Posted on October 20, 2012 by Madsen Pirie
I have been invited to give a talk to IREF, the Paris-based Institute de Recherches Economiques et Fiscales, in mid-November. It promises to be a rather convivial evening since it is one of their debats-dégustation evenings at which a wine expert talks about a chosen wine first, which attendees then sample while the talk is given, and there is discussion afterwards.
I have been asked to talk about the work of think tanks, based to some extent on my book “Think Tank – the story of the Adam Smith Institute.” I intend, out of courtesy, to deliver the speech in French, though my vocabulary is not up to it. I learned it as a teenager, and can talk about desks, teachers & pencils, but not about such things as the public sector borrowing requirement. My way round this is to write the speech in English and have a bilingual friend translate it into French. After a few practice run-throughs I will deliver it in French.
The audience will all speak English, but I find that French audiences pay more attention to a speech in French, even if they can understand English. No doubt the discussion afterwards will be in a mixture of both languages.
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Posted on October 19, 2012 by Madsen Pirie
When I spoke to 300 sixth-formers at JFS School I was asked if there was anything I was pessimistic about in the future. The context was that I am optimistic about humanity’s ability to deal with any problems that might arise regarding population, availability of food and water, resources, energy and environment. I am confident that our technology and creative ingenuity will help us to take these things in our stride, and that for most humans the future will offer more prosperity and opportunity.
Was there anything I was pessimistic about? I replied that one considerable cause of concern is the entitlement programmes we are committed to. Governments have promised so much by way of generous pension, healthcare and welfare programmes that there may simply not be the resources to fund them. Promises have been made to bid for the votes of today’s electors, but they will be drawn from tomorrow’s citizens, and they seem to have already gone far beyond what those citizens will be willing or even able to pay.
The problem is essentially political. Those who see themselves as beneficiaries will vote against governments which attempt to reduce or remove those promises, making it a very difficult problem for democracies to deal with.
Even here, however, I managed to put one note of optimism. It won’t be my problem.
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Posted on October 18, 2012 by Madsen Pirie
I’ve been invited to participate in a debate at Trinity College, Dublin, by the College Historical Society. Founded in 1770, it’s the oldest student debating society in the world. The motion is interesting, setting fiscal austerity against a possible Keynesian alternative, and reading “This House Believes in the Long Run, We’re All Dead.” This was of course a famous quote from Keynes.
The debate is on Thursday October 31st, and I can just do it, heading out after an editorial discussion on my new children’s book on the day before, and flying back in time to speak at Harrow School on the day after.
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Posted on October 17, 2012 by Madsen Pirie
A meeting I’m really looking forward to is the one on Tuesday 23rd to the Queen Mary Literary Society at the University of London. This one is not about my work at the ASI, but about the science fiction books I write for children. I have been asked to say how I set about writing such books, the techniques I use, and the effects I am trying to achieve. I am finally asked to say why I choose to write in that genre.
With luck it could be a fascinating discussion. I have five such books in print, with another just finished, and one I drafted nearly two years ago that still needs some work. None of them fall into the ‘fantasy’ category, in that there are no spells or magic to assist my characters, though there is science not covered by our present understanding and achievements. The prime aim always has to be to write a good story that I hope my readers will enjoy.
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Posted on October 16, 2012 by Madsen Pirie
I chaired the meeting the ASI held in honour of Milton Friedman’s centenary. My colleague, Dr Eamonn Butler, spoke of Friedman’s plan to replace assorted benefits such as food stamps and housing allowance by a single negative income tax that would make payments to those below the accepted minimum income line.
The Rt Hon Peter Lilley MP covered Friedman’s opinion that drugs should be legalized, pointing to his own paper, “Common Sense on Cannabis,” suggesting that the use of cannabis should no longer be a criminal act in the UK.
Dr Adam Martin of King’s College, London, supported Friedman’s position on free trade, pointing out that the economic gains of unrestricted imports outweighed by many times any costs they might incur to the domestic economy.
The meeting was a packed one in the Convocation Room of Church House, Westminster.
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Posted on October 15, 2012 by Madsen Pirie
I used to read science fiction stories as a boy. Some of them imagined the first lunar landing, but not one of them anticipated that it would be followed live on TV by a worldwide audience.
When Felix Baumgartner made his thrilling (and supersonic) jump yesterday from 24 miles high, I was one of millions who followed it live on YouTube. Exciting stuff, but so were the communications that gave us a ringside view as the event unfolded.
Cambridge University Spaceflight, whose Nova balloon series also explores the edge of space, have themselves developed some pretty impressive and innovative communications technology. Last Friday’s, Nova 24, actually captured, among other images, a picture of the balloon as it burst at the top of its ascent.
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Posted on October 14, 2012 by Madsen Pirie
To celebrate Milton Friedman’s centenary the Adam Smith Institute is holding a tribute evening on Monday October 15th. Starting with drinks at Church House, Westminster, from 6.0 pm, the speakers will be Peter Lilley MP debating drugs, Dr Adam Martin of King’s College, London, talking about free trade, and Dr Eamonn Butler of the ASI looking at the idea of a negative income tax.
Milton Friedman has enormous influence on his century, doing as much as anyone to assert the superiority of market economies over centrally planned ones, and putting free choices ahead of authoritarian diktats. I knew him personally, and can report that throughout his life he never lost a boyish sense of fun, or ever wavered in his belief that most people can look after themselves better than can bureaucrats.
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Posted on October 13, 2012 by Madsen Pirie
The William Pitt Seminar on growth organized by Pembroke College was very thought-provoking, especially the speech by Hermann Hauser, local whiz-kid and serial entrepreneur. He took us through what developments we can expect in the power and abilities of computers in the coming decade, pointing out that almost every trend can be plotted on an exponential graph.
Afterwards I spoke to a well-attended meeting of the Cambridge Libertarians in Caius College. I stressed that free markets arise naturally out of the way human beings have developed to co-operate with each other to mutual advantage. We trade because we value what the other has more highly than what we give up for it. This creates wealth by giving both parties extra value, and it makes possible specialization and ultimately mechanization to generate wealth on a vast scale, together with all that this makes possible. Free markets work at their best, I said, with free peoples, whose decisions to buy, sell, create products and trade all reflect their own values.
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Posted on October 12, 2012 by Madsen Pirie
The rocket boys of Cambridge University Spaceflight held a very good meeting, celebrating their success with the Nova 24 edge-of-space balloon earlier in the day, and outlining their upcoming projects to interested first-year students.
Today I’m attending one of Pembroke College’s William Pitt Seminars. This one is entitled “What’s So Good About Growth?” By coincidence I wrote about growth earlier this week as one of my 10 Good Things which often receive a bad press. (http://www.adamsmith.org/blog/economics/ten-very-good-things-8-growth) I doubt the speakers will be as positive as I was!
This evening I speak to the Cambridge Libertarians at a meeting in Caius College, with an introduction to free market ideas and the philosophy that underlies them.
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Posted on October 11, 2012 by Madsen Pirie
I had a great time at JFS School, speaking to 300 members of the senior school, and chatting to some of them afterwards over sandwiches. I did cover popular economic and political fallacies, as I suggested.
Meanwhile in Cambridge the rocket boys of Cambridge University Spaceflight were launching Nova 24, an edge-of-space balloon which tests new telemetry and photographs the Earth from above the atmosphere. They successfully tracked it and recovered it, so well done, guys.
They are meeting in the Engineering Dept this evening to explain their work on balloons and rockets to interested freshers (and to eat lots of pizza afterwards).
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