I’m just back from a two day conference of senior policy people, gathered in an idyllic English country house to debate the post-crisis outlook for capitalism. There were people from other European nations and the US as well as the UK. It was interesting to find universal agreement in this group that some quite fundamental reforms are necessary, albeit disagreements over the specifics – a Tobin tax versus a Financial Activity Tax for example, or the mechanics for stopping the bankers’ bonuses merry-go-round. The tone of the debate about the responsibilities of the state via a vis markets was completely different from similar gatherings just two or three years ago.

It was also interesting to hear which books got name checked. They were:
[amazon_link id=”0691152632″ target=”_blank” ]Fault Lines: How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World Economy [New in Paper][/amazon_link] Raghuram Rajan
[amazon_link id=”0691152640″ target=”_blank” ]This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly[/amazon_link] Reinhardt and Rogoff
[amazon_link id=”1846140552″ target=”_blank” ]Thinking, Fast and Slow[/amazon_link] Daniel Kahneman
[amazon_link id=”0140296727″ target=”_blank” ]The Truth About Markets : Why Some Countries are Rich and Others Remain Poor[/amazon_link]John Kay
[amazon_link id=”1408809737″ target=”_blank” ]Capitalism 4.0: The Birth of a New Economy[/amazon_link] Anatole Kaletsky
[amazon_link id=”B005WTR4ZI” target=”_blank” ]Race Against The Machine: How the Digital Revolution is Accelerating Innovation, Driving Productivity, and Irreversibly Transforming Employment and the Economy[/amazon_link] Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee
[amazon_link id=”0691153191″ target=”_blank” ]The Darwin Economy: Liberty, Competition, and the Common Good[/amazon_link] Robert Frank

It’s a great selection – how encouraging that these influential chaps (yes, mainly men of course) are reading seriously. Fingers crossed for action now.