Every generation needs to remake the case for capitalism. Not because capitalism is a perfect system, but because it is flawed. These flaws can, as in 1929 and 2008, seem so substantial that it can be all too tempting to throw the baby out with the bathwater, particularly when socialism is biting at our heels. […]
Support for the Conservative party among the voters of the future – the young and the university educated – is in tatters. It doesn’t need to be that way. History shows how free-market ideas can be positioned in a way that can win hearts and minds: by thinking beyond efficiency and productivity, and embracing Milton […]
Over the Christmas week, CapX is republishing its favourite pieces from the past year. You can find the full list here. Throughout the West, patriotism is on the rise. Theresa May is a strong advocate. She took the opportunity in Birmingham to make the case that a passion for one’s country is not the […]
It’s easy to take markets for granted. We have become so dependent on them that if we woke up tomorrow morning and found that they had completely disappeared, we would be in complete disarray. I certainly would not know how to go about growing my own food, making my own suits or fixing the roof. […]
Throughout the West, patriotism is on the rise. Theresa May is a strong advocate. She took the opportunity in Birmingham to make the case that a passion for one’s country is not the threat some think it is. She’s right. But this attitude should go hand in hand with a vigorous global outlook. While internationalism and patriotism are […]
From Bernie Sanders in the US to Jeremy Corbyn in the UK, socialist tendencies have been on the rise ever since the global financial crisis. Along with it, so have been defences of the free market system. Whilst nothing is more persuasive than actual historical experience, debates have tended to instead take place in the […]
Whilst it might earn candidates political points, “bashing” the “one percenters” is not always the best recipe for helping those living desperately poor lives at the bottom of the ladder. Nothing demonstrates this more than a study released last month in an unlikely source, the New England Medical Journal. For those who stay awake at night worrying more […]
No one’s perfect, and the popularity of new year’s resolutions suggests that most people agree. Whatever your latest resolution, my Cambridge college, Gonville and Caius, has a clear idea of the kinds of personal qualities we should all aspire to, so much so that students pass through three symbolic gates on their academic journey, representing […]
It’s been a long tough year and now, to make things worse, the cold winds of winter beckon. Seasonal festivities are our last hope. Admit it. If you can’t find the joy in twinkling lights and cold crowded streets, you might as well go to bed and not wake up until the daffodils are in […]
If there are two forces that will define British politics over the next four years, they are the family and the axe. Put them together on a red background and you have all the ingredients of a Russian revolutionary poster. However, this isn’t Russian socialism that we are talking about but Conservative Party policy. The […]
None of us likes to feel out of control. In fact, as a little bit of a control freak, it is the thing I fear the most. Being female, I’m also well aware that being in control of your life means being in control of your body. Of course, it’s only relatively recently that this […]
I’m proud to have been born in Manchester. Not because of the football, although, admittedly, my family are big Man United fans. You certainly never saw me dressed in baby pink as a child – it was red all the way. In fact, looking back at my baby photos, you might presume I was a […]
The West has been leading the global economy for the last two centuries. How Europe and the US managed to overtake the East after millennia of playing second fiddle to the great civilisations of Mesopotamia, India, Pakistan and China, is a question thathas attracted a huge volume of literature. Fortunately, you don’t have to spend […]
Despite the return of feminism, culminating in the film Suffragette, premiered in London this week, it is now becoming fashionable to shift our sympathies away from women and towards blue-collar men. Whilst Sisters Uncut were protesting on the red carpet, drawing attention to the lives of women at the bottom of the ladder, politicians at party […]
You might think that feminism and the Left have much in common. After all, you could say that they are united by the fight for equality and the attempt to give a voice to those who lack privilege, whether on the basis of class or gender. Little wonder, then, that there was some surprise when […]
It is holiday season. It is the time of the year when we have the chance to sit back and think about the bigger picture. It is the time of the year when we get a rest from the minutiae of daily life. It is time to feel human again. If you are an economist, […]
At this time of the year, when GCSE and A-level results are announced, young people across the country are thinking ahead and planning their future. If you are a parent, you could be excused for feeling even more anxious this year than any other. Talk of rising inequality and declining social mobility, regularly discussed in the press, […]
If there is one problem the world does not face, it is too few people. There are already more than seven billion of us – and the number is only set to increase. And yet, if you believe the headlines, you would think that we were suffering from a serious people shortage. Not so long ago, […]
Economic growth: it’s touted as the most important aspect of economic performance – the one that can help to resolve so many other economic problems, such as unemployment, escalating welfare bills and high levels of government debt – but it is also proving to be the most illusive. Across large parts of the world, from […]
Will the budget really deliver a high-productivity high-wage economy? George Osborne has a dream. It is a dream of an economy in which the market pays – one in which the workforce is productive, capable of earning enough to live a life independent of government handouts. He looks ahead to a Britain in which it […]
