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Diogenes was right to value more than happiness
The Financial Times 27/01/12
The stretching of the term "happiness" beyond the area in which it is normally used is what is wrong with the happiness agenda so eagerly embraced by UK prime minister David Cameron and French president Nicolas Sarkozy. In opposition, Mr Cameron suggested we focus not just on GDP, gross domestic product, but on GWB, general well being. More recently he ordered the Office of National Statistics to investigate the possibility of a national happiness index. This is an instance of the way in which he (or his advisers) is irresistibly drawn to fashionable left-of-centre gimmicks but eschews genuinely radical measures such as stopping official support for arms sales or instituting a land value tax...more |
Capitalism still has no rivals
The Financial Times 13/01/12
My central case for competitive capitalism is that it is that it promotes personal and political freedom. A businessman, outside the financial sector, will prosper by providing what adults wish to have - even if that is pop records, candyfloss or nude shows rather than what our supposed elders and betters think is good for them. Above all the individual is free to use his abilities in line with his or her own choices. He or she can concentrate on personal pleasure, social service at home, the relief of poverty abroad or any combination of these and numerous other activities...more |
Now is the time to eat, drink and be merry
The Financial Times 30/12/11
Have you had a good time this Christmas with plenty to eat and drink and expensive toys for the children? Do you look forward to similar festivities on New Year's eve? Do you feel guilty about indulging yourself amid all the headlines about austerity? Well don't. Bear in mind the complaint of Alice: "Jam yesterday, jam tomorrow but never jam today"...more |
'More Europe' is a mindless slogan
The Financial Times 16/12/11
David Cameron's veto of the proposed new European constitution was the right decision, possibly for the wrong reasons. As has been explained ad nauseam, the British prime minister was heavily influenced both by the perceived need to satisfy his Tory backbenchers and by one interpretation of the needs of the City of London. It is difficult to say whether the proposed rules would have done more to promote much-needed banking reform or to harm the legitimate interests of the City as a top export earner and source of employment. But as the European Union has been lurching for years in the wrong direction, a line had to be drawn somewhere and this is where the opportunity arose...more |
 Against The Flow: Samuel Brittan's book
Atlantic Books - Now in paperback
"Samuel Brittan has been one of the Financial Times' leading columnists for nearly thirty years. He has also advised numerous Chancellors of the Exchequer on economic policy. Against the Flow collects the most important of his writings from the last three decades. Taken together the pieces in Against the Flow amount to a robust defence of classic liberalism"...more |
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