When Labour peer Maurice Glasman recently went on BBC Radio 4 with TCC’s Detlev Schlichter I was disappointed and a little taken aback to learn of his Lordship’s ignorance when it came to the Austrian School of Economics. While towards the end of the interview he accepted the need for honest – backed – money, he went on to demonstrate his ignorance when he implied that free marketeers have a prescriptive attitude to ownership philosophies and organisational models. I was really saddened by this not least because like so many other Austro-libertarians I have spent years pointing out that genuine markets would encourage more open and diverse forms of ownership including mutuals.
When I was fifteen I avidly watched this excellent BBC documentary on the Mondragon Experiment which sparked a life long interest in mutuals, friendly societies and co-operatives. Later, as a university student I went on to study a wide range of radical dissenters including a wide range of anti-statists. Indeed, it is with this history in mind that I find it ironic that away from the naïveté of Lord Glasman, it is Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron who is planning to introduce a Parliamentary bill promoting co-operative forms of ownership and doing so in key areas such as education and healthcare.
Thirty-two years on from the BBC’s film on the Mondragon Experiment, maybe opinion formers are finally rediscovering the libertarian tradition of collective forms of organisation and self-help without the state. As much a part of a market as any other form of non-coerced organisation or ownership philosophy, I do hope Lord Glasman and his Purple Book friends take note.
I am not joking. It has finally happened. And I want to see it. As reported by Bloomberg, ‘Euro Crash! The Musical’ is coming to town. According to this report this spectacular and timely production “transposes the single-currency story to a deep dark forest. Mark and Gilda can’t find their way out. They are lured into the gingerbread Euroland house, where Papa Kohl and Madame Mitterrand run a school of fiscal discipline attended by some wayward pupils – personified nation states like Callum of Ireland and Stavros of Greece”. The show’s numbers include “a chorus praising the virtues of the Bundesbank and former U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer Norman Lamont singing “Our currency’s gone down the plughole” in the shower”.
“EuroCrash!” is showing in at the Cockpit Theatre in London from 8 to 11 February 2012 and I am definitely going to see it. For more information and to book your ticket(s) just click here.
Last week I met with an American executive who works in the financial services sector. She is a firm and knowledgeable supporter of the Austrian School of Economics and gave gracious and positive feedback on TCC’s progress.
After our meeting I drove her to her next appointment. On the way, she said something that I believe. She observed: “When this financial crisis blows up there is going to be a big job for people like us to explain what has just happened.” I agree with this sentiment and fully recognise the shifting tectonic plates of history. While there are always challenges ahead, the state of today’s world economy means that in the future even the past is going to be unpredictable. For TCC this means we have everything to play for.
I have heard it said that Stephen Fry is what stupid people think a clever person should be like. This sounds pretty unfair to me. However, Jonathan Meades is by far my favorite writer on culture, architecture and food. He has also long been my favorite broadcaster and television documentary maker.
I was therefore intrigued to stumble across him listed on Wikipedia as a being a libertarian. I have no idea if this is true or a position to which he ascribes formally. What I do know is that his outlook and perspective on the world often strikes me as chiming very deeply with my own. As a debunker of all sorts of methodological collectivism and nonsense he is a masterful essayist and communicator.
If you are not familiar with his work, let me point you in the right direction. Start with Jerry Building here and then go on to watch Joe Building here. Thankfully, in the age of the Internet so much of this great man’s broadcasting is now available online.
While Stephen Fry is no doubt a very clever, great and lovely man, if I had to choose, Jonathan Meades would be my preferred national treasure.
As anyone who is familiar with The Cobden Centre will know, we are hugely critical of politicised monetary regimes, the Sovietised machinations of central banks and their ludicrous monetary policy committees, not to mention their inflationist friends in government and mainstream financial services.
Yet increasingly we are not alone. As well TCC getting greater media traction for our scholarly ideas, friends over at Save Our Savers are doing a good job representing those thrifty people suffering at the sharp end.
Ably led by Simon Rose do check out their site here.
Earlier this morning I updated The Cobden Centre’s media page. Since September we have not only again doubled the volume of our coverage but its quality continues firmly on an upwards trajectory. Slowly but surely, bold Cobdenite messages are becoming part of legitimate discourse. While we still have a long way to go, the following link highlights welcome progress. Enjoy!
I am delighted that yesterday morning TCC Senior Fellow Detlev Schlichter did our ideas proud on BBC Radio 4’s show Start the Week. On with Angela Knight (British Bankers Association), Maurice Glasman (Labour Peer) and Philip Coggan (The Economist), Detlev made a significant impact on the programme’s intellectual agenda. By the end, he led the consensus.
I am now in no doubt that along with Steve Baker MP and Dr. Jamie Whyte who already regularly appear on BBC Radio, another star has been born.
Jan Skoyles recently brought our attention to an upcoming documentary called The Four Horsemen, which promises that 23 people will “break their silence and explain how the world really works”.
Cobden Centre readers will recognise many of the 23 (including some who haven’t exactly been reticent in the past):
Hugo Salinas-Price, James Turk and David Morgan are among the gold and silver bugs, whilst Gillian Tett and Max Keiser represent the market commentators and economists such as Joseph Stiglitz and Professor Michael Hudson represent the academia. But it is not just the ‘usual’ suspects who appear in this film; Noam Chomsky and Camila Batmangelidjh are examples of individuals whose viewpoints of the world from a social and human perspective are respected by governments and individuals all over the world.
Jan’s article highlights some memorable quotes from the trailer.
Gillian Tett, Assistant Editor at the FT, speaks candidly:
Most societies have an elite, and the elite try and stay in power. [They do this by] controlling the cognitive map – the way we think
Prof. Herman Daly, a former Senior Economist at the World Bank, says:
People are beginning to get angry, but not nearly angry enough
It’ll be interesting to see how it turns out, but this first glimpse looks promising.
A couple of weeks ago Tom Clougherty of the Adam Smith Institute and I addressed a senior group of Chinese officials from Beijing. We talked about Europe’s financial crisis and did not pull any punches. Rather surprisingly our Chinese guests did not balk at our analysis or overly disagree. Instead they entered into a spirit of dialogue that might best be described as ‘expectant resignation’.
Last week, I found myself addressing more than 100 A Level Economics and Politics students at an ISOS conference in Westminster. TCC’s Dr. Jamie Whyte was also present and spoke particularly well in a follow-on debate. What was interesting about that day was how well the students took to the idea that the current economic crisis is not a product of market failure in any meaningful sense but rather state failure and the political economy of interventionism – particularly in areas such as money and banking.
This coming weekend I am addressing a major conference in Estonia where I will be delivering a similarly robust Cobdenite message. I have no idea how I will be received but the fact that I have been invited and that TCC’s ideas are on the agenda is heartening.
Now, however tiring one might occasionally find public speaking that fact that it so prominently features in my life does bring powerful psychic rewards. Very few things in life can be so rewarding as to constantly meet lots of new and interesting people, debate important ideas with them and through them remain open and alive to new perspectives. While members of the audience might get something from it, I certainly do. Wonderful.
