Last night I attended the recording of the first of this year’s BBC Reith Lectures, historian Niall Ferguson giving the first of four on the subject of ‘The Rule of Law and its Enemies.’ Prof Ferguson tends to arouse strong feelings – I’m a fan – but whether you love or hate him, he’s certainly a lively and provocative lecturer. The big lecture theatre at the LSE was packed.
His theme in the first lecture was the breakdown in the social contract between the generations, citing, as one would expect from a conservative historian, Edmund Burke (from [amazon_link id=”0199539022″ target=”_blank” ]Reflections on the Revolution in France[/amazon_link]):
“Society is indeed a contract. It is a partnership in all science; a partnership in all art; a partnership in every virtue, and in all perfection. As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.”
[amazon_image id=”0199539022″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Reflections on the Revolution in France (Oxford World’s Classics)[/amazon_image]
This took him into the current financial crisis and the question of debt, a subject on which Prof Ferguson has famously clashed with Paul Krugman over the latter’s insistence on fiscal stimulus to pep up growth now (an argument on which Prof Krugman’s got a new book out, [amazon_link id=”0393088774″ target=”_blank” ]End This Depression Now![/amazon_link] – I’ve not yet read it.)
[amazon_image id=”0393088774″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]End This Depression Now![/amazon_image]
Prof Ferguson made the case for proper generational accounting and a national balance sheet – readers of [amazon_link id=”0691156298″ target=”_blank” ]The Economics of Enough[/amazon_link] will know I’m an ardent advocate of these measures. Anyway, the lecture will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and The World Service on 19 June, with a repeat and a podcast to follow, then the other three in the following weeks.They’re going to be a must-listen for me.
The point of this post was to highlight some of the many books cited in last night’s lecture. They included (as well as Burke) Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson’s [amazon_link id=”1846684293″ target=”_blank” ]Why Nation’s Fail [/amazon_link](reviewed here), Timur Kuran’s [amazon_link id=”0691147566″ target=”_blank” ]The Long Divergence[/amazon_link] (reviewed here), Carmen Reinhardt and Kenneth Rogoff’s [amazon_link id=”0691142165″ target=”_blank” ]This Time is Different[/amazon_link], along with Mandeville’s [amazon_link id=”0140445412″ target=”_blank” ]Fable of the Bees[/amazon_link] and Adam Smith’s [amazon_link id=”0140432086″ target=”_blank” ]The Wealth of Nations[/amazon_link].
[amazon_image id=”0691156298″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]The Economics of Enough: How to Run the Economy as If the Future Matters[/amazon_image]