?
Does World Money need
World Governance?
9 October 2003
The response of many to the globalisation of economic life is to globalise political life also. But does the melting together of national economies require a world polity? Or should we not distinguish between economic and political sovereignty, maintaining the latter on a national basis and reserving it to governments? The corollary would be to make the institutions of economic life more genuinely accountable than they are to date.
Culture
The essential investment
3 July 2003
Most commentators regard culture as a side-show, an event in the margins with little if any real economic significance. But what if culture were shown to be the source of new values and fresh energy, and thus of future economic life? What if modern speculation and the anarchy of the financial markets pointed to an unrecognised phenomenon - the ability today to fund culture on a massive scale? Could we tame the markets by investing in culture?
Competition or Association
What drives a truly global economy?
5 June 2003
We have grown up used to the idea that competition is the cause of wealth and progress, and the protector of the consumers' interest. But how real is this? Do modern conditions bear out the hypothesis of 'trickle down'? And if not by competition, by what is economic progress driven? With all due respect to Adam Smith, might it be co-operation after all? If so, can we point to examples?
Gold and Beyond
What really underpins money?
1 May 2003
Central to today's debates about money, is the question of who should issue it and how it should be issued - whether by banks at interest or by the state for free. Behind this is the further question: What is the cover of money - goods, oil, land, or something else? But what is wrong with good, old-fashioned gold? Or, if not gold, what would best approximate its universal effects?
Fair Trade
New Paradigm or Niche Market?
13 March 2003
The fair trade concept has captured the public imagination. Producers get a decent price, proper working conditions, education for their children and, perhaps most importantly, the stability of a fair market. Sales are increasing year on year, but at the moment only a few products are available – tea, coffee, juice, chocolate, etc. What lies at the heart of the fair trade idea? How replicable is it? Could we one day buy fair trade petrol?
Public Finance Initiative
Rethinking the Public/Private Divide
13 February 2003
Is the PFI another example of the economics realm overriding culture and rights? How does the PFI compare with Rudolf Steiner’s indications that culture should be funded by gift? Who ultimately will benefit from the present PFI – the people or financial backers and shareholders? Or is it a government cop out?
Accounting for One’s ActionThe how and why of accountability23 January 2003Today’s world is being rudely shaken by accounting errors and financial scandals of all kinds. Much is made of the high-profile cases such as Enron, but what government, what small business, what private person does not also in some way understate his liabilities or overstate his assets? In a distorted world, accenting is bound to get distorted, too. Can a new meaning to accounting be discovered; one that helps gives new bearings in an increasingly amoral world?The 'Right-On'CorporationAre all companies bad?
