“In this world, nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes”. What US founding father Benjamin Franklin didn’t say but surely knew was that death and tax policy are deeply interlinked. That’s the thesis from Kenneth Scheve and David Stasavage, who have studied the history of taxation in Europe and the United […]
Commuters woke up this morning to news that Brussels was under attack. Two explosions were reported at the departure hall at Brussels Zaventem airport at 8am (CET) and a further blast was recorded at the Maalbeek metro station, close to the EU Parliament, shortly after 9am (CET). The attack comes four days after Salah Abdelslam, the […]
If members of France’s Front National were to walk into the National Assembly of 1789, on what side would they take their seats? Are they the party of order or the party of movement? Are they right wing or left wing? Marine Le Pen’s authoritarian social policy and her egalitarian economic policy pull her in […]
Last week, David Cameron secured a reform deal with the European Union that, despite appearances, offers an alternative model of the future for Europe. Should Britain vote to remain in the EU on June 23rd, it would be supporting a model of Europe that ensures the primacy of the nation state. The UK would not only express […]
A new poll released today indicates that Britain’s tech and media entrepreneurs are overwhelmingly in favour of remaining in the European Union. In the poll by YouGov, 88% of founders, owners and chief executives of some of Britain’s most promising tech start-ups across a range of industries including IT & telecoms, media and financial services, […]
You can now walk into a supermarket in every developed country in the world and expect shelves to be full and prices to be low. In the developing world, malnutrition has halved since 1990 and great strides are being taken to eradicate hunger entirely. This is despite the fact that two billion new souls have […]
China has been a big issue for Presidential hopeful Donald Trump. It was in a 2011 interview with the Wall Street Journal that the real estate magnate first called for a tax to be placed on all Chinese imports. In that interview, he claimed that in 2012, the US would lose $300bn because of trade with China. “China has […]
It is hard to believe but to a large extent, the turmoil and strife in the Middle East, deeply distressing as it is, have been a sideshow in a simmering contest between the two regional powers, Saudi Arabia and Iran. The start of 2016 has seen those tensions rise to the surface dramatically, as relations between the […]
Over the Christmas week, CapX is republishing its favourite pieces from the past year. You can find the full list here. You can now walk into a supermarket in every developed country in the world and expect shelves to be full and prices to be low. In the developing world, malnutrition has halved since 1990 […]
It can be difficult to be optimistic when there is so much to worry about. Whether it’s the evolving threat from ISIS, the slowdown in the global economy or the disintegration of the European Union, there is plenty to occupy the evergreen pessimist. There is an excellent interactive source of information for those interested in long-run trends […]
The European Identity: Historical and Cultural Realities We Cannot Deny. Stephen Green, Haus Publishing, RRP £7.99 Stripped of its history, culture and achievements, how would Europe be viewed by the world? Had an Indian invented the steam engine or a Chinese sailor discovered the Americas, and therefore radically changed the course of economic history, how […]
Last week, I wrote about Hyperloop, a blue-sky, Tomorrow’s World sort of project led by Elon Musk that has the potential to be our fifth-mode of transport (after automobiles, boats, trains and planes). I was sceptical about the technology, logistics, safety, security and cost-effectiveness of the existing proposals. However, standing up against the UK’s plans to […]
It’s being billed as the world’s last chance to agree to do something about climate change. On Monday, the United Nations Conference on Climate Change will meet in Paris. The 175 countries, whose leaders will be present at the start of the summit, have pledged their ‘nationally determined contributions’, which have been measured to limit […]
Why Should Anyone Work Here? Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones, Harvard Business Review Press, RRP £20 One of the most influential business books of the 20th century was William Whyte’s The Organisation Man. A sociologist, Whyte would go into the vast sprawling megacorps that characterised post-war American capitalism and peer into the souls of its foot soldiers. What […]
In his Spending Review on Wednesday, Chancellor George Osborne increased the capital budget for transport investment by 50% to £61bn. Some of this will be earmarked for High Speed 2, a multi-decade rail project that will connect London to Birmingham, Manchester, Sheffield and Leeds. The estimated cost of HS2 has steadily increased, and has risen […]
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has arrived in Britain for what will be the first state visit by India for over a decade. Pundits are debating the scale of this visit, whether the UK really matters to India and why British officials are brushing shadier elements of Modi’s history under the carpet for the expedients of trade. But what […]
The Soviet Union was disbanded a few weeks after I was born, and until recently, and certainly during the 1990s, it was hoped that the event marked what Francis Fukuyama called the End of History. The universal values of freedom, equality before the law and enterprise would be protected and spread by the benevolent hegemony of […]
“The biggest single thing that has lifted people out of poverty is free trade,” hailed Chancellor George Osborne as he launched the Legatum Institute’s Vision of Capitalism project, an in-depth study of the free enterprise system led by Tim Montgomerie. The problem is, it’s a statement that’s altogether true, quickly dismissed and treated with deep suspicion and […]
“It was the rise of Athens, and the fear that this inspired in Sparta, that made war inevitable.” War is usually what happens when a rising power challenges an established one. It’s called the Thucydides Trap, and it is the politics of the playground. It is the geopolitical equivalent of the New Cool Kid turning […]
We generally have a good idea about what makes a society rich. The state needs to be secure from internal and external threats. Its political and economic institutions need to be transparent and accountable. At the heart of its economy, there needs to be fair and competitive markets where contracts are enforced, strong infrastructure, a […]
