ASI Bulletin: Cake, Claret and Kirkcaldy
Dr. Eamonn Butler, our Director and Co-Founder, takes you through the last few (always hectic) weeks at the Adam Smith Institute.
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WELCOME TO OUR SUBSTACK-POWERED BULLETIN. IT’S THE FUTURE, THEY SAY.
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In this bulletin:
£3000 Adam Smith Essay Prize (£3000? That’s £2 a word—Ed.)
Auctioning visas: sound odd? It could limit migration, raise revenue and free the jobs market.
Why we’re not celebrating the 75th birthday of the NHS
But first...
Wimbledon authorities have complained about couples using the prayer and meditation room for sex. (They probably got the idea from Boris Becker, so the tennis bosses can hardly complain. Or maybe the problem is that mortgage rates have just hit a 15-year high and couples simply don’t have anywhere else for it.)
Talking of interest rates, the Bank of England says it will ‘see through the job of cutting inflation’ though it does not seem to have any clear plan for doing so. (’See-through’ seems more appropriate to the Bank’s policies than its ambitions—Ed.) Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves, meanwhile, says the UK government needs to get a grip on its debt, something which (in a strange reversal of roles) our Conservative ministers don’t seem too bothered about.
Ex-PM Tony Blair has a new plan to fix the NHS (though it’s a pity he didn’t have any plan when he was in office and could actually do something about it).
Anyway, can’t spare any more time as I have to refresh my Threads feed…
THINK TANKING
The good and the great, along with lots of classical liberal troublemakers, were out in force to celebrate the 300th anniversary of Adam Smith’s birth. The event, organised by the ASI and kindly sponsored by Lord Borwick, was held in the House of Lords’ Cholmondeley Room marquee and spilled out onto the terrace overlooking the Thames on what was a perfect summer evening here in darkest Westminster.
With plenty of Mumm champagne generously provided by Pernod-Ricard — although Adam Smith of course drank claret— it was a lively event. Foreign Secretary James Cleverly gave a few amusing remarks. Later, one of the ASI's first and most influential authors, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, paid a touching tribute to the Institute's work over more than four decades, before Lord Borwick gave the traditional ASI toast: Peace and low taxes!
Talking of celebrating Adam Smith’s Birthday…
£3000 Adam Smith Essay Prize
We’re pleased to announce the Adam Smith 300 Essay Prize, our present to the great economist and philosopher in the year of his 300th birthday. Contenders are invited to submit a 1500 word essay (or shorter if you like, but not longer) on the subject: What would Adam Smith write about now?
The first prize is £3000, and there are prizes of £2000 and £1000 for second and third places. The entries will be judged by a distinguished intergenerational panel of academic and policy experts. Entries should be sent to maxwell@adamsmith.org and must be received before 1 September 2023.
Developments at the ASI
I appeared on the big screen again at the world premier of a new documentary, Ex Nihilo: The Truth about Money in the House of Lords recently. It is part of the Honest Money Initiative, a campaign to stop inflation by mending the monetary system of the UK and reforming the Bank of England. On the Initiative’s steering panel are experts such as ASI author and economics prof Kevin Dowd, business prof Tim Evans, IEA boss Mark Littlewood, well-known commentator (Lord) Daniel Hannan and, of course, yours truly.
The campaign aims to remove the Bank of England’s power to create unlimited quantities of money (which then becomes like Monopoly money) and instead focus on maintaining the value of the pound. Earlier this month, fifteen prominent economists and think tank leaders wrote to the Chancellor, warning that today’s cost-of-living crisis is largely down to the Bank’s inept over-creation of money.
Our Director of Research, Maxwell Marlow, has been out and about this week, talking to Wilson’s School in South London about the housing crisis and British economic history since the Wealth of Nations was published. The day prior, he had visited Ark Academy in Wembley. If you would like a speaker to visit your school, email maxwell@adamsmith.org.
New Comms chief
Emily Fielder re-joins us as our new Director of Communications. (Nobody ever leaves The Firm—Ed.) She replaces Connor Axiotes, who is now working on safety issues in the AI industry. Right now she’s drawing up a ‘grid’ to help prevent our continuing flurry of reports and papers getting under each other’s feet. And she will be freshening our links with journalists, commentators and social media influencers.
The Next Generation
Our guest at the last Next Generation event before the summer was Lord (Daniel) Hannan, the highly noted ex-MEP, journalist and Brexit campaigner.
Donate below to help us spread the understanding of free markets and the free society to the incoming generation of young thinkers and do-ers.
New Report
Why not auction visas? The current UK visa system is complicated and inefficient, leaving employers struggling to get the foreign workers they need. So why not just auction them? Then, work visas would go to people who generate the highest benefit to prospective employers. Our authors, Dr Bryan Cheang and Duncan McClements of King’s College London, say this system could hold the overall level of immigration constant while raising £59bn in revenue, enough to cut income tax by 11p in the £.
Media
Summer Intern Oliver Ind, was in CapX suggesting that student loans should be replaced by ISAs.
Our Executive Director Duncan Simpson was on BBC Radio Scotland bemoaning yet more nannying behaviour from our political overlords and what we can and can’t eat.
Director of Research Maxwell Marlow was on the BBC’s Moral Maze on the morality of privatization, on GB News with Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg on introducing safe drug tests at festivals, on BBC 5 Live and GB News on the public pay rises, and in CapX on the Chancellor’s Mansion House speech. His comments on the rise in visa application fees also made the Telegraph.
Maxwell also attended a Chatham House roundtable on industrial strategy and trade, but he can’t say much more than that…
And our Director of Engagement and Operations Mimi Yates and Summer Intern Jack Twyman wished Adam Smith a Happy 300th Birthday in CapX.
On our superblog
Tim Worstall on getting competition into the railways
Oliver Ind on why he’s not celebrating the NHS’s 75th Birthday
Me on how Oxford gave Adam Smith an important lesson on incentives
Seen elsewhere
Poland — from socialism to prosperity. Sociologist, historian and author of In Defence of Capitalism, Rainer Zitelmann, has produced a new film about Poland’s amazing rise. See it here.
Wild Swans author Jung Chang gives an interview to James Bartholomew of the Museum of Communist Terror on the persecution of her own family Mao Zedong, who she describes as ‘evil beyond words’.
This interesting documentary on Israel’s West Bank ’settlements’, made by the son of my entrepreneur friend Lance Forman. It doesn’t start from any conclusion but collates the views of experts, historians, activists and others on both sides, and reveals that the impact of the settlements is much more complex than the media headlines.
And I quote…
A timely warning from F A Hayek’s The Constitution of Liberty:
Inflation is probably the most important single factor in that vicious circle wherein one kind of government action makes more and more government control necessary. For this reason all those who wish to stop the drift toward increasing government control should concentrate their effort on monetary policy.
Bye,
e
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"Wimbledon authorities have complained about couples using the prayer and meditation room for sex." Ummm, of all the lead-ins to a story about our manipulated interest rates, that's one I wouldn't have considered. Always love your sense of humor!