@economyofhope
Starting from economics, but interested in politics, philosophy, classics and history. Sometimes about Scotland. Hoping to be wryly curious. Recent book "How to think like an Economist" with Bloomsbury Current project "Trustees of Civilisation."
David Clarke, chairing; Klyzza Lidman, Amanda Young and Andrew Milligan the participants. A lively audience of 65 fully engaged.
And tonight Smith on Capitalism - with @enlightenscot.bsky.social @futureeconscot.bsky.social @ipprscotland.bsky.social :
www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-smith-...
The @libraryofmistakes.bsky.social Smith on Wealth discussion. Morality to the fore. Care and nature as the basis for sustainability investing. The challenges of passive and index funds as well as prediction markets. But still grounds for hope.
robbiemochrie.substack.com/p/looking-fo...
Financial markets sophisticated. Global reach extraordinary. But is wealth actively managed? Does it satisfy social needs. Prediction markets demonstrate how Smith’s concerns might work out.
Can we all be patient, judicious allocators of capital?
And how do we gain advantages of democratic investment? Especially with concentration of voting power.
Have capital allocation without exercise of human judgment.
Confusion of fixed, circulating capital.
Markets value speed - searching immediate returns. Capital has to return quickly.
Lastly Klyzza Lidman on the limits of self interest. With greed corrosive to society.
What makes self interest go wrong? Passivity - effectively imprudent. In investment, hampers price discovery.
Index funds - has now view so no information. Free riding!
How many active investors are necessary?
Economics leads to planet as dumping ground. Possibility that we have destroyed benign ecology. And have no economics of care.
Wealth as ability to enjoy. With wealthy having a duty to support others.
Morality, ecology, care as basis for modern economy.
Over to Amanda Young. Smith had little to say about nature or household work. Production as labour value - still reluctant to price natural inputs.
The household as a black box.
So women’s work undervalued.
Ends are social. Self interest cannot override justice.
Then straight into discussion of how markets can be damaged by concentrations of power - or lack of property rights.
Why Smith might be aghast at financialisation. And why there has to be moral foundations for markets. And so back to virtue.
David Clarke introducing the panel for the @libraryofmistakes.bsky.social “Smith on Wealth” discussion.
Then Andrew Milligan going straight back to Smith - and his successors.
David Clarke from the Library chairing; Andrew Milligan, Amanda Young and Klyzza Lidman contributing.
Back at the @libraryofmistakes.bsky.social for “Smith on Wealth “.
Firmly on home territory - a discussion of asset management drawing on insights from “Wealth of Nations”
Sorry to nitpick, but in this case, the problem wasn't so much transferring risk as exposing other organisations to very severe harm. (Writing this on a train in which e-scooters are banned because of the fire risk)
Lesley Martin of the Cockburn Association was punctilious in the chair; Stephen Green of Social Progress Imperative, Stuart Mackinnon of Carnegie UK and Esther Roberton brought the variety of perspectives needed for engaging conversation. Audience questions and comments kept the discussion going.
At the @libraryofmistakes.bsky.social. 9th March - exactly 250 years after the publication of "The Wealth of Nations".
A conversation about inequality - important to Smith, important today.
@neilmcinroy.bsky.social of EDAS and the Democracy Collective making his point enthusiastically;
Nice to see that the Germans train their civil servants in how to meditate in public. Such indifference to carnage.
Polling concerns: cost of living, health and social care, and housing. And migration. Plenty of evidence voters currently want governments across the UK to work together.
SNP + Greens failure was strategic. Established only UK government can grant referendum. 'Power devolved is power retained.'
Given current polling, I suspect that many people will consider that to be a very low probability event.
As in 2021, with several independence favourable parties unlikely to win constituency seats, if votes coalesce behind one, there's a much higher probability of it securing MSPs.
And there's perhaps a lesson from Labour's replacement of the Liberals in the 1920s that it can seem like the old party has the capacity to recover over several electoral cycles.
Here intriguing that two parties might die simultaneously.
Raises interesting questions for the Scottish election.
About as much guarding as you'd get from a Labrador on the looking out for a sly sausage roll.
May even roll over to beg, pleadingly.
Thoughts which spring to mind now that "How to Think like an Economist is available in all good bookshops.
www.bloomsbury.com/uk/how-to-th...
A Substack post on John Stuart Mill, Harriet Taylor, 19th century liberalism, and the subversion of expectations of gender roles.
How Taylor augmented Mill's analytical capabilities through her connections and intellectual interests.
open.substack.com/pub/robbiemo...
Nearly 80 years ago, Franklin Roosevelt began his second term as President by finally engaging with the conservatives on the Supreme Court.
He burned through political capital. But secured his administration's legacy - and its future.
robbiemochrie.substack.com/p/fdr-and-th...
Reform: the home for failed Tories. In this case failed in the sense of failed to pay HMRC loads of tax he owed
"How to Think like an Economist"
The enjoyment of writing. I learned much from the process, becoming more optimistic about economics - itself an optimistic discipline, answering my editor's question, 'where are the women?' and discerning its principles.
open.substack.com/pub/robbiemo...
Adam Smith and Maynard Keynes - economists shaped by their experiences of war?
The Jacobite rebellion spurring the Scottish Enlightenment and World War I leading Keynes to think of government as having a critical role in stabilising economies.
open.substack.com/pub/robbiemo...
First attempt to write something on Substack this year.
Avoiding any discussion of Venezuela - but thinking about how we might be better in running an economy.
substack.com/inbox/post/1...
The majority of Americans can’t locate Venezuela on this map
Moonset over Clydebank as I came home from a morning run.
Sun just about to rise.
Frost everywhere
