Via, The 15 Best Videos on Commerce and Entrepreneurship, Whole Foods CEO John Mackey on the Moral Case for Capitalism: You have empathy and care and sympathy for others and you have the foundation for a great economic system. But intellectuals and economists ignored that ethical foundation for capitalism and tried to ground it on strict self-interest and that led to ethical attacks…
Tags: Capitalism, Ethics, Morality, Video
Following an apprenticeship elsewhere, Megan Moore joined me for a week to develop several short guides to British politics which I will publish later in the summer. I wanted to demonstrate that apprentices can challenge graduates on quality. I hope after reading this you will agree that this is so. — Steve For those who acknowledge that a free society requires ethical as well as constitutional foundations, the thought of St Thomas Aquinas, described by Rothbard as ‘the towering intellect […]
Tags: Christianity, Ethics, Ideas, Liberty, Natural Law
I can’t speak in the debate on professional standards in the banking industry today: I missed the opening speeches in order to help lead a conversation amongst colleagues on economic growth. As I listen to the debate from my office or in the Chamber, I realise my levels of optimism are highly dependent on who is speaking. On the one hand, I am discouraged by the sheer partisanship which has been reported in the speeches I missed. To understand the […]
Tags: Banking, Ethics, Parliament, Responsibility
In today’s Telegraph, William Hague tells the Government’s business critics to stop complaining and work hard to deliver jobs. However, Mr Hague forgets that a day’s hard work is rewarded with a day’s pay: if that pay is in a money which someone else is producing at near zero cost, the value of hard work is undermined. People who are slogging their guts out to make ends meet in an environment of rising living costs are bound to take the Telegraph’s reporting of […]
Tags: Conservatives, economics, Ethics, Money, Morality, Society, William Hague
American musician Ray Stevens has produced this superb analysis of the Obama Budget Plan: I’m sure Ray has much to teach politicians and the public in the UK and Europe too, particularly about ethics and decency in the public finances. For more on that subject, see Jörg Guido Hülsmann’s brilliant book The Ethics of Money Production (PDF) and these sovereign debt projections from the Bank for International Settlements.
Tags: debt, economics, Ethics, Finance, humour, Inflation
Over the past few days, many constituents have written to me expressing anger and dismay about the riots, policing and justice. I share this anger and dismay. As I said in my article on Wednesday, we must establish that the state’s duty is to protect the law-abiding and their property first and foremost and that the police do not require the consent of rioters before acting with reasonable force. The Prime Minister has said that we will do whatever it takes […]
Tags: Broken Society, Ethics, Government, Justice, Liberty, Responsibility, Riot, Society
Yesterday, I gave a presentation which sets out: What Conservatives have always sought to conserve – liberty against the onslaught of socialism, of state control. How the war of ideas has been won by the statists over the course of a century, leading to our present crisis. What the Coalition is doing – raising taxes to meet increased overall spending. Why even that hurts so much – over half of Government spending is essentially fixed in the short term, amplifying […]
Tags: Conservatives, economics, Ethics, Ideas, Statism
After dashing through C S Lewis’ brilliant if somewhat esoteric 1930s sci-fi/fantasy known as The Cosmic Trilogy, I picked up Jung’s even more esoteric Answer to Job. After all that, it seemed time to return to Mere Christianity, which is so titled because it explains those doctrines which are generally uncontroversial amongst all Christian denominations. The book comprises a number of talks which Lewis gave during the madness of the Second World War, covering right and wrong as a clue […]
Tags: Books, C G Jung, C S Lewis, Christianity, Ethics, Morality, Natural Law, Theology
In his short article Inflation and You, Ludwig von Mises explains inflation itself, the social and economic effects of inflation, who inflation’s victims are, the futility of attempts to hedge against inflation, the moral and political effects of inflation and, finally, inflation and government borrowing. I thoroughly recommend the whole article, but I reproduce the section on government borrowing, which seems particularly pertinent at the moment: Inflation and Government Borrowing The writer, having witnessed the course of inflations in one European […]
Tags: Austrian School, debt, economics, Ethics, Inflation, Mises, Money, Money Supply
I came into politics out of fury with a political elite which was positively trampling the principles of democracy and an open society. By 2007, what Labour were doing to our country was awful enough, but then the handling of the Lisbon Treaty was the final straw: what a witches’ brew of deceit, sophisty and betrayal surrounded that unacceptable affront to government with the consent of the governed. I thought we could go no lower. And then came the expenses […]
Tags: Ethics, Government, Liberty, Media, Press, Responsibility, Society
Steve Baker is the Conservative MP for Wycombe.
Steve was first elected to Parliament in 2010. He was previously an RAF engineer officer then a consulting software engineer. Find out more...
Steve holds regular surgeries in High Wycombe. If you would like an appointment, please contact me.
