Economic Monitor Summer 2007 Issue 81 One World, One Wealth

British Chancellor Gordon Brown presented his tenth and probably last

budget in March. Like its predecessors it amounted to nothing more than tinkering with fiscal measures designed to extract more public revenue from hard-earned incomes while offending as few people as possible.

Once again a tax-raising budget will be tempered by more public provision for the less well off which in turn will require even greater public revenue in future. Meanwhile, ministers continue to wring their hands about young people unable to buy homes; the Deputy Prime Minister boasts of £60,000 houses while searching in vain for somewhere to put them that won’t make them cost a lot more; and businesses complain about the ever-increasing tax burden that threatens their continued existence.

Every economy finds this – increased productivity increases the gap between rich and poor, inequalities grow and greater provision has to be made for people who remain relatively poor. Every government responds by increasing taxes to re-distribute wealth. Exactly this observation prompted Henry George to write Progress and Poverty nearly a century and a half ago

Henry GeorgeProgress and Poverty was among the best known and most widely read books of the 19th century. It offered an understanding of economics based on truth, social justice, natural laws and high ideals for human progress and development.

George’s ideals and principles were taken up (among others) by the founders of the School of Economic Science

in London in 1937. The School, now based at 11 Mandeville Place, W1 has offered courses drawing on George’s philosophy ever since . His insights offer a coherent explanation for many of the social and economic problems now besetting the world economy.

In March 2007 the School was delighted and honoured, together with the Henry George Foundation and the Professional Land Reform Group, to host the launch of a new adaptation of Progress and Poverty edited and abridged by Bob Drake and published by the Robert Schalkenbach Foundation. Speaking in praise of the new work were television presenter, Nick Ross of Crimewatch fame, Ashley Seager, economics editor of the Guardian newspaper and Dave Wetzel, vice-chair of Transport for London and well-known land reform campaigner. All three spoke with enthusiasm of the contemporary relevance of this classic work.

George based his understanding of economics on the human relationship with land, considering people and land to be the primary factors without which no production is possible. Capital, although vitally important, is secondary

in the sense that it is a product of human work applied to land.

George defined his terms with extreme care. Land in its economic sense means all natural materials, forces and opportunities – the whole material universe outside of man himself. Only by access to land, from which their very bodies are drawn, can people become productive. This simple observation is the key that unlocks the explanation for many of the economic failures and injustices that have persisted since his time.

Landless EconomiesSome economists argue that this truth no longer holds, pointing to the successful economies of Hong Kong and Singapore as evidence that land is no longer economically significant. But these views fail to appreciate the attributes of land that careful definition includes. The most important of these is location, particularly where large populations are involved. Hong Kong and Singapore are successful economies because of their special location in relation to world trade. They do not produce the goods which are traded and upon which their own populations depend. But they trade in almost anything that can be traded and by providing valuable services to the international economy are able to acquire for their own populations the produce of many lands, without which they could not survive.

Progress and Poverty explains the importance of this observation for production and for public revenue. Because land is more or less fixed in quantity and highly variable in quality, the laws of supply and demand work in

Progress and Poverty

Summer 2007 courses and events – see back pageSchool of Economic Science11 Mandeville Place London W1U 3AJ Registered Educational Charity Number 313115

"Political economy is radiant with

hope."Henry George

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the land market in a particular way. Supply cannot be readily increased, particularly of land with special qualities of fertility, natural resources or location. The result is that increased production and wealthier populations make ever-increasing demands on the most useful or attractive land. This produces steadily increasing land values, especially at desirable locations, which benefit those who enjoy the privilege of land ownership while simultaneously making life more and more difficult for those who do not.

George’s solution was to tax the privilege of land ownership by an annual levy based on the value of land alone, while rigorously excluding all capital improvements from the calculation. This would reduce (if not eliminate) the need to rely on inefficient taxes on incomes while recovering as public revenue the benefits created for private landowners by publicly funded infrastructure.

Renewed InterestRenewed interest and attention to his work is more than timely. The global economy continues to exhibit exactly the symptoms that George identified in 19th century America. The disparities between the wealth of the developed and developing world continue to grow. The same disparities appear between cities and countryside and even within cities the world over. Not only do they produce economic injustice; they also stultify the human spirit and arrest human development. George saw how pernicious these disparities are and saw the means to avoid them.

“Work” he writes, “that improves the condition of humanity is not done to earn a living. … consider the possibilities if society gave opportunity to all. Factory workers are now turned into machines; children grow up in squalor, vice and ignorance. They need but the opportunity to bring forth powers of the highest order. Talents now hidden, virtues unsuspected, would come forth to make human life richer, fuller, happier.”

The aim of economic policy is to release human imagination, creativity and potential; not to bind people in a struggle for existence. Henry George offered a vision and a solution that continue to deserve the fullest attention of modern economists and policy makers. This short and lively edition leaves no room for excuses.

Progress & Poverty edited & abridged for modern readers by Bob Drake.Robert Schalkenbach Foundation.ISBN:0-911312-98-6

Old Man Brussels

When France and the Netherlands voted against

the new European Constitution in 2005 the British public heaved a collective sigh of relief and settled back to their more familiar view of Europe as a source of football teams and holidays. But it would be foolish to underestimate the tenacity, determination and persistence of the Brussels machine. Like the great Mississippi River, it just keeps rolling along.

The latest instalment in the constitution saga was the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Common Market, irrelevantly marked in the UK by a celebratory football match, but marked in Germany with much more serious political intent by a curious document called the Berlin Declaration.

The Declaration is not a Treaty or a Directive or a law of any description. It has no binding force. Yet it was solemnly signed by the Presidents of the European Commission, the European Parliament and the European Council in the presence of twenty-seven government leaders including the British Prime Minister.

The confident, self-congratulatory tone of the document is set by the opening sentences: “Europe was for centuries an idea, a hope for freedom and understanding. This hope has been fulfilled.” Section one sets out some “common ideals”. Human dignity, peace, freedom, democracy, the rule of law, equal rights and solidarity are all there standing alongside open frontiers, and the diversity of languages and cultures which make up the “unique” European way.

Section two sets out the challenges to which the European Union is the answer: the competitive global economy; international terrorism; organised crime; racism and xenophobia. Even climate change is on the list. “Only together can we preserve our European social model” in the face of all these threats.

Section three sets out the immediate agenda: “… we are today united in the goal of achieving a renewed

common foundation for the European Union before the elections to the European Parliament in 2009”.

What that actually means is that it is intended at an inter-governmental conference in June to set a programme for reaching agreement by 2009 on a new European Treaty which will incorporate many of the proposals in the rejected Constitution. The word ‘Constitution’ has been dropped but the Treaty, which is unlikely to be subject to referenda, will deal with many of the big issues which were intended to be dealt with in the defuct Constitution: These include a single fixed-term EU presidency ending the present six-month rotation among 27 countries; a single European foreign minister, probably with a different title; and a new double-majority voting system in the councils of the EU which would erode national vetoes and give weighted votes in favour of more populous and powerful member states.

All this follows the classic Brussels pattern, which never admits defeat.

First there is an idea which gathers support. It gains Parliamentary approval and Resolutions are passed on it. The idea is defined and the European Institutions apply it. Rights and obligations are created with which member states must comply and thus the idea becomes part of the “European culture”.

Objections are met with practised skill. First, objectors are presented as swimming against the current. They are asked to define their objections and it is assumed that anything not specifically objected to can go ahead. Objections are discussed, but otherwise the project advances. If necessary, compromises are reached and terms re-defined until the goal is achieved.

Why does it work like this? The final words of the Berlin Declaration answer: “Because we know. Europe is our common future”. Some certainties, apparently, are not open to debate.

Ian Mason

The Economist magazine’s cover of the 10th March 2007 shows a

Chinese tractor driver holding up a little red book marked “Property Deed” and heralds a new Chinese revolution in property rights that takes China one step out of “the blind alley of Maoism”. But when the hazy land tenures of China’s collective farming are taken from peasants by force, for a pittance, so that private owners may develop new cities, the outcome is bound to be unjust and a recipe for new corruption. Land deeds will not save China from new landlessness.

The cul de sac of Marxism ended in class hatreds, and mass murdering by Stalin, Pol Pot, and Mao. The blind alley of private land owning capitalism, that takes earnings and employment from a landless underclass is not mentioned. Nor is it a road to freedom and justice.

The Welfare State in the UK started in 1945 when low paid, landless classes paid neither income tax nor VAT. Now, after ten consecutive years of powerful left wing government with a huge majority, the poorest 20% pay £34bn in taxes and receive £41bn in ‘benefits’. As a proportion of GDP, their taxes increased further in that ten years, and their benefits reduced.

Fig Leaf TaxesThe fig leaf of ‘tax credits’, placed to conceal this embarrassment, is full of holes and creates new injustices. It is estimated that only 50% of tax credits go to low income people.

Meanwhile global corporations and rich individuals reduce their tax liabilities through transfer pricing abroad, offshore investments etc. Then tax amnesties are tried, and tax competition – cutting tax rates for corporations and rich individuals - to draw their capital and talent back into the country. Corporate tax rates in developed countries fell from 35% to 25% between 1986 and 2005.

Yet the UK tax take doubled in ten years; borne now by the less quick footed, the less well off.

The word ‘class’ is from the Latin ‘classis’, meaning ‘economic social analysis’. Servius Tullius, king of Rome for 44 years to 534BC, divided Romans into six classes according to wealth, their status rising with the material support they gave to Rome – in contrast to the American heiress who said “We don’t pay tax like the little people”. Tullius was loved by the proletarii without estate, the 6th class.

UtilitarianThe utilitarian ideal: ‘The greatest happiness for the greatest number’ has, with our tax system, formed three de-motivated, economic ‘under-classes’ - 35% of the people. And 3 upper classes:

F. The taxed who cannot support themselves: the unemployed, and unemployable. E. The taxed and employed; but subsidised by social payments of various kinds.D. The taxed self supporting, who despair at the £120,000 price barrier to a ‘first time’ house. C. The mortgaged, employed, house owner. Typically aged 30 to 50?B. The un-mortgaged, employed, house owner, aged 50 to 65A. Ditto, with a stake in production sites too. Shares /pension funds. aged 65 +

Mahatma Gandhi once said: “(Utilitarianism) means in its nakedness that in order to achieve the supposed good of 51%, the interest of 49% may be, or rather, should be, sacrificed. It is a heartless doctrine and has done harm to humanity.”

Enjoying an interesting job with an international company, it came to light one year that I had paid more UK tax than the company. With 24 UK factories it had paid no tax at all. Profits from owning my house for thirty years yielded more than my thirty years of work. In effect, through increased land values, the community handed out three to four times the tax I had paid on my earnings.

The reality is that while poor people

pay significant taxes which they can ill afford, property owners are allowed to pocket the benefit of steadily increasing land values which they have done little or nothing to earn. ‘Progressive Taxation’ and the ‘Welfare State’ are no more than ideological mirages concealing the truth about this.

It need not be like this. If public revenue was drawn from the unearned rental value of land, it would be possible to stop taxing the earnings of the low paid and reduce the need for wasteful welfare while giving positive encouragement to productive endeavour.

Private Property310 years ago, John Locke, father of the enlightenment, inspired Europe and the writers of the US Constitution, yet no nation acts on his significant realisation that the product of work, earning, is the just basis of, and the justification for private property; the just beginning of property that may then be given and traded. Land, its location and rent are not the product of individual effort. Land is a gift of nature. Location and rent are the product of the combined efforts of communities and enterprises and their interaction with the gift of land.

“..’tis very clear that God, as King David says (Psalm cxv) has given the earth to the children of men, given it to mankind in common. But this being supposed, it seems to some a very great difficulty how any one should ever come to have a property in anything.”…

“The labour of his body and the work of his hands we may say are properly his...” (John Locke).

Who dares to take the earnings of the lowest paid people? How dare we allow ABCs like me to pocket unearned land rent – the natural source of public revenue? Enterprise needs security of land tenure, but the special benefits offered by the economic advantages of special locations needs to be repaid for everyone’s benefit.

Haydon Bradshaw

Property Deeds for the PoorThe problem with property rights

The industry most associated with the assembly line may be in the process of dis-assembling itself. Daimler-Benz is reviewing its options with Chrysler, which it swallowed in 1998 and this could result in 13,000 job losses.

Recently Alcoa announced job cuts of 6,700; before that VW was in the news with up to 10,000 job losses. France Telecom needed to eliminate 23,000 jobs; Whirlpool, Electric Boat, BA and Merck have also been “right-sizing” as well. The list goes on and even the venerable institution of the church has not escaped with the US Presbyterian Church announcing a modest reduction of 75 positions.

In January the International Labour Organization, in its annual report on employment trends, noted that even though more people were employed than ever before, the number of new jobs created fails to match the rise in global population. Strong global economic growth is failing to reduce unemployment worldwide and the number of “working poor”, those on $2 per day or less, is not diminishing.

Spare a thought for all those who, through no fault of their own, either have no work or are thrown out of work. Indeed, as work becomes increasingly commoditized and the economic ramifications of globalization penetrate ever deeper the subject of work, or more importantly, its lack becomes of vital and universal interest.

In an economic system where the market is relied upon to deliver solutions should we not simply allow matters to run their course? The answer to this lies in how one views the subject of work. If labour is considered a factor of production, a commodity bereft of its human element, that will generate a certain response. In a just and equitable society should unemployment be managed or, better yet, eliminated? Should it be anyone’s job to help the unemployed get employed?

As long as the view exists that in

a market-based economy there will be a natural level of unemployment, any level of unemployment, for those that want to work, will remain an intractable issue. Challenging the received wisdom that a percentage of the work-force have to be idle requires looking at the subject from a different perspective. Wendell Berry and Khalil Gibran help in opening up the view.

Berry, a writer, philosopher and poet shared a close intellectual bond with E. F. Schumacher. In his 1981 lecture to the Schumacher Society in Great Barrington, Massachusetts he had this to say: “People are joined to the land by work. Land, work, people, and community are all comprehended in the idea of culture. . . . To presume to describe land, work, people, and community by information, by quantities, seems invariably to throw them into competition with one another. Work is then understood to exploit the land, the people to exploit their work, the community to exploit its people. And then instead of land, work, people, and community, we have the industrial categories of resources, labor, management, consumers and government. We have exchanged harmony for an interminable fuss.”

By contrast Almustafa, the Prophet in Gibran’s masterpiece, when questioned by the ploughman on the subject of work, answered: “You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth. For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons, and to step out of life’s

procession, that marches in majesty and proud submission towards the infinite. . . . But I say to you that when you work you fulfil a part of earth’s furthest dream assigned to you when that dream was born . . .”

These lofty views on work can be reduced to the practical. Pope Leo XIII in the encyclical, Rerum Novarum, of May 15th 1891 noted: “To labour is to exert oneself for the sake of procuring what is necessary for the various purposes of life, and chief of all for self-preservation. ‘In the sweat of thy face thou shalt eat bread.’” He continued: . . . man’s labour is necessary; for without the result of labour a man cannot live, and self-preservation is a law of nature, which it is wrong to disobey.”

No one would argue with self-preservation being a need but more than that it is an obligation - a law of nature. From this perspective to be without work is unlawful; an unorthodox view to the modern economist.

The obligation to work is quite different from the right to work or earn a living. This latter right has a long pedigree and Sir Edward Coke (1552-1634) was an outspoken defender of the right to earn a living. Before this, in 1215, Section 41 of the Magna Carta provided support for the same notion. In 1868 the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution was ratified and has been construed to protect “. . . the right of the individual to contract, to engage in any of the common occupations of life . . . and generally to enjoy those privileges long recognized at common law as essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men.”

Our market economy obviously recognizes the right to work. However, if society were to have as an informing principle the lawfulness and obligation of its members to work the requirement for potentially full employment would become an imperative. This is not to say that there are no provisions to

The Right to WorkCan there be a natural level of unemployment?

Man’s labour is necessary…

without it he cannot live.

assist the unemployed, of course there are, but are they the most effective. Income support and welfare comes from government, some corporations provide retraining to assist in out-placement and those seeking work are out looking for it. However are these and other measures pro-active enough?

A nation’s people are its greatest asset and one of the roles of government is to provide for its people what they cannot do for themselves. Accordingly, without making the case that government alone should shoulder the task there has to be a role in developing a framework that will foster meaningful job creation. Policy directed to the creation of dignified employment opportunities leading to full, and we mean full, employment will enable all those who see the need to fulfill their lawful obligation to work.

The corporate sector, in some cases, recognizes that labour is better thought of in terms of human capital and is taking measures to treat employees and former employees accordingly. At the level of the individual those wanting work are taking steps to help themselves through education and other initiatives.

Any solution to the issue of structural or chronic unemployment is unlikely to come solely from a market-driven approach. No doubt the market will play its part but a comprehensive framework is to involve an integrated tri-partite approach involving the individual, employers and government. Absent a more enlightened approach to the issue, a body of regulation that both stimulates beneficial change and discourages inappropriate behaviour will be needed. However, the first step in the process will be to recognize that, unemployment at any level is unlawful and is a matter of universal concern if the highest human ideals are to be attained.

Chris Green

Nuclear Power Is not the Answer

books books booksHelen CaldicottThe New Press (2006)ISBN: 13 978-1-59558-067-2

Nuclear power is not the answer to climate change (or anything

else) claims Helen Caldicott, a paediatrician and -` outspoken antinuclear campaigner, who has also been a Nobel Peace Prize nominee. But there is an answer - renewable energy. Caldicott tackles the issues of nuclear power and nuclear weapons proliferation with clarity and provides plenty of facts and evidence to support her claims. She also provides information concerning the potential of renewables. This book is a must for anyone concerned about climate change, energy needs and the pressure for a ‘nuclear renaissance’.

Nuclear power is extremely dangerous. The processes involved include mining uranium 238 (with a half life of a hardly believable 4.6 billion years) out of relatively safe rock, leaving millions of tonnes of radioactive waste tailings behind, mobile to air and water dispersal, as well as nuclear fission which produces what the industry calls ‘swimming pools’ of the most highly radioactive wastes. These are hundreds of thousands of times more radioactive than the original material almost all of which has yet to be disposed after 50 years of nuclear power generation. The industry is leaving a legacy for the next generation of horrific proportions. Caldicott explains in detail how nuclear reactors and waste materials also provide a force impelling proliferation of nuclear weapons due to the production of plutonium, as well as providing many potential targets for terrorist activity.

It soon becomes clear that the nuclear industry is founded on profit seeking, dependent pathways (between the nuclear industry and the state), and misinformation.

The enormous financial costs of building the plants, which although private

are always subsidised by the state, means that taxpayers foot much of the cost of building nuclear plants whilst the industry benefits. The industry has effectively abandoned many of the costs of dealing with the wastes, assuming that future generations will come up with the solutions to disposal problems.

Dependent pathways between the state and the nuclear industry are illustrated by Caldicott through evidence related to ‘deregulation’ and the activities of Dick Cheney, for example, who was in charge of the US administration’s energy task force in 2001 and met with Kenneth Ley, CEO of the now disgraced Enron Corporation, to discuss ‘energy policy matters’ for the National Energy Policy Development Group, after which seventeen policies sought by Enron where adopted. Enron made significant contributions to the Bush/Cheney campaign and the evidence led Caldicott to question whether ‘legal and ethical guidelines were crossed’.

Caldicott cites various factors which clearly indicate that nuclear power is inefficient as an energy source as

well as dangerous. The amount of fossil fuel required to mine and enrich uranium is considerable and fully discounts the industry claims that it is ‘clean and green’, vocalised by Bush in 2005: ‘the 103 nuclear power plants in America produce 20% of the nations electricity without producing a single pound of air pollution or greenhouse

gases’. Indeed Caldicott points out that uranium 238 is itself a finite and therefore limited resource and within 10 to 20 years nuclear reactors will produce no net energy due to the fossil fuel which will be required for extraction and processing uranium.

Apart from the above issues the potential for nuclear accidents and meltdowns, such as the Chernobyl disaster, will increase as more power stations are built and as those already in existence get older. In fact the ‘sarcophagus’ used to cover the radioactive reactor after the accident at Chernobyl is disintegrating and even today there is a danger of a further dispersal of radioactive material across Russia and Europe. Caldicott also explains why the new generation III and IV reactor designs are controversial and contentious and ‘seem not to be based upon sound economics, environmental safety, or proliferation-resistant principles’.

Finally Caldicott describes how with investment diverted to renewable energy sources such as wind, wave, solar and biofuels future energy needs can not only be met, but the potential from wind and sunshine far outstrips even rising global energy demands. She also provides useful suggestions for individual action to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

In conclusion, this book answers all the questions anyone could think of concerning why nuclear power should not be developed in response to climate change or for any other reason, whilst at the same time explaining the positive alternatives in renewables. All that is required is political will and that requires an informed public. You are invited to read and learn!

Leonie Humphreys

books books Impact Publishing ISBN 1904601421 £7.99

This slim volume tells us everything we never wanted to know about

the things we have been buying and using with gay abandon over the last forty years, and may lead us to regretting we ever asked!

It starts with the question “What are toxic c h e m i c a l s ? ” which are defined as man made chemicals, often from organic matter (such as oil), which when released or exposed to particular e n v i r o n m e n t s can be harmful to other living organisms in that e n v i r o n m e n t . There are n a t u r a l l y o c c u r r i n g poisons (toxins) such as released by a venomous snake or toxic substances such as lead which we have learnt to use with care – the difference here is that industry has developed and then chosen to use these toxic chemicals often without knowing the potential harmful effects on humans and other living creatures.

The authors argue that consumers are now exposed to such a ‘cocktail’ of harmful chemicals that our health and capacity to reproduce is seriously threatened.

The second chapter lists ‘ten to watch’ describing the potential harmful effects, and examining the evidence gathered so far, as well as listing the sort of products which are made from the chemicals. Inevitably one begins to look around the home at which products are present – from computer casings to

cleaning materials, cosmetics and food containers, to the food itself, and what has contributed to the growing and processing of it.

The book then goes on to assess how serious the threat is, in terms of dose and timing of potential exposure,

followed by some practical advice on how we can minimise the risk in our own homes. One chilling s e n t e n c e advises: “don’t mix different h o u s e h o l d c l e a n e r s or solvents together. This can turn your kitchen into a dangerous c h e m i c a l experiment.”

Finally there are some s u g g e s t i o n s as to how governments c o u l d implement a

better system of regulation on the use of such chemicals, introducing the idea that we should in future test first, rather than wait to see whether a substance is harmful. Too often, the effect has not been known until many years too late.

This book is essential and easy reading for any responsible householder wanting to incorporate the principle of stewardship into their consumption patterns. The trouble with many of the chemicals which have been used, is that they are very difficult to ‘clean’ from our bodies and the environment in which they are now circulating; the other factor, is that given what we now know about the interdependence of all creatures – no one is immune from the influence of these toxic substances. That should give us all pause for thought.

Andrew Purves

The Toxic ConsumerKaren Ashton & Elizabeth Salter Green

books books booksFeeding The World

Short Course - Summer 2007

The fact that nearly a fifth of the world’s population never have enough to eat is a scandal of Man’s own making. There is plenty of food, and nowhere it cannot get to. The problem and the answers to it lie in our hands. This course will examine and attempt to explain the problems of world food production and distribution and offer practical solutions to this most serious of human problems.

11 Mandeville Place, London W1U 3AJ Tuesday Evenings for four weeks from 5th June 2007

Earth is Community

A celebration of the vision and path of Thomas Berry

SATURDAY 15TH SEPTEMBER 2007, LONDON

The life and work of Thomas Berry, one of the greatest thinkers and visionaries of our time will be celebrated at this major conference in London.Leading speakers from around the world will join together to celebrate the theme “Earth is Community” and mark the contribution that Thomas Berry, a cultural historian and theologian who calls himself a geologian, has made to the world’s ecological and spiritual platform.

Speakers:Satish Kumar – the great workMatthew Fox–transformation of religionVandana Shiva – transformation of economicsProfessor Peter Reason – transformation of educationCormac Cullinan – transformation of law

Presented by: GreenSpirit and the Gaia FoundationWith support from:Resurgence, Be the Change, Schumacher UK, School of Economic Science, Greenspirit Books and Schumacher Book Service, Greenpeace, Environmental Law Foundation.

Details from: www.earth-is-community.org.uk

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Economics with JusticeTHREE CoURSES oF TEn EVEnInG SESSIonS

Adding a sense of justice to the study of economics makes a difference. Wherever economic arrangements appear to result in injustice, we can be fairly sure that something has gone wrong. By studying natural laws that govern human beings in our relations with each other and with the natural world it is possible to identify where things go wrong and what to do about them. In these courses we attempt to identify natural laws which offer the possibility of economic justice and to show how they relate to the economic world of the 21st century.

Economics with Justice

The School of Economic Science offers a challenging perspective on economics for anyone who has wondered why economic affairs are organised the way they are – and whether there might be a better way. Most economic systems are based on assumptions. What are they? Whose are they? Whom do they benefit? To see different possibilities requires a different way of looking.

The Foundation Economics course examines such questions as: can everyone be wealthy? Why are there so many poor people in rich countries and why are there very rich people in poor countries? So few countries in the world produce and consume so much of its wealth. So many people in the world fail to reach their economic potential. The course asks: Is this inevitable? How could it improve?

Summer 2007: Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings and Saturday mornings from 1st May.

Economics: Theory and Practice

This course builds on the principles discussed in Foundation Economics. Many students ask about the basic economic systems – classical, neo-classical, Marxist, Keynesian, monetarist. This course gives brief descriptions of these and assesses the extent to which they demonstrate natural laws and the effects they have had.

Study of great economists and their ideas is used to focus attention on some of the hidden assumptions of economic life – the idea of property, the place of land, labour and capital as factors of production; the importance of natural resources and the incomes derived from them and the role of government in managing modern economies. Understanding these enables students to see the causes of many of the injustices and difficulties experienced in modern economies and how they might be avoided or resolved.

Summer 2007: Thurs eve and Sat mornings from 3rd May.

Growth, sustainability and human developmentEconomic growth has become the standard by which the success of national economies and international businesses are judged. But economic growth is also having a devastating effect on our planet. Can the human economy continue to offer greater and greater wealth without destroying its own foundations?This course looks at the big questions facing the globalised economy. Is economic growth sustainable? Can the natural environment survive the impact of industrialisation? How can human beings cope with technological advance and ecological change? What can we do to help?Building on the analysis offered in the previous two courses, this course explores how economic affairs can be arranged so as to offer freedom, justice and equity to humanity without destructive exploitation or misuse of the natural world.Summer 2007: Wednesdays only from 2nd May