Tag: General
A recipe for a healthy debate on migrants
In the past, shameful legacies made it difficult to debate central political issues around national identity and immigration. The erosion of these paves way for valuable debate.
Ethic with a golden touch
Prosperity is the product of market institutions in a culture shaped by the values, although not necessarily the beliefs, of the religious Reformation - first discussed by Max Weber some 100 years ago. Hence today, due to the decreasing economic influence of the Catholic church, there are Catholic countries in Europe that have enjoyed remarkable growth.
Book review: J.K. Galbraith 12 August 2004
John Kenneth Galbraith is the most stylish writer on economics of the past half-century. His elegant dissection of the boom and bust of the...
A bear of very little brain
What business book should you take to the beach? The Management Secrets of Winnie the Pooh - or the Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun.
Europe deserves a better declaration of values
It is hard to tell what the framers of the European Consitution intend, and it's clear that they haven't quite worked it out. In this week's article, John calls for a debate that identifies distinctive European values and defines the nature of the political experiment in which the European states are engaged.
A wider Europe puts the accent on English
If it were possible to replace the diverse languages of Europe with a common Eurospeak, there could be only one sensible choice - English. Not because it is the language of Star Trek and Madonna, but because it is the language of McKinsey and Goldman Sachs.
A rich crop of cynicism, greed and mistrust
Genetics is the most exciting of today's new technologies and has the potential to revolutionise nutrition and medicine. Yet, when it comes to GM food, we are patronised by a discredited government department, misled by campaign groups yearning for publicity, and let down by companies whose self-interest is ridiculously obvious.
Saintly lies and the devil that lurks in double talk
Nothing so much undermines public regard for politics and business as the increasingly widespread practice of equivocation. In the light of the spectacle surrounding the Hutton report, this wisdom should be extended beyond the tale of St Athanasius.
Give state funding to students not their colleges
Europe once took 75 per cent of Nobel prizes; today the US does. It is less widely appreciated that this is the triumph of autonomous institutions over government-controlled ones.
A message from Macbeth, and Adam Smith
The invisible hand is the most widely used metaphor in economics. What did Adam Smith (or William Shakespeare, who coined the phrase) really mean?
