RSSIn the last post I was reflecting on the nature of think tanks and suddenly, I have found another comment, more authoritative than my writings, about the factor of independence to the survival of a real think tank. It comes from John Blundell, current General Manager of the Institute of Economic Affairs, who has spent his whole professional life advocating the need of having strong and independent think tanks in the public policy arena. He knows well what he says as he has been fighting to maintain the intellectual legacy of one of most outstanding institutes of the world. I think he has been successful. More
John Blundell knows best: Independence of think tanks
2009/07/23
Political Philosophy Institute_of_Economic_Affairs, John_Blundell, think_tank Leave a comment
The core concept of think tank
2009/06/20
Political Philosophy Robert S. Brookings, think_tank Leave a comment
Credit crunch has also brought a negative situation to the funding resources of many think tanks. The environment is being worse for those institutes that receive the bigger part of their funds from corporations and act more as lobbies than as independent research centres. More
Pessimism about democracy?
2009/03/04
Political Philosophy Carnegie_Endowment, democracy, International_Relations, socialism, think_tank 2 Comments
Western democracy has proved to be the best of the political regimes mankind has tried in centuries. It does not mean it is a perfect system, but we have not found anything better. However, many people of the most advanced democracies think that the dream of extending free rights and the government from the citizens is sometimes turning into a nighmare. The fall of socialist experiments apparently left the only way to democracy, but twenty years after, it seems that some countries can survive without respecting the democratic rule and be accepted as decent members of the international community. It seems we prefer to maintain the statu quo and not disturbing the fragile peace with the democratic ‘obsession’. More
Towards a New Republicanism
2009/02/25
Political Philosophy capitalism, compass, laborism, red_tories, republicanism, socialism, think_tank, third_way Leave a comment
Although the economic crisis seems to prevent from thinking about other public policy questions, sometimes it is healthy to reflecting on other deeper matters. What kind of political regime do we want? We are aware that political systems in Western democracies are so corrupt. Internet is renewing a new sort of popular participation, but I do not very sure whether its force is going to destroy the high walls of power. We face the huge problem of professionalization of politics and, at the same time, the lack of interest ordinary people show in the political scene.
Why the Government will not solve the crisis
2009/02/22
Political Economy, Political Philosophy Adam_Smith_Institute, capitalism, Eamonn_Butler, free_market, liberalism, Public_deficit, think_tank Leave a comment
I do not share all the principles classical liberalism defend. It is probably because I do not believe in a perfect man, nor in a road to perfection. Imperfection is in our genome. However, in the think tanks environment there are very intelligent people who passionately promote the free market policies. Where they work in small institutes, only funded by individual donations, usually they are very clear-thinking persons. It is worth to follow their proposals because the analysis of the economic and political keys is so well focused.
The revival of Hayek
2009/02/06
Political Philosophy Hayek, Keynes, liberalism, public_sector, road_to_serfdom Leave a comment
I understand that in crisis times, everybody goes to the essential ideas or the founding authors. In the case of political economy, we see an interesting battle between the Keynes and Hayek fans. One group tries to reinvent the Keynes principles on public sector to justify the bigger participation of the State, and the other returns to the Austrian intellectual to arguing against the renaissance of controlled economy.
In this context, the British Institute of Economic Affairs, one of the most aristocratic think tanks of the world, claims for a review of the Hayek’s philosophy of economics and the free market. In particular, it recommends to consider the arguments Hayek offered in his classical work The Road to Serfdom .
“Hayek argues that totalitarianism does not result from a dramatic or sudden change in the popularly accepted role of government. Rather, societies drift into totalitarianism as a result of a long series of seemingly minor, incremental expansions of government activity”.
People from the IEA think that the crisis opens the opportunity to a more powerful State and will damage the future of economy and even democracy if the public sector grows without control. They believe individuals are losing their freedom and depending more and more on the ubiquous State. Although every citizen feels free, at least in his private sphere, the reality is he has given his independency to the political system.
The IEA says that in the last decades we have seen an apparent balance between a strong public sector and the maintenance of civil rights and freedom. However, recent studies point out that
“In large parts of Britain the economy is now dominated by government: the proportion of regional GDP derived from state spending in Northern Ireland is now 77.6%; in Wales it is 71.6%; in the North East of England it is 66.4%; and in Scotland the figure is 60.3%. By comparison, spending as a proportion of GDP in Nazi Germany was 34% and in Mussolini’s Italy it was 31% (1937 figures, see here). This is not to suggest that these societies were in any way preferable to contemporary Britain, but it does show that in terms of the growth of the state parts of the UK are in unprecedented territory by international and historical comparison”.
It seems that this situation is similar in other Western countries. But the perception general public has about the crisis is that it is has been produced because of the lack of public control of economic and financial activities. How to explain this paradox? The first conclusion we can draw is State intervention is not being efficient. The public sector is wasting its resources and it will need to spend more of our money to recover a confidence which it has contributed to destroy. At the same time, the misconduct of many economic and financial agents shows that the Road to Serfdom it is not either an easy way. As it happens always with the ideas of great philosophers, they offer an inspiration, not a practical solution.
If recession is not the problem…
2009/02/01
Political Philosophy Austrian Economic Scholl, Johan Norberg, Recession 2 Comments
One of the most outstanding advocates of the free market during the last ten years has been the Swedish Johan Norberg. Since he published In Defense of Global Capitalism, a best-seller of the new liberalism, Mr Norberg argues in every forum about the need to free and free the market forces. As liberalisation does not work and manages to a big financial and economic crisis, this prophet tries to give an explanation which does not deny the liberal creed. According to him,
“As the Austrian economic school taught us, the recession is not the problem, the boom was the problem and all the mistaken investments that happened then because of cheap money. We won´t be able to start again and see new companies start expanding and hiring until bad investments are terminated and capital is transferred from the unsustainable to the sustainable”.
Johan does not want to recognize that the real problem is the illusion of thinking that the liberal focus would warrant an eternal prosperity thanks to the free and intelligent decisions of the economic man. The free and intelligent decisions of the economic man have been responsible of the boom and the subsequent crisis. I do not understand why the market forces are going now to make sage decisions when in the last decade they have been making a lot of mistakes. The difference was that before the crisis, people won disgusting amounts of no decent money. The best for them, but no for everybody. Now they have caused the worst for all, including them. And who is rescuing? The dammed public sector.
