House of Lords Speech: 10 October 2022 My Lords, the twin problems to which the mini-Budget was addressed were near-zero growth and a relentless rise in prices. I doubt whether it will do very much for the first—certainly not in time to offset the second. In the short run, what we face is not a growth crisis but an inflationary crisis and that, of course, also means a currency crisis. What was the growth strategy? I think it was based on Reaganomics—the idea that unfunded tax cuts,...
Read More »The End of Western Civilization
Why it lacks resilience, and What will take its place Paper presented on July 11, 2022 to The Ninth South-South Forum on Sustainability. THE COLLAPSE OF MODERN CIVILIZATION AND THE FUTURE OF HUMANITY. The greatest challenge facing societies has always been how to conduct trade and credit without letting merchants and creditors make money by exploiting their customers and debtors. All antiquity recognized that the drive to acquire money is addictive and indeed tends to be...
Read More »From Junk Economics to a False View of History: Where Western Civilization Took a Wrong Turn
A presentation to the Building bridges around David Graeber’s legacy conference, Paris, Friday July 7, 2022 It may seem strange to invite an economist to give a keynote speech to a conference of the social sciences. Economists have been characterized as autistic and anti-social in the popular press for good reason. They are trained to think abstractly and use a priori deduction – based on how they think societies should develop. Today’s mainstream economists look at...
Read More »Queen’s Speech on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade
My Lords, I find myself in profound disagreement with the Government’s war strategy in Ukraine and, in fact, with almost everything that has been said about Ukraine in this debate. I will try to explain why. British policy aims for a Russian military defeat, which it will help to bring about by economic sanctions and supplying Ukraine with the necessary means of war. Liz Truss said on 27 April: “We will keep going further and faster to push Russia out of the whole of Ukraine”....
Read More »The Future of Work: Is Artificial Intelligence a New Road to Serfdom?
Lecture and Discussion with Lord Robert Skidelsky Lord Robert Skidelsky has given a lecture at the Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen (IWM) on Tuesday, 15 March 2022, 18:00 CET in Vienna. In contemporary discussions about the future of artificial intelligence we often lose our heads. While economists offer bleak predictions of mass job losses and a deepening of already widespread precarity, Silicon Valley utopians insist that new technologies are bringing us ever closer...
Read More »Brighton College Lecture: Background to Ukraine
Lord_Skidelsky_edit.mp4 Share this:Like this:Like Loading...
Read More »Ukraine: Refugees – House of Lords Questions
Lord Skidelsky: My Lords, in addition to the help that the Government are giving to Ukrainians to come to this country, will they consider offering humanitarian visas to those brave Russians—members of the clergy, members of civil society, academics, journalists and ordinary citizens—who face long prison sentences for exercising their democratic right to oppose this war? Baroness Williams of Trafford: I am very glad that the noble Lord asked that question because, at this point,...
Read More »The Dream of Machinery: Liberation versus Control
Lord Robert Skidelsky will be holding a lecture on The Dream of Machinery: Liberation versus Control at the IWM (Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen) in Vienna on Tuesday the 15th March. Share this:Like this:Like Loading...
Read More »“The Ukrainian Crisis:A brief history lesson”
Lord Robert Skidelsky will be lecturing on “The Ukrainian Crisis:A brief history lesson” on Thursday 10th March at Brighton College. Share this:Like this:Like Loading...
Read More »“Why Keynes?”
Lord Robert Skidelsky will be lecturing on “Why Keynes?” on Wednesday, June 15, 6 pm at Innsbruck University Share this:Like this:Like Loading...
Read More »