Monthly Archives: June 2013

Lysistrata of the young

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One of the works cited at my conference, which I forgot about yesterday, was Aristophanes’  [amazon_link id=”0140448144″ target=”_blank” ]Lysistrata[/amazon_link]. Except the person who spoke, a senior diplomat and official, wasn’t speaking of a strike by women but rather one by young people. As I’m still Istanbul, you’ll understand that I’m wondering whether that predicted rebellion by the young has started, here in a country where half the population is under 30.

[amazon_image id=”0140448144″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Lysistrata and Other Plays (Penguin Classics)[/amazon_image]

Top reading material

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For the past two days I’ve been immersed in conference in Istanbul, The Performance Theatre, which includes business people of an enlightened kind, artists, some policy folk, from many countries. So it’s a diverse crowd but pretty elite. It’s always interesting to see what books a top group will cite during the proceedings. And what an eclectic mix it was this time.

[amazon_link id=”0099478986″ target=”_blank” ]Birds Without Wings [/amazon_link]by Louis de Bernieres [amazon_image id=”0099478986″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Birds Without Wings[/amazon_image] [amazon_link id=”0007267126″ target=”_blank” ]

The Rational Optimist [/amazon_link]by Matt Ridley [amazon_link id=”0099540940″ target=”_blank” ]

The Master and Margarita[/amazon_link] by Mikhail Bulgakov [amazon_image id=”0099540940″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]The Master and Margarita (Vintage Classics)[/amazon_image] [amazon_link id=”0486449130″ target=”_blank” ]

Mutual Aid[/amazon_link] by P Kropotkin [amazon_link id=”0140047433″ target=”_blank” ]

Lives of a Cell [/amazon_link]by Lewis Thomas [amazon_image id=”0140047433″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher[/amazon_image] [amazon_link id=”0262015218″ target=”_blank” ]

Ai Weiwei’s blog[/amazon_link] [amazon_link id=”B00CAUH7IG” target=”_blank” ]

Seven Elements that have Changed the World[/amazon_link] by John Browne

[amazon_image id=”0297868055″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Seven Elements That Have Changed The World: Iron, Carbon, Gold, Silver, Uranium, Titanium, Silicon[/amazon_image]

I’m jotting this down in a hotel a couple of kilometres from Taksim Square, and it’s noisy there tonight. Time to turn over to Twitter and rolling (online) news to see what’s happening. It feels like a good time to try to understand the world as well as change it,

Sailing into the wind

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I’ve been unable to resist paging through Jerry Adelman’s  biography of Albert Hirschman, [amazon_link id=”0691155674″ target=”_blank” ]Worldly Philosopher.[/amazon_link] I like this summary, from the conclusion:

“Albert Hirschman’s odyssey of the twentieth century can be read – to borrow one of his own metaphors- as the epic of a mariner sailing ever into the wind. What he stood for, fought for and wrote for was a proposition that humans are improvable creatures. Armed with an admixture of daring humility, they could act while being uncertain and embrace alternatives without losing sight of reality. But for much of Hirschman’s century, this was heresy. … Faced with these headwinds, Hirschman tacked back and forth.”

[amazon_image id=”0691155674″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Worldly Philosopher: The Odyssey of Albert O. Hirschman[/amazon_image]

The shadow economy

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The focus of economic policy is the economy that is counted; little attention is paid to the shadow economy. The reason is partly that it’s obviously hard to direct what’s unmeasured, and partly embarrassment about the very existence of shadow work – policy is supposed to aim at eliminating it. Yet of course it forms a substantial proportion of economic activity, in fact a minimum of around 10% of official GDP (the UK is at 12.5%) and more than half of official GDP in some (mainly poor) economies. Indeed it is so much more prevalent in the developing world that it shades into activity with a different name there, the informal economy.

The measurement of the shadow economy has been almost a one man activity. That man, Friedrich Schneider, has a new book or pamphlet out with co-author Colin Williams, published by the IEA, The Shadow Economy. It sets out his most recent estimates and surveys very usefully the drivers of shadow activity and the possible policies to reduce its size. This publication is a useful summary of Schneider’s longer works on the subject, such as [amazon_link id=”1107034841″ target=”_blank” ]The Shadow Economy: An International Survey.[/amazon_link] It’s good to be reminded about what we don’t have measures of, as well as what we do.

The Shadow Economy

The book, which is short, looks entirely at the legal shadow economy, which is to miss the criminal activities. That’s another story I suppose, the parallel globalization by organised crime, and one that Misha Glenny looks at in his books [amazon_link id=”0099481251″ target=”_blank” ]McMafia[/amazon_link] and [amazon_link id=”0099546558″ target=”_blank” ]Dark Market[/amazon_link].

[amazon_image id=”0099481251″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]McMafia: Seriously Organised Crime[/amazon_image]

Economists should take far more seriously this phenomenon. It impinges, with horrific results so often, on many people’s lives and is a part of 21st century globalization.

Schneider and Williams concentrate on labour market activities. Still, even with a relatively narrow focus, this is a very useful book for anybody interested in the issue.

Impulse buying

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Oh dear, oh dear. I wandered past a branch of Foyles this morning with 10 minutes to spare. Here’s the result. I’d already acquired a hardback of [amazon_link id=”0141975652″ target=”_blank” ]The Signal and The Noise[/amazon_link], but my eldest son seems to have that now.

Still, I need plenty to read for my flights to Istanbul and back. Good thing it’s all calming down now in Tacsim Square…..

Impulse buying

(The shuttle on my desk is one that came from the weaving shed of the cotton mill my aunties used to work in, when it closed down in the early 1980s.)