Skidelsky the sceptic

Lord Robert Skidelsky, Warwick University professor and biographer of Keynes, expounds classic growth sceptic ideas in the cover story of the January issue of Prospect.

He argues that: “to ensure we have an ordered system requires us to make globalisation efficient and acceptable. In the course of that debate, I expect one crucial point to emerge: the benefits of globalisation are real, but have been exaggerated. Improvements in the allocation of capital and reductions in opportunities for corruption are offset by increased volatility. Globalisation also raises huge issues of political accountability and social cohesion that are scarcely considered by economists, and only lazily by politicians.”

The underlying reason, in his view, for this blind spot is that the world has: “not adjusted to the era of partial abundance, nor to the existence of natural limits to growth.”