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The Finance Bill 2013 – How to promote special interest lobbying

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Yesterday, I spoke against Clause 35 and schedules 15 to 17 of the Finance Bill 2013. They introduce tax relief for “high-end” television production (that is, posh drama and comedy) and video games development. They’re industries I’d like to see flourish but not by granting special privileges. It’s special privilege which is the most egregious objective of lobbying: it represents a subsidy for a preferred group at everyone else’s expense. I began by provoking laughter, for this kind of measure deserves to be […]

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Lloyd George’s liberalism

This quote by Lloyd George has been suggested to me. It’s from “Carving the Last Few Columns out of the Gladstonian Quarry: The Liberal Leaders and the Mantle of Gladstone, 1898–1929”, in David Bebbington and Roger Swift (eds.), Gladstone Centenary Essays, p 253. The doctrine of Liberalism is a doctrine that believes that private property, as an incentive, as a means, as a reward, is the most potent agency not merely for the wealth, but for the well-being of the community. […]

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Bad ideas that never die: a Parliament of special interests

The Times is running two letters under the heading, Should the Upper House be a Senate? (£). The first letter calls for a federal senate with equal representation for each nation of the UK. (Quite why the smaller nations should be disproportionately powerful, I do not know.)  The second calls for a chamber of representatives from “leading professional and other expert bodies such as the Law Society, the British Medical Association, the Institute of Chartered Accountants, the Royal Institution of Chartered […]

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Three political economies debated in Parliament

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  •   Jul-14-2011
  •   Politics
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Last week, I chaired what turned out to be a passionate, courageous and grounded debate between three intellectuals from each point of the political triangle: conservative, classical liberal and social democrat. Dr Mark Pennington set out the inescapable reality of imperfect knowledge and incomplete rationality in human actors in defence of markets. Richard Murphy argued for a “cappucino” of state and market, flat rejecting neoliberalism. Jesse Norman MP critiqued the flaws in the theories of neo classical economics and completely […]

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Robust Political Economy and Realistic Idealism « Pileus

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  •   Apr-15-2011
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Via Robust Political Economy and Realistic Idealism « Pileus: What criterion should we use to evaluate political theories and the institutions they advocate? In my book Robust Political Economy, I argue that it is the criterion of ‘robustness’. Institutions that meet this criterion are those best placed to cope with fundamental constraints that arise from the human condition. The most important constraints are those of limited rationality (the Hayekian ‘knowledge problem’) and the recognition that human beings respond, at least to […]

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Thought for the day – liberalism, as classically understood

The program of liberalism, therefore, if condensed into a single word, would have to read: property, that is, private ownership of the means of production… All the other demands of liberalism result from his fundamental demand. Via the Ludwig von Mises Institute. Over lunch today, I very much enjoyed setting out the Austrian School programme of classical liberalism advanced by Mises to the Freedom Association. These days, it would be known as Conservatism, but there we are. Sooner or later, politics […]

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Mark Prisk MP, Hayek and Mises

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Via Business Minister Mark Prisk wants to strip away the red tape – Telegraph: Friedrich von Hayek is a controversial choice as a pin-up. But a signed pamphlet that the Austrian-born economist wrote in 1980 entitled “Full employment at any price” is proudly framed on Business Minister Mark Prisk’s wall. In placing it there, the Conservative MP for Hertford and Stortford is following in a line of leading Tories to place their faith in one of the 20th century’s most […]

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Bastiat – The State

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This post originally appeared at The Cobden Centre. In the course of things, I had cause to quote Bastiat, a French classical liberal theorist, political economist, and member of the French assembly: “The state is the great fiction by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else.” This prompted me to dig out the original essay. As the UK’s national debt doubles and after a period within which QE was used, creating space in the market for […]

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D-day Commemoration

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On a grey and showery day, skydivers at Weston on the Green commemorated D-day, not by skydiving, but by jumping static line at what for us is a low level: 3500ft. It makes you think. D-day Commemoration – Dornier G92, originally uploaded by stevenjbaker. Sport parachuting is relatively low risk, believe it or not. We go high with modern equipment: it works reliably and there is time to take the reserve if the main fails. No one is, or will […]

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The Apostle of Free Trade: Richard Cobden

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  •   May-27-2009
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I just finished Gowing’s 1885 biography of Richard Cobden, whose doctrine was that free trade would lead to world peace through interdependence and mutual cooperation. Cobden was a leader of the Anti-Corn-Law League — a substantial feat of political agitation — which was established to oppose protectionist measures on corn and decrease the price of basic food products. Cobden viewed the task of the League as “instructing the nation.” We learn in the biography: Only seven years before the total […]

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Liberty – for peace and prosperity

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...

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