Corn Laws

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A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World by William J. Bernstein

Admiral Zheng, asset allocation, bank run, Benoit Mandelbrot, British Empire, call centre, clean water, Columbian Exchange, Corn Laws, cotton gin, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, death from overwork, deindustrialization, Doha Development Round, domestication of the camel, double entry bookkeeping, Easter island, Eratosthenes, financial innovation, flying shuttle, Gini coefficient, God and Mammon, high-speed rail, ice-free Arctic, imperial preference, income inequality, intermodal, James Hargreaves, John Harrison: Longitude, Khyber Pass, low skilled workers, non-tariff barriers, Paul Samuelson, placebo effect, Port of Oakland, refrigerator car, Silicon Valley, South China Sea, South Sea Bubble, spice trade, spinning jenny, Steven Pinker, Suez canal 1869, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas L Friedman, Thomas Malthus, trade liberalization, trade route, transatlantic slave trade, transcontinental railway, two and twenty, upwardly mobile, working poor, zero-sum game

Our attorney may enjoy carpentry and decide to do the job himself-a valid emotional choice, but not an economically rational one.) Alas, Principles, and Ricardo himself, arrived too late to save England from the draconian Corn Law of 1815. In response to a pro-Corn Law tract by Thomas Malthus, Ricardo wrote an anti-Corn Law pamphlet, "An Essay on the Influence of a low Price of Corn on the Profits of Stock." In it, he pointed out that the major advantage of the "real" England (as opposed to the hypothetical England of Principles) lay in its factory machinery. The corn laws, he wrote, impeded the purchase of foreign grain and forced England to waste its precious labor in less productive farmwork.

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At first, confusion reigned over exactly how to implement the scheme; Cobden suggested "something similar to the stamp on patent medicines, something to be affixed by the party with gum on the envelope, then stamped at the post office," the result being modem adhesive postage.76 Cobden knew exactly what he was doing; when the penny post finally cleared the House of Lords, he is said to have shouted for joy, "There go the Corn Laws!"" Inexpensive mail became the most powerful weapon in the arsenal of the repeal forces, a veritable propaganda howitzer. Further, the Anti-Corn Law League could tap into the wealth of the mill owners, the very wellspring of the Industrial Revolution's riches. The combination of generous funding and cheap postage enabled the League to blanket England's pitifully small number of voters just 7 percent of adult males after the Reform Act of 1832.78 The barrage was systematic and monotonously regular. It featured a daily newspaper, The Anti-Corn Law Circular; a well-written weekly, The League; and an incessant flow of pamphlets.

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In 1825, John Stuart Mill calculated that although the Corn Laws put a certain amount of extra money in the pockets of the landlords, these laws cost the nation as a whole several times more. He theorized that it would be far cheaper to buy the landlords off: The landlords should make an estimate of their probable losses from the repeal of the Corn Laws, and found upon it a claim to compensation. Some, indeed, may question how far they who, for their own emolument, imposed one of the worst of taxes upon their countrymen [i.e., the Corn Laws], are entitled to compensation for renouncing advantages which they never ought to have enjoyed.

Liberalism at Large: The World According to the Economist by Alex Zevin

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Both were eloquent and tireless proponents of free trade, though in each case – untypically – their radicalism reached past the Corn Laws, to electoral and land reform, an end to primogeniture, and religious disestablishment. ‘The colonies, army, navy and church are, with the Corn Laws, merely accessories to aristocratic government’, wrote Cobden in 1836. ‘John Bull has his work cut out for the next fifty years to purge his house of those impurities!’7 Long before victory over the Corn Laws was in sight, however, Cobden and Bright met James Wilson, a Scottish hat manufacturer and author, whose powerful vision of a free trade world, first set out in 1839, gave their campaign its winning argument.

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Agitation revived at the onset of the economic crisis of 1837, with the almost simultaneous birth of Chartism and the Anti-Corn Law League. The Chartists focused popular anger into six demands, including universal male suffrage and the ballot; what Engels called the ‘first proletarian party’ mobilized new factory workers and once skilled craftsmen now threatened by penury behind it. But the strikes it bred were swiftly repressed, and its petitions fizzled out.2 Based in the manufacturing middle-class, the Anti-Corn Law League was both more ‘respectable’ and far more effective. Avoiding any broader issues, what it demanded was the repeal of the laws that British landowners had imposed in 1815 to keep foreign competition in wheat out of the country, and domestic prices high.

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Together they made the lower chamber echo with free trade motions, though both were surprised by the speed of their triumph, as well as its instrument. Peel split the cabinet and shocked and angered his own party with a bill to phase out the Corn Laws in 1846. What had caused this volte-face? In his last speech as prime minister, Peel gave the credit to Cobden, ‘the name which ought to be, and which will be associated with the success of these measures’. Cobden was more modest, reckoning that ‘despite all the expenditure on public instruction, the League would not have carried the repeal of the Corn Laws when they did, if it had not been for the Irish famine’.69 For Peel, the immediate impetus was indeed Ireland, England’s oldest and longest-suffering colony.

The Classical School by Callum Williams

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", bank run, banking crisis, basic income, Brexit referendum, British Empire, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, Carmen Reinhart, Charles Babbage, complexity theory, Corn Laws, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, death from overwork, deindustrialization, Donald Trump, double entry bookkeeping, falling living standards, Fellow of the Royal Society, full employment, Gini coefficient, Gordon Gekko, greed is good, helicopter parent, income inequality, invisible hand, Jevons paradox, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Arrow, Kenneth Rogoff, land reform, low skilled workers, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Wolf, means of production, Meghnad Desai, minimum wage unemployment, Modern Monetary Theory, new economy, New Journalism, non-tariff barriers, Paul Samuelson, Post-Keynesian economics, purchasing power parity, Ronald Coase, secular stagnation, Silicon Valley, spinning jenny, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, universal basic income

But at the very least we can say that he was considerably less pessimistic than Ricardo. 8. Cheryl Schonhardt-Bailey’s From the Corn Laws to Free Trade: Interests, Ideas, and Institutions in Historical Perspective is a great introduction to the Corn Laws. 9. Donald Winch writes that Karl Marx considered Malthus to be “a hired lackey of the landowning classes”. 10. Douglas Irwin points out that the agricultural protectionists used Ricardo’s own theories against him. According to Irwin, “the subsistence-wage doctrine of political economists had, if anything, removed from the arsenal of free traders the potent argument that the Corn Laws harmed real wages and that their repeal would therefore benefit the labouring classes”. 11.

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Or to put it a different way: like the physiocrats of 18th-century France, did he propose this theory with some ulterior motive in mind? In my view, it is impossible to understand Ricardo’s theory of rent without also understanding the Corn Laws. These had been introduced in England as long ago as the 12th century, largely in order to benefit agricultural producers. The idea went that, in order to be a secure country, you needed to have a guaranteed supply of food. Importing food was all very well and good when you were on friendly terms with other countries, but when things turned nasty you had to be self-reliant. The Corn Laws raised the price of imported food, which protected domestic producers. The precise rules affecting imported grain varied from year to year–hence laws in the plural–but, according to an act of 1828, if the price of wheat was 52 shillings per quarter or below, the duty on imports would be 34 shillings and 8 pence.8 That is quite some mark-up.

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The precise rules affecting imported grain varied from year to year–hence laws in the plural–but, according to an act of 1828, if the price of wheat was 52 shillings per quarter or below, the duty on imports would be 34 shillings and 8 pence.8 That is quite some mark-up. Ricardo did not much like this state of affairs. He denounced the Corn Laws in his correspondence with Malthus, who defended them in turn. In Ricardo’s view the Corn Laws allowed the landlords to make big rents at the expense of everyone else. They could do this because the laws closed off Britain’s agricultural market from the rest of the world. With the supply of agricultural land limited to what was in Britain, any increase in demand for food would push up British food prices and lead to the landlords earning huge rents.

What Would the Great Economists Do?: How Twelve Brilliant Minds Would Solve Today's Biggest Problems by Linda Yueh

3D printing, additive manufacturing, Asian financial crisis, augmented reality, bank run, banking crisis, basic income, Bear Stearns, Ben Bernanke: helicopter money, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, bike sharing, bitcoin, Branko Milanovic, Bretton Woods, BRICs, business cycle, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, clean water, collective bargaining, computer age, Corn Laws, creative destruction, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, cryptocurrency, currency peg, dark matter, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, debt deflation, declining real wages, deindustrialization, Deng Xiaoping, Doha Development Round, Donald Trump, endogenous growth, everywhere but in the productivity statistics, export processing zone, Fall of the Berlin Wall, fear of failure, financial deregulation, financial engineering, financial innovation, Financial Instability Hypothesis, fixed income, forward guidance, full employment, general purpose technology, Gini coefficient, Glass-Steagall Act, global supply chain, Great Leap Forward, Gunnar Myrdal, Hyman Minsky, income inequality, index card, indoor plumbing, industrial robot, information asymmetry, intangible asset, invisible hand, job automation, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, joint-stock company, Joseph Schumpeter, laissez-faire capitalism, land reform, lateral thinking, life extension, low interest rates, low-wage service sector, manufacturing employment, market bubble, means of production, middle-income trap, mittelstand, Money creation, Mont Pelerin Society, moral hazard, mortgage debt, negative equity, Nelson Mandela, non-tariff barriers, Northern Rock, Occupy movement, oil shale / tar sands, open economy, paradox of thrift, Paul Samuelson, price mechanism, price stability, Productivity paradox, purchasing power parity, quantitative easing, RAND corporation, rent control, rent-seeking, reserve currency, reshoring, road to serfdom, Robert Shiller, Robert Solow, Ronald Coase, Ronald Reagan, school vouchers, secular stagnation, Shenzhen was a fishing village, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, special economic zone, Steve Jobs, technological determinism, The Chicago School, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, too big to fail, total factor productivity, trade liberalization, universal basic income, unorthodox policies, Washington Consensus, We are the 99%, women in the workforce, working-age population

Ricardo saw a conflict between landowners, who were the proponents of the protectionist Corn Laws, and the rest: ‘[The landowner’s] situation is never so prosperous, as when food is scarce and dear; whereas, all other persons are greatly benefited by procuring food cheap.’14 Ricardo and the Corn Laws By the time of the Corn Laws there had already been a long history of government intervention in Britain. The state was heavily involved in the regulation and taxation of trade throughout the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. During the Industrial Revolution, Britain’s trade policies were essentially mercantilist. The Corn Laws imposed significant tariffs on agricultural goods, while the Navigation Acts protected shipping by requiring all English trade to use English ships.

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This critique in his very first publication brought him to the attention of some of the leading thinkers of the time: Thomas Malthus, Jeremy Bentham and James Mill, father of the prominent philosopher John Stuart Mill. An increase in tariffs on imported wheat in 1815 under the Corn Laws prompted his next major work, Essay on the Influence of a Low Price of Corn on the Profits of Stock. The argument against the protectionist Corn Laws formed the foundation for his future and seminal work that set out the basis for trade models in economics. In 1817, On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation was published. Not only did Ricardo’s arguments lead to the repeal of the Corn Laws, he also became a lawmaker. By the time that he had published Principles, Ricardo was living both in Grosvenor Square in London and Gatcomb Park (the ‘e’ was added later).

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The geopolitical tensions may be higher, but has the economic sustainability of the deficit changed much? The question of trade has garnered much analysis over centuries, particularly for the UK. International trade was one of the first topics tackled by economists in the late eighteenth century. The rejection of the protectionist Corn Laws in favour of opening up to the world economy marked the start of an era of globalization which contributed to Britain’s prosperity. It was at that time that the seminal work on international trade was penned by David Ricardo. Ricardo’s On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation is considered to be one of the classics in economics.

Kicking Awaythe Ladder by Ha-Joon Chang

Asian financial crisis, business cycle, central bank independence, classic study, clean water, colonial rule, Corn Laws, corporate governance, creative destruction, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, fear of failure, income inequality, income per capita, joint-stock company, joint-stock limited liability company, land bank, land reform, liberal world order, moral hazard, open economy, purchasing power parity, rent-seeking, scientific management, short selling, Simon Kuznets, tacit knowledge, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, trade liberalization, Washington Consensus

By this time, most British manufacturers were firmly established as the most efficient in the world in most industries, except in a few limited areas where countries like Belgium and Switzerland possessed technological leads over Britain (see section 2.2.6). Although a new Corn Law passed in 1815 (Britain had had numerous Corn Laws dating back to 1463) meant an increase in agricultural protection, the pressure for freer trade was building up.40 Although there was a round of tariff reduction in 1833, the big change came in 1846, when the Corn Law was repealed and tariffs on many manufacturing goods abolished.41 The repeal of the Corn Law is these days commonly regarded as the ultimate victory of the Classical Liberal economic doctrine over wrong-headed mercantilism.

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Through such policies, which unleashed the entrepreneurial energy of the nation, it overtook interventionist France, its main competitor at the time, establishing itself as the supreme world economic power. Britain was then able to play the role of the architect and hegemon of a new 'Liberal' world economic order, particularly once it had abandoned its deplorable agricultural protection (the Corn Laws) and other remnants of old mercantilist protectionist measures in 1846. In its quest for this Liberal world order, Britain's ultimate weapon was its economic success based on a free-market/free-trade system; this made other countries realize the limitations of their mercantilist policies and start to adopt free (or at least freer) trade from around 1860.

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Indeed, it should be accepted that there are also some senses in which the late nineteenth century can indeed be described as an era of laissez-faire. To begin with, as we can see in table 2.1, there was a period in the late nineteenth century, albeit a brief one, when liberal trade regimes prevailed in large parts of the world economy. Starting in 1846 with the repeal of the Corn Laws, Britain made a decided shift to a unilateral free trade regime (which was accomplished by the 1860s), although this move was based on its then unchallenged economic superiority and was intricately linked with its imperial policy. Between 1860 and 1880, many European countries reduced tariff protection substantially.

When They Go Low, We Go High: Speeches That Shape the World – and Why We Need Them by Philip Collins

anti-communist, Berlin Wall, Bretton Woods, British Empire, classic study, collective bargaining, Copley Medal, Corn Laws, crony capitalism, cuban missile crisis, Deng Xiaoping, desegregation, Donald Trump, F. W. de Klerk, fear of failure, Fellow of the Royal Society, full employment, Great Leap Forward, invention of the printing press, Jeremy Corbyn, late capitalism, Mahatma Gandhi, meritocracy, Mikhail Gorbachev, Monroe Doctrine, Neil Armstrong, Neil Kinnock, Nelson Mandela, plutocrats, road to serfdom, Ronald Reagan, Ronald Reagan: Tear down this wall, Rosa Parks, stakhanovite, Ted Sorensen, Thomas Malthus, Torches of Freedom, World Values Survey

In August 1845 a potato disease blackened thousands of acres of the crop and threatened the lives of millions of people. A meeting of the Anti-Corn Law League was held in the Free Trade Hall on 28 October at which Cobden pointed out that the remedy was to remove the impediments on imports. Bright said that the Corn Law was now having its desired effect, of taking from the starving poor and handing ‘the bounty of Providence’ to the rich. In a speech in London, Cobden called Peel ‘a criminal and a poltroon’ for hesitating and Bright predicted that the prime minister had concluded the Corn Law had to be abolished but that he as yet lacked the courage to say so. In due course, Peel found the courage.

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In the event, Orator Hunt is best known for a speech that was never given. The Patriotic Union Society had organised the assembly to protest against material conditions and exclusion from representation. In 1815, at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, Lord Liverpool’s Conservative government had introduced the Corn Law which imposed a tariff on foreign grain to protect native merchants. The 1815 Corn Law prohibited the importing of wheat, except under a vast duty, until the price of domestic wheat had reached 80s per quarter. The obvious consequence was that wheat then sold on the home market at an artificially inflated price – 112s 8d per quarter by 1817 – which caused great hardship among the poor, who could not live without paying the price.

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On 15 May 1846 Disraeli gave a cruel ad hominem speech in which he denounced Peel for the proposal to abolish the Corn Laws. Peel tried a personal counter-attack but, with tears in his eyes as his claim to integrity was jeered in the House of Commons, his voice broke and he had to stop. He took a moment to compose himself and then delivered an explanation of his change of course that was as dignified and impressive as any speech he ever gave. The split between Peel and Disraeli was irreparable. Peel pushed through the abolition of the Corn Laws with the help of the Whigs in Parliament and tore his own party in two for the first and only time in its history.

The Great Economists: How Their Ideas Can Help Us Today by Linda Yueh

3D printing, additive manufacturing, Asian financial crisis, augmented reality, bank run, banking crisis, basic income, Bear Stearns, Ben Bernanke: helicopter money, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, bike sharing, bitcoin, Branko Milanovic, Bretton Woods, BRICs, business cycle, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, clean water, collective bargaining, computer age, Corn Laws, creative destruction, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, cryptocurrency, currency peg, dark matter, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, debt deflation, declining real wages, deindustrialization, Deng Xiaoping, Doha Development Round, Donald Trump, endogenous growth, everywhere but in the productivity statistics, export processing zone, Fall of the Berlin Wall, fear of failure, financial deregulation, financial engineering, financial innovation, Financial Instability Hypothesis, fixed income, forward guidance, full employment, general purpose technology, Gini coefficient, Glass-Steagall Act, global supply chain, Great Leap Forward, Gunnar Myrdal, Hyman Minsky, income inequality, index card, indoor plumbing, industrial robot, information asymmetry, intangible asset, invisible hand, job automation, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, joint-stock company, Joseph Schumpeter, laissez-faire capitalism, land reform, lateral thinking, life extension, low interest rates, manufacturing employment, market bubble, means of production, middle-income trap, mittelstand, Money creation, Mont Pelerin Society, moral hazard, mortgage debt, negative equity, Nelson Mandela, non-tariff barriers, Northern Rock, Occupy movement, oil shale / tar sands, open economy, paradox of thrift, Paul Samuelson, price mechanism, price stability, Productivity paradox, purchasing power parity, quantitative easing, RAND corporation, rent control, rent-seeking, reserve currency, reshoring, road to serfdom, Robert Shiller, Robert Solow, Ronald Coase, Ronald Reagan, school vouchers, secular stagnation, Shenzhen was a fishing village, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, special economic zone, Steve Jobs, technological determinism, The Chicago School, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, too big to fail, total factor productivity, trade liberalization, universal basic income, unorthodox policies, Washington Consensus, We are the 99%, women in the workforce, working-age population

Ricardo saw a conflict between landowners, who were the proponents of the protectionist Corn Laws, and the rest: ‘[The landowner’s] situation is never so prosperous, as when food is scarce and dear; whereas, all other persons are greatly benefited by procuring food cheap.’14 Ricardo and the Corn Laws By the time of the Corn Laws there had already been a long history of government intervention in Britain. The state was heavily involved in the regulation and taxation of trade throughout the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. During the Industrial Revolution, Britain’s trade policies were essentially mercantilist. The Corn Laws imposed significant tariffs on agricultural goods, while the Navigation Acts protected shipping by requiring all English trade to use English ships.

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This critique in his very first publication brought him to the attention of some of the leading thinkers of the time: Thomas Malthus, Jeremy Bentham and James Mill, father of the prominent philosopher John Stuart Mill. An increase in tariffs on imported wheat in 1815 under the Corn Laws prompted his next major work, Essay on the Influence of a Low Price of Corn on the Profits of Stock. The argument against the protectionist Corn Laws formed the foundation for his future and seminal work that set out the basis for trade models in economics. In 1817, On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation was published. Not only did Ricardo’s arguments lead to the repeal of the Corn Laws, he also became a lawmaker. By the time that he had published Principles, Ricardo was living both in Grosvenor Square in London and Gatcomb Park (the ‘e’ was added later).

…

The geopolitical tensions may be higher, but has the economic sustainability of the deficit changed much? The question of trade has garnered much analysis over centuries, particularly for the UK. International trade was one of the first topics tackled by economists in the late eighteenth century. The rejection of the protectionist Corn Laws in favour of opening up to the world economy marked the start of an era of globalization which contributed to Britain’s prosperity. It was at that time that the seminal work on international trade was penned by David Ricardo. Ricardo’s On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation is considered to be one of the classics in economics.

How We Got Here: A Slightly Irreverent History of Technology and Markets by Andy Kessler

Albert Einstein, Andy Kessler, animal electricity, automated trading system, bank run, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Black Monday: stock market crash in 1987, Bletchley Park, Bob Noyce, Bretton Woods, British Empire, buttonwood tree, Charles Babbage, Claude Shannon: information theory, Corn Laws, cotton gin, Dennis Ritchie, Douglas Engelbart, Edward Lloyd's coffeehouse, Fairchild Semiconductor, fiat currency, fixed income, floating exchange rates, flying shuttle, Fractional reserve banking, full employment, GPS: selective availability, Grace Hopper, invention of the steam engine, invention of the telephone, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, Jacquard loom, James Hargreaves, James Watt: steam engine, John von Neumann, joint-stock company, joint-stock limited liability company, Joseph-Marie Jacquard, Ken Thompson, Kickstarter, Leonard Kleinrock, Marc Andreessen, Mary Meeker, Maui Hawaii, Menlo Park, Metcalfe's law, Metcalfe’s law, military-industrial complex, Mitch Kapor, Multics, packet switching, pneumatic tube, price mechanism, probability theory / Blaise Pascal / Pierre de Fermat, profit motive, proprietary trading, railway mania, RAND corporation, Robert Metcalfe, Silicon Valley, Small Order Execution System, South Sea Bubble, spice trade, spinning jenny, Steve Jobs, Suez canal 1869, supply-chain management, supply-chain management software, systems thinking, three-martini lunch, trade route, transatlantic slave trade, tulip mania, Turing machine, Turing test, undersea cable, UUNET, Wayback Machine, William Shockley: the traitorous eight

In 1819, there was a massacre as troops opened fire on protesters in Peterloo in Manchester. Out of 80,000 protesters, 300-400 were killed as the Lancashire militia charged to tear down banners that read “No Corn Laws” and “Universal Suffrage.” Pretty racy for 1819. It wouldn’t be until the formation of the Anti-Corn-Law-League in Manchester in 1839 that the movement against protectionism was formalized. The Corn Laws were finally struck down in 1846. Sure, England prospered even with misguided protectionism. But workers and therefore factory owners were under a lot of strain. No one in Parliament bothered to figure out the derivative consequences of protecting landowners, who had very little to do with the economic engine of the Empire.

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Farmers planted more of the crops to meet high prices. With victory, a flood of cheap corn and wheat began to flow into England. In 1804, Parliament passed a Corn Law putting duties on foreign corn, although this wasn’t new; laws and duties of this sort have been imposed on and off since the late 17th century. In 1815, with Napoleon truly defeated, wheat prices dropped by half. Landowners, who were the ones really represented in Parliament, fought for and won the passage of additional Corn Laws, which set a minimum price on wheat below which, duties were imposed. By now, England had industrialized, and workers were jam packed into cities with no ability to grow their own food.

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But there was a war on, so the economy was working overtime to supply both the military and the regular economy, and it was hard to keep prices from going up. *** The protectionist Corn Laws were inflationary. Workers demanded higher wages to pay for higher food costs. Add to that the unrestricted loans from banks, which increased the money supply, and it was no wonder that inflation was rampant during Napoleonic War England. Peel, who had implemented the Bank Restriction halting convertibility, knew something had to be done. But he couldn’t pass anything through Parliament, to either cancel the Corn Laws, which would hurt landowners, or restrict bank loans, which would hurt bankers. Peel turned to gold for the magic he needed to kill inflation.

Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism by Ha-Joon Chang

"there is no alternative" (TINA), "World Economic Forum" Davos, affirmative action, Albert Einstein, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, bilateral investment treaty, borderless world, Bretton Woods, British Empire, Brownian motion, business cycle, call centre, capital controls, central bank independence, colonial rule, Corn Laws, corporate governance, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, Deng Xiaoping, Doha Development Round, en.wikipedia.org, export processing zone, falling living standards, Fellow of the Royal Society, financial deregulation, financial engineering, fixed income, foreign exchange controls, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, income inequality, income per capita, industrial robot, Isaac Newton, joint-stock company, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Rogoff, Kickstarter, land reform, liberal world order, liberation theology, low skilled workers, market bubble, market fundamentalism, Martin Wolf, means of production, mega-rich, moral hazard, Nelson Mandela, offshore financial centre, oil shock, price stability, principal–agent problem, Ronald Reagan, South Sea Bubble, structural adjustment programs, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, trade liberalization, transfer pricing, urban sprawl, World Values Survey

The big change in British trade policy came in 1846, when the Corn Laws were repealed and tariffs on many manufacturing goods were abolished. Free trade economists today like to portray the repeal of the Corn Laws as the ultimate victory of Adam Smith’s and David Ricardo’s wisdom over wrong-headed mercantilism.19 The leading free trade economist of our time, Jagdish Bhagwati of Columbia University, calls this a ‘historic transition’.20 However, many historians familiar with the period point out that making food cheaper was only one aim of the anti-Corn Law campaigners. It was also an act of ‘free trade imperialism’ intended to ‘halt the move to industrialisation on the Continent by enlarging the market for agricultural produce and primary materials’.21 By opening its domestic agricultural market wider, Britain wanted to lure its competitors back into agriculture.

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It was also an act of ‘free trade imperialism’ intended to ‘halt the move to industrialisation on the Continent by enlarging the market for agricultural produce and primary materials’.21 By opening its domestic agricultural market wider, Britain wanted to lure its competitors back into agriculture. Indeed, the leader of the anti-Corn Law movement, Richard Cobden, argued that, without the Corn Laws: ‘The factory system would, in all probability, not have taken place in America and Germany. It most certainly could not have flourished, as it has done, both in these states, and in France, Belgium and Switzerland, through the fostering bounties which the high-priced food of the British artisan has offered to the cheaper fed manufacturer of those countries’.22 In the same spirit, in 1840, John Bowring of the Board of Trade, a key member of the anti-Corn Law League, explicitly advised the member states of the German Zollverein (Custom Union) to specialize in growing wheat and sell the wheat to buy British manufactures.23 Moreover, it was not until 1860 that tariffs were completely abolished.

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British manufacturers correctly perceived that free trade was now in their interest and started campaigning for it (having said that, they naturally remained quite happy to restrict trade when it suited them, as the cotton manufacturers did when it came to the export of textile machinery that might help foreign competitors). In particular, the manufacturers agitated for the abolition of the Corn Laws that limited the country’s ability to import cheap grains. Cheaper food was important to them because it could lower wages and raise profits. The anti-Corn Law campaign was crucially helped by the economist, politician and stock-market player, David Ricardo.Ricardo came up with the theory of comparative advantage that still forms the core of free trade theory. Before Ricardo, people thought foreign trade makes sense only when a country can make something more cheaply than its trading partner.

Bad Samaritans: The Guilty Secrets of Rich Nations and the Threat to Global Prosperity by Ha-Joon Chang

"there is no alternative" (TINA), "World Economic Forum" Davos, affirmative action, Albert Einstein, banking crisis, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, bilateral investment treaty, borderless world, Bretton Woods, British Empire, Brownian motion, business cycle, call centre, capital controls, central bank independence, colonial rule, Corn Laws, corporate governance, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, Deng Xiaoping, Doha Development Round, en.wikipedia.org, export processing zone, falling living standards, Fellow of the Royal Society, financial deregulation, financial engineering, fixed income, foreign exchange controls, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, income inequality, income per capita, industrial robot, Isaac Newton, joint-stock company, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Rogoff, Kickstarter, land reform, liberal world order, liberation theology, low skilled workers, market bubble, market fundamentalism, Martin Wolf, means of production, mega-rich, moral hazard, Nelson Mandela, offshore financial centre, oil shock, price stability, principal–agent problem, Ronald Reagan, South Sea Bubble, structural adjustment programs, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, trade liberalization, transfer pricing, urban sprawl, World Values Survey

The big change in British trade policy came in 1846, when the Corn Laws were repealed and tariffs on many manufacturing goods were abolished. Free trade economists today like to portray the repeal of the Corn Laws as the ultimate victory of Adam Smith’s and David Ricardo’s wisdom over wrong-headed mercantilism.19 The leading free trade economist of our time, Jagdish Bhagwati of Columbia University, calls this a ‘historic transition’.20 However, many historians familiar with the period point out that making food cheaper was only one aim of the anti-Corn Law campaigners. It was also an act of ‘free trade imperialism’ intended to ‘halt the move to industrialisation on the Continent by enlarging the market for agricultural produce and primary materials’.21 By opening its domestic agricultural market wider, Britain wanted to lure its competitors back into agriculture.

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It was also an act of ‘free trade imperialism’ intended to ‘halt the move to industrialisation on the Continent by enlarging the market for agricultural produce and primary materials’.21 By opening its domestic agricultural market wider, Britain wanted to lure its competitors back into agriculture. Indeed, the leader of the anti-Corn Law movement, Richard Cobden, argued that, without the Corn Laws: ‘The factory system would, in all probability, not have taken place in America and Germany. It most certainly could not have flourished, as it has done, both in these states, and in France, Belgium and Switzerland, through the fostering bounties which the high-priced food of the British artisan has offered to the cheaper fed manufacturer of those countries’.22 In the same spirit, in 1840, John Bowring of the Board of Trade, a key member of the anti-Corn Law League, explicitly advised the member states of the German Zollverein (Customs Union) to specialize in growing wheat and sell the wheat to buy British manufactures.23 Moreover, it was not until 1860 that tariffs were completely abolished.

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British manufacturers correctly perceived that free trade was now in their interest and started campaigning for it (having said that, they naturally remained quite happy to restrict trade when it suited them, as the cotton manufacturers did when it came to the export of textile machinery that might help foreign competitors). In particular, the manufacturers agitated for the abolition of the Corn Laws that limited the country’s ability to import cheap grains. Cheaper food was important to them because it could lower wages and raise profits. The anti-Corn Law campaign was crucially helped by the economist, politician and stock-market player, David Ricardo. Ricardo came up with the theory of comparative advantage that still forms the core of free trade theory. Before Ricardo, people thought foreign trade makes sense only when a country can make something more cheaply than its trading partner.

This Sceptred Isle by Christopher Lee

agricultural Revolution, Berlin Wall, British Empire, colonial rule, Corn Laws, cuban missile crisis, Easter island, Edward Lloyd's coffeehouse, failed state, financial independence, flying shuttle, glass ceiling, half of the world's population has never made a phone call, James Hargreaves, James Watt: steam engine, Johannes Kepler, Khartoum Gordon, Khyber Pass, mass immigration, Mikhail Gorbachev, Monroe Doctrine, Nelson Mandela, new economy, Northern Rock, Ronald Reagan, sceptred isle, spice trade, spinning jenny, Suez canal 1869, Suez crisis 1956, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, trade route, urban decay

The Whigs controlled the interests of the majority of political decision-makers and the one interest the Whigs had in common was that they were landowners. It would not matter how many times the Corn Laws became an issue, the Whigs would never repeal them. Nor would Peel’s own landowning Tories. And so when the 1815 Corn Law was pushed through the House, it was, perhaps, the last time the landowning class in England actually controlled a political decision. The Anti-Corn Law League was founded in 1839. Its platform was simple: the League accused the protectionist system of having nothing to do with keeping down the price of bread but allowing landowners to get the best prices.

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When it came to a tumble, it would not take an aristocrat and few upper-class values to knock Peel off balance. The question in debate may have started with land-owning classes, but it would finish with more urban debate. The question of the Corn Laws had been around for generations; they had existed in one form or another since the Middle Ages. They were protectionist laws that imposed duties on cheap corn imports to protect British grain prices. In 1815 a Corn Law banned imports until British grain had reached a certain price, indeed, an artificially high price. It was unworkable and a sliding scale was introduced, but not for a decade. But the significance of that law had nothing to do with whether it worked or not.

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Equally, cheap food meant a contented people and, in some ways, really did suppress the need for wage demands. There was also the possibility of counter protection laws in other countries – that is, export markets. This did not cheer the landowners, which was something of a dilemma for Peel who had a reputation for doing nothing until he had to. But the Anti-Corn Law League would not go away until the Corn Laws had. Moreover, the League was politically savvy. One ploy was to get people to buy forty-shilling (£2) freeholds and so get a national vote, or even two if they already had such a freehold. Under the 1932 Reform Act, a man who had a freehold worth forty shillings was allowed to vote in the General Election.

An Edible History of Humanity by Tom Standage

agricultural Revolution, amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics, Bartolomé de las Casas, British Empire, carbon footprint, Columbian Exchange, Corn Laws, cotton gin, demographic transition, Deng Xiaoping, Eratosthenes, financial innovation, food miles, Great Leap Forward, Haber-Bosch Process, invisible hand, James Watt: steam engine, Kickstarter, Louis Pasteur, Mikhail Gorbachev, special economic zone, spice trade, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, trade route, transatlantic slave trade, women in the workforce

At first he was unable to persuade his political colleagues, but some of them changed their minds as the news from Ireland worsened and it became apparent that the survival of the government itself was at stake. Finally, with a vote in May 1846, the Corn Laws were repealed. The support of the Duke of Wellington, an aristocratic war hero who had long been a strong supporter of the Corn Laws, was crucial. He persuaded the landowners who sat in the House of Lords to back the repeal on the grounds that the survival of the government was more important. But he privately conceded that “those damned rotten potatoes” were to blame for the demise of the Corn Laws. The lifting of the tariff on imported grain opened the way for imports of maize from America, though in the event the government mishandled the aid effort and it made little difference to the situation in Ireland.

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The industrialists said it was unfair to keep the price of wheat (and hence bread) artificially high, given that most people now bought food rather than growing their own; but they also knew that abolition would reduce demands for higher wages, since food prices would fall. Industrialists also hoped that cheaper food would leave people with more money to spend on manufactured goods. And they favored abolition of the Corn Laws because it would advance the cause of “free trade” in general, ensuring easy access to imported raw materials on one hand, and export markets for manufactured goods on the other. The debate over the Corn Laws was, in short, a microcosm of the much larger fights between agriculture and industry, protectionism and free trade. Was Britain a nation of farmers or industrialists? Since the landowners controlled Parliament, the argument had raged throughout the 1820s and 1830s to little effect.

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The outcome was determined by the potato, as the famine in Ireland brought matters to a head. Peel, who had vigorously opposed the abolition of the Corn Laws in a Parliamentary debate in June 1845, realized that suspending the tariff on imports to Ireland in order to relieve the famine, but keeping it in place elsewhere, would cause massive unrest in England, where people would still have to pay artificially high prices. He became convinced that there was no alternative but to abolish the Corn Laws altogether, a reversal of his government’s policy. At first he was unable to persuade his political colleagues, but some of them changed their minds as the news from Ireland worsened and it became apparent that the survival of the government itself was at stake.

More From Less: The Surprising Story of How We Learned to Prosper Using Fewer Resources – and What Happens Next by Andrew McAfee

back-to-the-land, Bartolomé de las Casas, Berlin Wall, bitcoin, Blitzscaling, Branko Milanovic, British Empire, Buckminster Fuller, call centre, carbon credits, carbon footprint, carbon tax, Charles Babbage, clean tech, clean water, cloud computing, congestion pricing, Corn Laws, creative destruction, crony capitalism, data science, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, decarbonisation, DeepMind, degrowth, dematerialisation, Demis Hassabis, Deng Xiaoping, do well by doing good, Donald Trump, Edward Glaeser, en.wikipedia.org, energy transition, Erik Brynjolfsson, failed state, fake news, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Garrett Hardin, Great Leap Forward, Haber-Bosch Process, Hans Rosling, humanitarian revolution, hydraulic fracturing, income inequality, indoor plumbing, intangible asset, James Watt: steam engine, Jeff Bezos, job automation, John Snow's cholera map, joint-stock company, Joseph Schumpeter, Khan Academy, Landlord’s Game, Louis Pasteur, Lyft, Marc Andreessen, Marc Benioff, market fundamentalism, means of production, Michael Shellenberger, Mikhail Gorbachev, ocean acidification, oil shale / tar sands, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, Paul Samuelson, peak oil, precision agriculture, price elasticity of demand, profit maximization, profit motive, risk tolerance, road to serfdom, Ronald Coase, Ronald Reagan, Salesforce, Scramble for Africa, Second Machine Age, Silicon Valley, Steve Jobs, Steven Pinker, Stewart Brand, Ted Nordhaus, TED Talk, telepresence, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Davenport, Thomas Malthus, Thorstein Veblen, total factor productivity, Tragedy of the Commons, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, Veblen good, War on Poverty, We are as Gods, Whole Earth Catalog, World Values Survey

The rapid spread of powerful technologies heightened a long-standing tension caused by the fact that some regions of the European mainland were able to produce crops more cheaply than England. This did not sit well with the country’s land-owning nobility, who were politically powerful enough to do something about it. Starting in 1815, they enacted a set of measures known as the Corn Laws, which restricted the sale of imported grain. Most other groups in the country hated the Corn Laws since they made food more expensive. After extensive battles in Parliament, the Corn Laws were repealed in 1846.II Free trade exposed the weaknesses in English agriculture. By 1870 the total amount of cropland in the country had begun to shrink as uncompetitive farms went fallow. Gains, Germs, and Meals Luckily for the British, free trade also exposed the superiority of their manufacturing and mining industries.

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discovered in huge deposits in Southeast England: Bernard O’Connor, “The Origins and Development of the British Coprolite Industry,” Mining History: The Bulletin of the Peak District Mines Historical Society 14, no. 5 (2001): 46–57. the Corn Laws: David Ross, ed., “The Corn Laws,” Britain Express, accessed February 28, 2019, https://www.britainexpress.com/History/victorian/corn-laws.htm. Samuelson tells the story: Paul A. Samuelson, “The Way of an Economist,” in International Economic Relations: Proceedings of the Third Congress of the International Economic Association, ed. Paul Samuelson (London: Macmillan, 1969), 1–11. 8 percent of Europe’s iron… 60 percent: Stephen Broadberry, Rainer Fremdling, and Peter Solar, “Chapter 7: Industry, 1700–1870” (unpublished manuscript, n.d.), 34–35, table 7.6, fig. 7.2.

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This comparison illustrates a fundamental point: instead of being limited by the environment, we learned to shape it to our own ends during the Industrial Era. And did we do this wisely as well? In many ways and many places we did not. I. Also in 1776 the American Declaration of Independence was signed and the Scottish economist Adam Smith published his landmark The Wealth of Nations (a book we’ll come back to later). II. The battles over the Corn Laws led the politician James Wilson, who was in favor of free trade, to found The Economist. It’s still published today and is one of my favorite magazines (even though it calls itself a newspaper). III. It would have made sense for England to concentrate on manufacturing even if it were more productive than mainland Europe at both farming and manufacturing.

Phil Thornton by The Great Economists Ten Economists whose thinking changed the way we live-FT Publishing International (2014)

Alan Greenspan, availability heuristic, behavioural economics, Berlin Wall, bitcoin, Bretton Woods, British Empire, business cycle, business process, call centre, capital controls, Cass Sunstein, choice architecture, cognitive bias, collapse of Lehman Brothers, Corn Laws, creative destruction, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, double helix, endogenous growth, endowment effect, Eugene Fama: efficient market hypothesis, Fall of the Berlin Wall, fiat currency, financial deregulation, fixed income, Ford Model T, full employment, hindsight bias, income inequality, inflation targeting, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, joint-stock company, Kenneth Arrow, Kenneth Rogoff, Kickstarter, liquidity trap, loss aversion, mass immigration, means of production, mental accounting, Myron Scholes, paradox of thrift, Pareto efficiency, Paul Samuelson, Post-Keynesian economics, price mechanism, pushing on a string, quantitative easing, Richard Thaler, road to serfdom, Ronald Coase, Ronald Reagan, school vouchers, Simon Kuznets, The Chicago School, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, Toyota Production System, trade route, transaction costs, unorthodox policies, Vilfredo Pareto, women in the workforce

Malthus, who was a cleric as well as a scholar, said that starvation would result as projected population growth exceeded the rate of increase in the food supply. For this he was branded dismal by fellow philosopher Thomas Carlyle, who went on to condemn the whole of economics as the ‘dismal science’. He fought the Corn Laws … and the law won The reason for focusing on this aspect of Ricardo’s thinking – and not his take on value or his section on currency and banks among many others – is that it formed the intellectual basis for his attack on the Corn Laws, a piece of legislation that had a similar impact on the political debate as the Poll Tax did on Britain 200 years later. 34 The Great Economists During the Napoleonic wars – the end of which led to Ricardo’s fortune – there was a sharp rise in the price of corn and in the rents earned by landlords.

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He fought the Corn Laws … and the law won The reason for focusing on this aspect of Ricardo’s thinking – and not his take on value or his section on currency and banks among many others – is that it formed the intellectual basis for his attack on the Corn Laws, a piece of legislation that had a similar impact on the political debate as the Poll Tax did on Britain 200 years later. 34 The Great Economists During the Napoleonic wars – the end of which led to Ricardo’s fortune – there was a sharp rise in the price of corn and in the rents earned by landlords. In 1813 MPs called for foreign corn imports to be banned until the price of domestic corn hit £4 per quarter – a unit roughly equal to 220kg. When peace broke out in 1815, corn prices collapsed and the Corn Law was imposed in order to defend the domestic farm sector, and by implication the rural landowners. As Ricardo said in his article on the issue, An Essay on the Influence of a Low Price of Corn on the Profits of Stock, ‘the interest of the landlord is always opposed to the interest of every other class in the community’.

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Ricardo argued vociferously in Parliament that it would be much better for Britain to allow the import of cheap grain and use the capital that would no longer be invested in growing corn to be diverted Chapter 2 • David Ricardo35 towards activities, such as manufacturing, that it did better. Sadly the Corn Laws were not repealed until 1846, 23 years after Ricardo’s death. Trading places – Ricardo’s innovation That story provides a useful segue to one of the two theories for which Ricardo is best remembered. We remember that Smith showed how a country should export to a partner the output of what it did best and use the money to buy in what it could not make as efficiently itself.

A Little History of Economics by Niall Kishtainy

Alvin Roth, behavioural economics, British Empire, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, car-free, carbon tax, central bank independence, clean water, Corn Laws, Cornelius Vanderbilt, creative destruction, credit crunch, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, Dr. Strangelove, Eugene Fama: efficient market hypothesis, first-price auction, floating exchange rates, follow your passion, full employment, George Akerlof, Great Leap Forward, greed is good, Hyman Minsky, inflation targeting, invisible hand, John Nash: game theory, John von Neumann, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Arrow, loss aversion, low interest rates, market clearing, market design, means of production, Minsky moment, moral hazard, Nash equilibrium, new economy, Occupy movement, Pareto efficiency, Paul Samuelson, Phillips curve, prisoner's dilemma, RAND corporation, rent-seeking, Richard Thaler, rising living standards, road to serfdom, Robert Shiller, Robert Solow, Ronald Reagan, sealed-bid auction, second-price auction, The Chicago School, The Great Moderation, The Market for Lemons, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, Thorstein Veblen, trade route, Vickrey auction, Vilfredo Pareto, washing machines reduced drudgery, wealth creators, Winter of Discontent

In Ricardo’s time, the imbalance swung further in favour of the landowners because Britain had laws that banned cheap foreign grain. They were called the Corn Laws, and they stopped Britain from importing the extra grain needed to feed its growing population. The result was even higher grain prices. Ricardo’s reasoning showed that the laws helped swell the landlords’ rents, shrink the capitalists’ profits and impoverish the workers. In 1819 a demonstration was held in St Peter’s Fields in Manchester demanding the vote for all and the end of the Corn Laws. The protest turned into a bloodbath when soldiers fired into the crowd killing several and injuring hundreds.

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There he put forward his solution to the country’s problems: to do away with the Corn Laws. It would help make Britain ‘the happiest country in the world’, he said. His proposal fell on deaf ears. People weren’t used to hearing arguments based on strict economic analysis. To many, they seemed rather removed from reality. A fellow member of parliament said that Ricardo had ‘argued as if he had dropped from another planet’. (People still grumble about economists for the same thing.) Eventually he won the argument and Britain scrapped the Corn Laws – but not until the middle of the nineteenth century, decades after his death.

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Eventually he won the argument and Britain scrapped the Corn Laws – but not until the middle of the nineteenth century, decades after his death. According to Ricardo, what would happen if the Corn Laws were removed? Cheap foreign grain would flood in. Workers wouldn’t have to struggle with high food prices. Capitalists would have a lower wage bill, because their workers wouldn’t need to spend so much on food. Capitalists’ profits would increase and they’d start investing again. Wealth creation would speed up. Without the Corn Laws, the country would buy in cheap foreign grain and produce less of its own grain. Growing all your own grain didn’t always make sense, said Ricardo. A country can make other things – cloth and iron in factories – to sell to foreigners for their grain.

The Glass Half-Empty: Debunking the Myth of Progress in the Twenty-First Century by Rodrigo Aguilera

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", "World Economic Forum" Davos, activist fund / activist shareholder / activist investor, Alan Greenspan, Anthropocene, availability heuristic, barriers to entry, basic income, benefit corporation, Berlin Wall, Bernie Madoff, Bernie Sanders, bitcoin, Boris Johnson, Branko Milanovic, Bretton Woods, Brexit referendum, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, capitalist realism, carbon footprint, Carmen Reinhart, centre right, clean water, cognitive bias, collapse of Lehman Brothers, Colonization of Mars, computer age, Corn Laws, corporate governance, corporate raider, creative destruction, cryptocurrency, cuban missile crisis, David Graeber, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, death from overwork, decarbonisation, deindustrialization, Deng Xiaoping, Doha Development Round, don't be evil, Donald Trump, Doomsday Clock, Dunning–Kruger effect, Elon Musk, European colonialism, fake news, Fall of the Berlin Wall, first-past-the-post, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, fundamental attribution error, gig economy, Gini coefficient, Glass-Steagall Act, Great Leap Forward, green new deal, Hans Rosling, housing crisis, income inequality, income per capita, index fund, intangible asset, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invisible hand, Jean Tirole, Jeff Bezos, Jeremy Corbyn, Jevons paradox, job automation, job satisfaction, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, joint-stock company, Joseph Schumpeter, karōshi / gwarosa / guolaosi, Kenneth Rogoff, Kickstarter, lake wobegon effect, land value tax, Landlord’s Game, late capitalism, liberal capitalism, long peace, loss aversion, low interest rates, Mark Zuckerberg, market fundamentalism, means of production, meta-analysis, military-industrial complex, Mont Pelerin Society, moral hazard, moral panic, neoliberal agenda, Network effects, North Sea oil, Northern Rock, offshore financial centre, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, Overton Window, Pareto efficiency, passive investing, Peter Thiel, plutocrats, principal–agent problem, profit motive, public intellectual, purchasing power parity, race to the bottom, rent-seeking, risk tolerance, road to serfdom, Robert Shiller, Robert Solow, savings glut, Scientific racism, secular stagnation, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley ideology, Slavoj Žižek, Social Justice Warrior, Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits, sovereign wealth fund, Stanislav Petrov, Steven Pinker, structural adjustment programs, surveillance capitalism, tail risk, tech bro, TED Talk, The Spirit Level, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, too big to fail, trade liberalization, transatlantic slave trade, trolley problem, unbiased observer, universal basic income, Vilfredo Pareto, Washington Consensus, Winter of Discontent, Y2K, young professional, zero-sum game

As the British Parliament in 1840 debated the repeal of the Corn Laws, arguably the most symbolic piece of legislation of late mercantilism, Lord Ashburton defended the moribund system in a manner that almost perfectly echoes the New Optimist counter to the naysayers that the world is getting better: Lecturers were sent through the country, meetings were held, the distress of the mercantile world exaggerated, and these unfair and unconstitutional means were adopted for the purpose of loading the tables of Parliament with petitions against the Corn Laws. Petitions thus obtained could not be expected to receive that consideration and to bear with them that weight to which they would be otherwise entitled.

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., “The Center can hold: Public Policy for an Age of Extremes”, Niskanen Center, Dec. 2018, https://www.niskanencenter.org/the-center-can-hold-public-policy-for-an-age-of-extremes/ 56 https://twitter.com/sapinker/status/1074932509014667264 57 The infinitely quoted figure of 94% poverty in 1820 comes from Bourguignon, F., and Morrisson, C., “Inequality Among World Citizens: 1820-1992.” American Economic Review, 92(4), Sep. 2002. The authors are open about the many caveats regarding accurate income data before 1950. 58 “Corn Laws”, UK Parliament Historic Hansard, HL Deb 02 April 1840 vol 53 cc398-404, https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/lords/1840/apr/02/corn-laws Chapter Six: And Justice for All 1 Pilon, M., “Monopoly Was Designed to Teach the 99% About Income Inequality”, Smithsonian Magazine, Jan. 2015, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/monopoly-was-designed-teach-99-about-income-inequality-180953630/ 2 Piketty, T., Capital in the Twenty-First Century (Belknap Press, 2014), pg. 8. 3 Jordà, O. et al., “The Rate of Return on Everything, 1870-2015”, NBER Working Paper Series, 24112, May 2019, https://www.nber.org/papers/w24112 4 Milton Friedman himself stated that it would be the “least bad tax”.

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The manufactures of this country had during the last few years much increased. In 1839 the exports had increased to the amount of two millions; and the cotton manufactures, which were represented to have suffered so severely, had increased a million in the course of a year. The facts, therefore, failed his Noble Friend, and with him, all the opponents of the Corn Laws. Looking also at the steadiness of prices in this compared with other countries, it was impossible to say that the system had not worked well.58 Indeed, the mercantilist system worked well. Until one system worked better: capitalism. If modern plutocrats and their intellectual enablers (including the New Optimists) who are defending capitalism are sounding remarkably like nineteenth-century mercantilists defending their interests and privileges against the threat of change, then you know we’ve reached full circle.

The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time by Karl Polanyi

agricultural Revolution, Berlin Wall, borderless world, business cycle, central bank independence, Corn Laws, currency manipulation / currency intervention, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, Fall of the Berlin Wall, full employment, inflation targeting, joint-stock company, Kula ring, land reform, land tenure, liberal capitalism, manufacturing employment, new economy, Panopticon Jeremy Bentham, price mechanism, profit motive, Republic of Letters, road to serfdom, Ronald Reagan, scientific management, the market place, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, trade liberalization, trade route, trickle-down economics, Washington Consensus, Wolfgang Streeck, working poor, Works Progress Administration

The manufacturer could, therefore, hope to hold his own only if he was assured of an increasing scale of production at remunerative prices (in other words, only if wages fell at least in proportion to the general fall in prices, so as to allow the exploitation of an ever-expanding world market). Thus the Anti-Corn Law Bill of 1846 was the corollary of Peel’s Bank Act of 1844, and both assumed a laboring class which, since the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834, was forced to give its best under the threat of hunger, so that wages were regulated by the price of grain. The three great measures formed a coherent whole.

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But the premonition of threatening pecuniary losses which prompted the bulk of their followers proved only too well grounded: Manchester exporters were soon clamoring for lower wages involving cheaper grain—the repeal of Speenhamland and the growth of the factories actually prepared the way for the success of the Anti-Corn Law agitation, in 1846. Yet, for adventitious reasons, the ruin of agriculture was postponed in England for a whole generation. Meanwhile Disraeli grounded Tory socialism on a protest against the Poor Law Reform Act, and the conservative landlords of England forced radically new techniques of life upon an industrial society.

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Ricardo had erected it into an axiom that the most fertile land was settled first. This was turned to scorn in a spectacular manner when the railways found more fertile land in the antipodes. Central Europe, facing utter destruction of its rural society, was forced to protect its peasantry by introducing corn laws. But if the organized states of Europe could protect themselves against the backwash of international free trade, the politically unorganized colonial peoples could not. The revolt against imperialism was mainly an attempt on the part of the exotic peoples to achieve the political status necessary to shelter themselves from the social dislocations caused by European trade policies.

Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital: The Dynamics of Bubbles and Golden Ages by Carlota Pérez

agricultural Revolution, Alan Greenspan, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Bob Noyce, Bretton Woods, business cycle, capital controls, commoditize, Corn Laws, creative destruction, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, deindustrialization, distributed generation, financial deregulation, financial innovation, Financial Instability Hypothesis, financial intermediation, Ford Model T, full employment, Hyman Minsky, informal economy, joint-stock company, Joseph Schumpeter, junk bonds, knowledge economy, late capitalism, market fundamentalism, military-industrial complex, new economy, nuclear winter, offshore financial centre, post-industrial society, profit motive, railway mania, Robert Shiller, Sand Hill Road, satellite internet, scientific management, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, South Sea Bubble, Suez canal 1869, technological determinism, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, Thomas Kuhn: the structure of scientific revolutions, Thorstein Veblen, trade route, tulip mania, Upton Sinclair, vertical integration, Washington Consensus

The turning point then is neither an event nor a phase; it is a process of contextual change. It can take any amount of time, from a few months to several years, it can be marked by clear-cut events such as the Bretton Woods meetings, enabling the orderly international Deployment of the fourth surge, or the repeal of the Corn Laws in Britain, facilitating the Synergy of the second. It could also be happening in the background with a series of changes that seem to come together as deployment begins. The turning point has to do with the balance between individual and social interests within capitalism. It is the swing of the pendulum from the extreme individualism of Frenzy to giving greater attention to collective well being, usually through the regulatory intervention of the state and the active participation of other forms of civil society.

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Those who reaped the full benefits of the ‘golden age’ (or of the gilded one) continue to hold on to their belief in the virtues of the system and to proclaim eternal and unstoppable progress, in a complacent blindness, which could be called the ‘Great Society syndrome’. But the unfulfilled promises had been piling up, while most people nurtured the expectation of personal and social advance. The result is an increasing socio-political split. The acts of machine breaking (Luddism) of the 1810s or the protests against the Corn Laws and demands for universal suffrage that led to the ‘Peterloo’ massacre in Britain in 1819 are widely separated historically and ideologically from the violent protests of May 1968 in the main countries of continental Europe.70 However, the dissatisfaction and frustration driving them both is of a fundamentally similar origin: capitalism had been making too many promises about social progress and not delivering enough, showing too much capacity for wealth creation and not distributing enough.

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The admission of private joint-stock banks to the London Clearing House fostered the development of networks of branch banks to take advantage of the railway. In 1842 and 1844, laws were enacted improving conditions of work in mines and factories. In 1846 came the crucial decision finally to repeal the Corn Laws, and fully establish free trade. All this had happened 206. The Financial Times (2002a). 207. Wessel (2002). 208. Kindleberger (1978:1996) p. 149. 130 Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital in the last years of the installation period and opened the way for the Victorian Synergy to follow.209 At that time in Britain, however, wealth was still mainly in the hands of aristocrats and merchants.

The Globalization Paradox: Democracy and the Future of the World Economy by Dani Rodrik

"World Economic Forum" Davos, affirmative action, Alan Greenspan, Asian financial crisis, bank run, banking crisis, Bear Stearns, bilateral investment treaty, borderless world, Bretton Woods, British Empire, business cycle, capital controls, Carmen Reinhart, central bank independence, classic study, collective bargaining, colonial rule, Corn Laws, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, currency manipulation / currency intervention, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, deindustrialization, Deng Xiaoping, Doha Development Round, en.wikipedia.org, endogenous growth, eurozone crisis, export processing zone, financial deregulation, financial innovation, floating exchange rates, frictionless, frictionless market, full employment, George Akerlof, guest worker program, Hernando de Soto, immigration reform, income inequality, income per capita, industrial cluster, information asymmetry, joint-stock company, Kenneth Rogoff, land reform, liberal capitalism, light touch regulation, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, low skilled workers, margin call, market bubble, market fundamentalism, Martin Wolf, mass immigration, Mexican peso crisis / tequila crisis, microcredit, Monroe Doctrine, moral hazard, Multi Fibre Arrangement, night-watchman state, non-tariff barriers, offshore financial centre, oil shock, open borders, open economy, Paul Samuelson, precautionary principle, price stability, profit maximization, race to the bottom, regulatory arbitrage, Savings and loan crisis, savings glut, Silicon Valley, special drawing rights, special economic zone, subprime mortgage crisis, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas L Friedman, Tobin tax, too big to fail, trade liberalization, trade route, transaction costs, tulip mania, Washington Consensus, World Values Survey

This debate galvanized British society and politics, with forces for and against the Corn Laws engaged in what appeared to be a bitter fight over a few import taxes, but was really about who would rule Britain and prosper in years to come. The well-known magazine The Economist is a product of this era, founded by opponents of the Corn Laws to spread and popularize free trade views, a role which it continues to perform today. In the end, the ascendant manufacturing interests won the day: they had both the intellectual arguments and the forces of the Industrial Revolution on their side. Once the Corn Laws were abolished in Britain, the dominant economic power of the day, the pressure was on for other European countries to follow suit.

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The United States put up very steep tariffs on manufactured imports during the Civil War and kept them high throughout the century. The major Continental powers in Europe were unhesitant converts to free trade only for a short period during the 1860s and 1870s. The crucial date in nineteenth-century tariff history is 1846, the year that Britain abolished Napoleonic Wars–era tariffs on imports of grains. These so-called “Corn Laws” were at the center of political struggles in early nineteenth-century Britain, as they pitted rural interests against urban interests. Here “corn” was synonymous with grains, and the tariffs in question covered all food and cereal imports. Landlords wanted high tariffs that kept food prices high and raised their incomes.

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By the mid-1870s, most prohibitions on trade had disappeared and average tariffs on manufacturing stood at low single digits in Britain, Germany, The Netherlands, Sweden, and Switzerland, and in the low teens in France and Italy, down from levels that were a multiple of these rates.3 Free trade did not win everywhere. The fight over the Corn Laws illustrates a theme we will have plenty of occasion to return to: because trade policies have important consequences for income distribution, they get entangled in much broader political contests. The economist may decry the artificiality—and therefore pointlessness—of the transaction costs that government-imposed trade barriers create, but the argument does not always carry the day when there are strong political interests or economic arguments that go in the opposite direction.

Where We Are: The State of Britain Now by Roger Scruton

bitcoin, blockchain, Brexit referendum, business cycle, Corn Laws, Donald Trump, Downton Abbey, Fellow of the Royal Society, fixed income, garden city movement, George Akerlof, housing crisis, invention of the printing press, invisible hand, Jeremy Corbyn, Khartoum Gordon, mass immigration, Naomi Klein, New Journalism, old-boy network, open borders, payday loans, Peace of Westphalia, sceptred isle, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thorstein Veblen, too big to fail, Tragedy of the Commons, web of trust

France leads a coalition of European member states passionately attached to the view that rural life requires protection in a way that could never apply to manufactured goods. This view is by no means a novelty of post-war European politics. The nineteenth-century British Corn Laws arose from the same desire to protect indigenous agriculture against imports from America; and the Corn Laws led to controversies in Victorian England similar to those that surround the CAP today. In the event the free traders won, the Corn Laws were abolished, and Britain became dependent, as a result, on imported food – with dire consequences during the Second World War, when the country was on the verge of starvation.

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Coke) here Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) here, here Common Law, English here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here Commons, Open Spaces and Footpaths Preservation Society here Commonwealth countries here, here Confederation of British Industry (CBI) here contracts, business here Corbyn, Jeremy here, here, here Corn Laws here countryside and landscape, British here Court of Chancery/civil law here Court of Justice, European here creed communities here crowd emotions here de Bracton, Henry here de Gaulle, Charles here Debord, Guy here declinist literature here Delors, Jacques here Dialogues des Carmélites (Poulenc) here Diary of a Nobody (G. & W.

Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty by Daron Acemoglu, James Robinson

Admiral Zheng, agricultural Revolution, Albert Einstein, Andrei Shleifer, Atahualpa, banking crisis, Bartolomé de las Casas, Berlin Wall, blood diamond, bread and circuses, BRICs, British Empire, central bank independence, clean water, collective bargaining, colonial rule, conceptual framework, Corn Laws, Cornelius Vanderbilt, creative destruction, crony capitalism, Deng Xiaoping, desegregation, discovery of the americas, en.wikipedia.org, European colonialism, failed state, Fall of the Berlin Wall, falling living standards, financial independence, financial innovation, financial intermediation, flying shuttle, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, Francisco Pizarro, full employment, Great Leap Forward, household responsibility system, Ida Tarbell, income inequality, income per capita, indoor plumbing, invention of movable type, invisible hand, James Hargreaves, James Watt: steam engine, Jeff Bezos, joint-stock company, Joseph Schumpeter, Kickstarter, land reform, low interest rates, mass immigration, Mikhail Gorbachev, minimum wage unemployment, Mohammed Bouazizi, Paul Samuelson, price stability, profit motive, Robert Solow, Rosa Parks, Scramble for Africa, seminal paper, Simon Kuznets, spice trade, spinning jenny, Steve Ballmer, Steve Jobs, Suez canal 1869, trade liberalization, trade route, transatlantic slave trade, union organizing, upwardly mobile, W. E. B. Du Bois, Washington Consensus, working poor

Each step is small, and it makes sense to give in to a small demand rather than create a major showdown. This partly explains how the Corn Law was repealed without more serious conflict. By 1846 landowners could no longer control legislation in Parliament. This was an outcome of the First Reform Act. However, if in 1832 the expansion of the electorate, the reform of the rotten boroughs, and the repeal of the Corn Laws had all been on the table, landowners would have put up much more resistance. The fact that there were first limited political reforms and that repeal of the Corn Laws came on the agenda only later defused conflict. Gradual change also prevented ventures into uncharted territories.

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The government may also have taken note of the radicalism of the Russian Revolution. Parallel with the gradual development of more inclusive political institutions was a movement toward even more inclusive economic institutions. One major consequence of the First Reform Act was the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846. As we saw in chapter 7, the Corn Laws banned the import of grains and cereals, keeping their prices high and ensuring lucrative profits for large landowners. The new parliamentarians from Manchester and Birmingham wanted cheap corn and low wages. They won, and the landed interests suffered a major defeat. The changes in the electorate and other dimensions of political institutions taking place during the course of the nineteenth century were followed by further reforms.

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Creative destruction redistributes not simply income and wealth, but also political power, as William Lee learned when he found the authorities so unreceptive to his invention because they feared its political consequences. As the industrial economy expanded in Manchester and Birmingham, the new factory owners and middle-class groups that emerged around them began to protest their disenfranchisement and the government policies opposed to their interests. Their prime candidate was the Corn Laws, which banned the import of “corn”—all grains and cereals, but principally wheat—if the price got too low, thus ensuring that the profits of large landowners were kept high. This policy was very good for big landowners who produced wheat, but bad for manufacturers, because they had to pay higher wages to compensate for the high price of bread.

The Evolution of Everything: How New Ideas Emerge by Matt Ridley

"World Economic Forum" Davos, adjacent possible, affirmative action, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Albert Einstein, Alfred Russel Wallace, AltaVista, altcoin, An Inconvenient Truth, anthropic principle, anti-communist, bank run, banking crisis, barriers to entry, bitcoin, blockchain, Boeing 747, Boris Johnson, British Empire, Broken windows theory, carbon tax, Columbian Exchange, computer age, Corn Laws, cosmological constant, cotton gin, creative destruction, Credit Default Swap, crony capitalism, crowdsourcing, cryptocurrency, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, demographic transition, Deng Xiaoping, discovery of DNA, Donald Davies, double helix, Downton Abbey, driverless car, Eben Moglen, Edward Glaeser, Edward Lorenz: Chaos theory, Edward Snowden, endogenous growth, epigenetics, Ethereum, ethereum blockchain, facts on the ground, fail fast, falling living standards, Ferguson, Missouri, financial deregulation, financial innovation, flying shuttle, Frederick Winslow Taylor, Geoffrey West, Santa Fe Institute, George Gilder, George Santayana, Glass-Steagall Act, Great Leap Forward, Greenspan put, Gregor Mendel, Gunnar Myrdal, Henri Poincaré, Higgs boson, hydraulic fracturing, imperial preference, income per capita, indoor plumbing, information security, interchangeable parts, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invisible hand, Isaac Newton, Jane Jacobs, Japanese asset price bubble, Jeff Bezos, joint-stock company, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Arrow, Kevin Kelly, Khan Academy, knowledge economy, land reform, Lao Tzu, long peace, low interest rates, Lyft, M-Pesa, Mahatma Gandhi, Mark Zuckerberg, means of production, meta-analysis, military-industrial complex, mobile money, Money creation, money: store of value / unit of account / medium of exchange, Mont Pelerin Society, moral hazard, Necker cube, obamacare, out of africa, packet switching, peer-to-peer, phenotype, Pierre-Simon Laplace, precautionary principle, price mechanism, profit motive, RAND corporation, random walk, Ray Kurzweil, rent-seeking, reserve currency, Richard Feynman, rising living standards, road to serfdom, Robert Solow, Ronald Coase, Ronald Reagan, Satoshi Nakamoto, scientific management, Second Machine Age, sharing economy, smart contracts, South Sea Bubble, Steve Jobs, Steven Pinker, Stuart Kauffman, tacit knowledge, TED Talk, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thorstein Veblen, transaction costs, twin studies, uber lyft, women in the workforce

Between 1660 and 1846, in a vain attempt to control food prices by prescription, the British government had enacted an astonishing 127 Corn Laws, imposing not just tariffs, but rules about storage, sale, import, export and quality of grain and bread. In 1815, to protect landowners as grain prices fell from Napoleonic wartime highs, it had banned the import of all grain if the price fell below eighty shillings a quarter (twenty-eight pounds). This led to an impassioned pamphlet from the young theorist of free trade David Ricardo, but in vain (his friend and supporter of the Corn Law, Robert Malthus, was more persuasive). It was not until the 1840s, when the railways and the penny post enabled Cobden and John Bright to stir up a mass campaign against the laws on behalf of the working class, that the tide turned.

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The rioters who broke into Lord Castlereagh’s house in 1815 were against protectionism. The peaceful demonstration in Manchester that was charged by cavalry in 1819 – the ‘Peterloo massacre’ – was in favour of free trade as well as political reform. The Chartists who spearheaded working-class consciousness were founding members of the Anti-Corn Law League. Or take Richard Cobden, the great champion of free trade responsible more than anybody else for that extraordinary spell between 1840 and 1865 when Britain set the world an example and unilaterally and forcefully dismantled the tariffs that entangled the globe. (Cobden comes close to being a Great Man.)

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It was not until the 1840s, when the railways and the penny post enabled Cobden and John Bright to stir up a mass campaign against the laws on behalf of the working class, that the tide turned. With the famine in Ireland in 1845, even the Tory leader Robert Peel had to admit defeat. Cobden’s astonishing campaign against the Corn Laws, then against tariff protection more generally, succeeded eventually in persuading not just much of the country, and most intellectuals, but the leading politicians of the day, especially William Ewart Gladstone. The great reforming chancellor and prime minister championed all sorts of progressive causes, from the plight of the poor to home rule for Ireland, and in economics he was a convinced free trader, who steadily shrank the size of the state.

Culture & Empire: Digital Revolution by Pieter Hintjens

4chan, Aaron Swartz, airport security, AltaVista, anti-communist, anti-pattern, barriers to entry, Bill Duvall, bitcoin, blockchain, Boeing 747, bread and circuses, business climate, business intelligence, business process, Chelsea Manning, clean water, commoditize, congestion charging, Corn Laws, correlation does not imply causation, cryptocurrency, Debian, decentralized internet, disinformation, Edward Snowden, failed state, financial independence, Firefox, full text search, gamification, German hyperinflation, global village, GnuPG, Google Chrome, greed is good, Hernando de Soto, hiring and firing, independent contractor, informal economy, intangible asset, invisible hand, it's over 9,000, James Watt: steam engine, Jeff Rulifson, Julian Assange, Kickstarter, Laura Poitras, M-Pesa, mass immigration, mass incarceration, mega-rich, military-industrial complex, MITM: man-in-the-middle, mutually assured destruction, Naomi Klein, national security letter, Nelson Mandela, new economy, New Urbanism, no silver bullet, Occupy movement, off-the-grid, offshore financial centre, packet switching, patent troll, peak oil, power law, pre–internet, private military company, race to the bottom, real-name policy, rent-seeking, reserve currency, RFC: Request For Comment, Richard Feynman, Richard Stallman, Ross Ulbricht, Russell Brand, Satoshi Nakamoto, security theater, selection bias, Skype, slashdot, software patent, spectrum auction, Steve Crocker, Steve Jobs, Steven Pinker, Stuxnet, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, The Wisdom of Crowds, trade route, transaction costs, twin studies, union organizing, wealth creators, web application, WikiLeaks, Y2K, zero day, Zipf's Law

Cost gravity can't be stopped, except by burning the libraries and murdering every person with an education, and even that only pauses things for a generation. It has been tried in Soviet Russia, Uganda, Cambodia, Rwanda, and North Korea. As the official site of the UK Parliament notes about the Anti-Corn-Law League in the late-1800's: "Growing pressure for reform of parliament in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries led to a series of Reform Acts which extended the electoral franchise to most men (over 21) in 1867." The repeal of the Corn Laws was just one part of a wholesale transfer of power from the old to the new. The same will happen in the post-industrial world. Chapter 1. Magic Machines Far away, in a different place, a civilization called Culture had taken seed, and was growing.

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Then come the laws banning, controlling, and restricting it. Horses only for the nobles. Books only for the priests. As we'll see, these attempts to control and restrict the technology of the Digital Revolution are central to our story. In 1815, as the Industrial Revolution peaked, British landowners (the old money) enacted the Corn Laws to block the transfer of power to the new middle classes by taxing industrialization. The historian David Cody writes, "After a lengthy campaign, opponents of the law finally got their way in 1846 -- a significant triumph which was indicative of the new political power of the English middle class."

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The middle classes are all those who "got connected," soon to be most of world's population, and the lower classes are the shrinking few who cannot yet get on line. We will, over the next decades, see similar attempts by this generation of old money to throttle the growing power of this global digital middle class. The Counter-Revolution Today What is the twenty-first century equivalent of Britain's nineteenth century Corn Laws? How is old money fighting the revolution? There are two main strategies: property laws and simple repression. The first is based on continuously extending the legal definition of "property" so that it appropriates any and all assets built by the digital economy. Property is entirely a political construction.

Rethinking the Economics of Land and Housing by Josh Ryan-Collins, Toby Lloyd, Laurie Macfarlane

agricultural Revolution, asset-backed security, balance sheet recession, bank run, banking crisis, barriers to entry, basic income, book value, Bretton Woods, business cycle, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, collective bargaining, Corn Laws, correlation does not imply causation, creative destruction, credit crunch, debt deflation, deindustrialization, falling living standards, financial deregulation, financial innovation, Financial Instability Hypothesis, financial intermediation, foreign exchange controls, full employment, garden city movement, George Akerlof, ghettoisation, Gini coefficient, Hernando de Soto, housing crisis, Hyman Minsky, income inequality, information asymmetry, knowledge worker, labour market flexibility, labour mobility, land bank, land reform, land tenure, land value tax, Landlord’s Game, low interest rates, low skilled workers, market bubble, market clearing, Martin Wolf, means of production, Minsky moment, Money creation, money market fund, mortgage debt, negative equity, Network effects, new economy, New Urbanism, Northern Rock, offshore financial centre, Pareto efficiency, place-making, Post-Keynesian economics, price stability, profit maximization, quantitative easing, rent control, rent-seeking, Richard Florida, Right to Buy, rising living standards, risk tolerance, Robert Solow, Second Machine Age, secular stagnation, shareholder value, subprime mortgage crisis, the built environment, The Great Moderation, The Market for Lemons, The Spirit Level, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, transaction costs, universal basic income, urban planning, urban sprawl, working poor, working-age population

Subsidies to support certain types of land use or certain groups Most advanced economies have a long history of protecting domestic agriculture and industry with tariffs and subsidies, typically in order to protect the interests of agricultural landowners (Chang, 2007). Throughout the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries the government acted to protect its farmers and merchants through trade barriers and subsidies in order to maximise exports and minimise imports. This mercantilist approach to the economy was dominant until the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846 (see Chapter 4). In recent times, agricultural subsidies in Europe have been controlled by the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). The CAP is an EU-wide system of payments to farmers and land managers aimed at supporting European agriculture. Introduced in 1962 it is by far the EU’s single largest common policy, today accounting for over 40% of the entire EU budget.

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Ricardo warned that rising land rents would allow Britain’s landowners to monopolise the gains from economic growth. To prevent this, he argued that Britain should end its agricultural tariffs which protected the high prices landowners could charge for their products and import cheaper crops from abroad. Prime Minister Robert Peel eventually followed Ricardo’s advice when he repealed the infamous Corn Laws in 1846 (Hudson, 2008, p. 2) – we develop this story further in Chapter 4. Others argued that economic rent should be tackled at source. Since the main source of rent was land, the privatisation of property constituted a form of arbitrary enrichment at the expense of wider society. Nineteenth century socialists such Ferdinand Lassalle and Pierre-Jean Proudhon argued that private property should be abolished and that ‘property is theft’ (Proudhon, 2005, p. 55).

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Income tax was first introduced in 1799 in order to pay for weapons and equipment in preparation for the Napoleonic Wars, but much of the burden of taxation fell upon domestically produced commodities that were in high demand, such as beer, spirits, bricks, salt and glass, and imported goods such as tea, sugar and tobacco (Mathias, 2013). In 1815 the Corn Laws were enacted, which imposed restrictions and tariffs on imported grain. The laws were intended to keep grain prices at a high level to protect English landowners from cheap foreign imports of grain following the end of the Napoleonic Wars. The laws proved controversial and provided one of the first examples of the growing tension between the old landowning class and the new wealthy industrialists.

The Fourth Revolution: The Global Race to Reinvent the State by John Micklethwait, Adrian Wooldridge

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Admiral Zheng, affirmative action, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Asian financial crisis, assortative mating, banking crisis, barriers to entry, battle of ideas, Berlin Wall, Bernie Madoff, bike sharing, Boris Johnson, Bretton Woods, British Empire, cashless society, central bank independence, Chelsea Manning, circulation of elites, classic study, Clayton Christensen, Corn Laws, corporate governance, credit crunch, crony capitalism, Deng Xiaoping, Detroit bankruptcy, disintermediation, Disneyland with the Death Penalty, driverless car, Edward Snowden, Etonian, failed state, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, full employment, Gunnar Myrdal, income inequality, James Carville said: "I would like to be reincarnated as the bond market. You can intimidate everybody.", junk bonds, Khan Academy, Kickstarter, knowledge economy, Kodak vs Instagram, labor-force participation, laissez-faire capitalism, land reform, Les Trente Glorieuses, liberal capitalism, Martin Wolf, means of production, Michael Milken, minimum wage unemployment, mittelstand, mobile money, Mont Pelerin Society, Nelson Mandela, night-watchman state, Norman Macrae, obamacare, oil shale / tar sands, old age dependency ratio, open economy, Parag Khanna, Peace of Westphalia, pension reform, pensions crisis, personalized medicine, Peter Thiel, plutocrats, popular capitalism, profit maximization, public intellectual, rent control, rent-seeking, ride hailing / ride sharing, road to serfdom, Ronald Coase, Ronald Reagan, school choice, school vouchers, Shenzhen special economic zone , Silicon Valley, Skype, special economic zone, TED Talk, the long tail, three-martini lunch, too big to fail, total factor productivity, vertical integration, War on Poverty, Washington Consensus, Winter of Discontent, working-age population, zero-sum game

Mill’s life was bound up with the most important change in the nature of the British state since Hobbes’s time: a silent revolution that replaced the ancien régime of privilege, patronage, and purchase with a capitalist state. In 1815–70 a succession of governments abolished a succession of affronts to the principle of free trade in goods, including the East India Company, the West Indian sugar preference, the Navigation Acts, and the Corn Laws. They also abolished a succession of affronts to meritocracy. In the past, powerful Britons had treated government offices as private property that they could buy and sell at will or use as instruments of patronage or simply enjoy without doing any work. In 1784 some busybody complained that one of the two solicitors on the staff of the treasury had not turned up for work since 1744.6 The Victorians demanded that officeholders be chosen on the basis of merit rather than family connections.

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HAVING YOUR CAKE AND EATING IT More than most big issues these days the debate about the state assumes a zero-sum world: The Left invariably argues that “cutting” government will hurt the poor while the Right argues that expanding welfare services will damage the economy. But there are in fact lots of cost-free ways to improve the state. Getting rid of agricultural subsidies is one simple way: Abolishing the modern equivalent of the Corn Laws would produce an immediate gain by reducing public spending while raising the economy’s growth potential. The Victorian liberals made a particular target of “Old Corruption.” Today it is another example of how government can be cut without damaging basic services. A surprising amount has already been achieved.

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The sugar industry, which has helped build America’s obesity epidemic, has a particularly tawdry history with Congress, but still the politicians keep feeding the lobby. The 2008 farm bill added a new sugar-to-ethanol subsidy under which the government buys “excess” imported sugar that might put a downward pressure on inflated sugar prices and sells it to ethanol producers. It is as if the Corn Laws had never been ­repealed. The Cato Institute, which has studied this problem in detail, has dug up a delightful quotation from an ornery congressman in 1932. He pointed to the perversity of the Agriculture Department spending “hundreds of millions a year to stimulate the production of farm products by every method, from irrigating waste lands to loaning and even giving money to the farmers, and simultaneously advising them that there is no adequate market for their crops, and that they should restrict production.”8 The only things that have changed today are that the millions are billions and that the associated bureaucracy has swollen beyond reason.

Adam Smith: Father of Economics by Jesse Norman

active measures, Alan Greenspan, Andrei Shleifer, balance sheet recession, bank run, banking crisis, Basel III, Bear Stearns, behavioural economics, Berlin Wall, Black Swan, Branko Milanovic, Bretton Woods, British Empire, Broken windows theory, business cycle, business process, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, Carmen Reinhart, centre right, cognitive dissonance, collateralized debt obligation, colonial exploitation, Corn Laws, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Credit Default Swap, credit default swaps / collateralized debt obligations, crony capitalism, David Brooks, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, deindustrialization, electricity market, Eugene Fama: efficient market hypothesis, experimental economics, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Fellow of the Royal Society, financial engineering, financial intermediation, frictionless, frictionless market, future of work, George Akerlof, Glass-Steagall Act, Hyman Minsky, income inequality, incomplete markets, information asymmetry, intangible asset, invention of the telescope, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, Jean Tirole, John Nash: game theory, joint-stock company, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Arrow, Kenneth Rogoff, lateral thinking, loss aversion, low interest rates, market bubble, market fundamentalism, Martin Wolf, means of production, mirror neurons, money market fund, Mont Pelerin Society, moral hazard, moral panic, Naomi Klein, negative equity, Network effects, new economy, non-tariff barriers, Northern Rock, Pareto efficiency, Paul Samuelson, Peter Thiel, Philip Mirowski, price mechanism, principal–agent problem, profit maximization, public intellectual, purchasing power parity, random walk, rent-seeking, Richard Thaler, Robert Shiller, Robert Solow, Ronald Coase, scientific worldview, seigniorage, Socratic dialogue, South Sea Bubble, special economic zone, speech recognition, Steven Pinker, The Chicago School, The Myth of the Rational Market, The Nature of the Firm, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, The Wisdom of Crowds, theory of mind, Thomas Malthus, Thorstein Veblen, time value of money, transaction costs, transfer pricing, Veblen good, Vilfredo Pareto, Washington Consensus, working poor, zero-sum game

Whatever one thinks of this rather ambiguous argument, it clearly points once again to what would now be called beneficial spillover effects, and ‘establishments, which are… the result of human action, but not the execution of any human design’. With just three references in total, there is no theory of the invisible hand as such in Smith’s work; and though he discusses many different markets, and looks in detail at market functioning in his extended ‘Digression Concerning the Corn Trade and Corn Laws’ in Book IV of The Wealth of Nations, the phrase does not recur. But as Smith notes in the quotation above, the invisible hand operates ‘in many other cases’, and in a wider sense the idea which it expresses is indeed a key part of his thought, and has been fundamental to the social sciences ever since.

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In 2016, the USA ranked just 36th out of 177 nations listed in the Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom, and 22nd out of 136 nations in the World Economic Forum’s Enabling Trade Index. The UK took a rather different path, but with a similar underlying rationale. The drive for free trade did not really get under way until the 1840s, and reached its zenith during the high Victorian period. Domestically, it took the form of the repeal of the Corn Laws by Peel’s government in 1846, pressed by the radical Liberals Richard Cobden and John Bright, followed by William Gladstone’s pioneering budget of 1853, which abolished 123 duties and reduced a further 133. The move towards free trade gave Adam Smith a kind of sanctified official status. But it had not always been so.

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Shiller, Animal Spirits, Princeton University Press 2009 Akerlof, George A. and Robert J. Shiller, Phishing for Phools: The Economics of Manipulation and Deception, Princeton University Press 2015 Allen, Robert, The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective, Cambridge University Press 2009 Anderson, James, An Enquiry into the Nature of the Corn Laws, Mrs Mundell 1777 Ariely, Dan, The (Honest) Truth about Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone—Especially Ourselves, HarperCollins 2012 Arrow, Kenneth, Social Choice and Individual Values, John Wiley 1951 Arrow, Kenneth and Frank Hahn, General Competitive Analysis, Holden-Day 1971 Bagehot, Walter, Economic Studies, ed.

Fire and Steam: A New History of the Railways in Britain by Christian Wolmar

accounting loophole / creative accounting, Beeching cuts, carbon footprint, collective bargaining, computer age, Corn Laws, creative destruction, cross-subsidies, Crossrail, financial independence, hiring and firing, James Watt: steam engine, joint-stock company, low cost airline, railway mania, rising living standards, Silicon Valley, South Sea Bubble, strikebreaker, Traffic in Towns by Colin Buchanan, union organizing, upwardly mobile, vertical integration, working poor, yield management

There were clearly two factions among the crowd: those who opposed Wellington, many wearing tricolour cockades – showing their sympathy for the French Revolution – being matched in numbers by supporters who greeted the trains with wild cheers. At Manchester, the mood of some of the crowd was so hostile that Wellington, who had only gone there reluctantly, remained in the safety of the carriage with his entourage rather than face the protesters, fearing that his presence might trigger another Peterloo, the nearby massacre of anti-Corn Law demonstrators by soldiers eleven years previously. On this historic day for Britain, and in fact the world, the great conqueror of Napoleon was unable to win over his own people and left Manchester defeated by their show of strength. It was not so much Luddite fear of the machine that had stimulated the crowd’s anger but rather a wider antipathy to Wellington’s government which, despite the all-too-obvious penury and suffering of large sections of the population, was adamantly resisting any attempts at social reform.

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It was not so much Luddite fear of the machine that had stimulated the crowd’s anger but rather a wider antipathy to Wellington’s government which, despite the all-too-obvious penury and suffering of large sections of the population, was adamantly resisting any attempts at social reform. The fact that many of the protesters held banners advocating ‘Vote by ballot’ and ‘No to the Corn Laws’32 suggests that it was not opposition to the railway that had attracted their ire. At the time of the opening, Manchester had no parliamentary representatives, while tiny Newton, through which the line passed, had two, a reflection of the rotten borough system that was in desperate need of reform.

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Although the collapse was deeply damaging both to the railways and the overall economy, the vagaries of investment in the railway industry cannot be blamed for the economic downturn of the late 1840s. It was not so much the internal contradictions of the railway mania which brought about its end, but rather the deterioration in the rest of the economy. The railways had not been the only beneficiaries of unwise investments. Early in 1847, with the Corn Laws abolished, the price of corn began to rise; then in May, when the speculative bubble burst, it fell by 40 per cent over a few days. Banks who had lent on the basis of the high prices were in trouble and both dealers and their bankers quickly started going bankrupt. Interest rates doubled from 3.5 per cent in January to 7 per cent in May and reached 10 per cent in November.

The Economists' Hour: How the False Prophets of Free Markets Fractured Our Society by Binyamin Appelbaum

90 percent rule, airline deregulation, Alan Greenspan, Alvin Roth, Andrei Shleifer, anti-communist, battle of ideas, Benoit Mandelbrot, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Bretton Woods, British Empire, business cycle, capital controls, Carmen Reinhart, Cass Sunstein, Celtic Tiger, central bank independence, clean water, collective bargaining, Corn Laws, correlation does not imply causation, Credit Default Swap, currency manipulation / currency intervention, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, deindustrialization, Deng Xiaoping, desegregation, Diane Coyle, Donald Trump, Dr. Strangelove, ending welfare as we know it, financial deregulation, financial engineering, financial innovation, fixed income, flag carrier, floating exchange rates, full employment, George Akerlof, George Gilder, Gini coefficient, greed is good, Greenspan put, Growth in a Time of Debt, Ida Tarbell, income inequality, income per capita, index fund, inflation targeting, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, It's morning again in America, Jean Tirole, John Markoff, Kenneth Arrow, Kenneth Rogoff, land reform, Les Trente Glorieuses, long and variable lags, Long Term Capital Management, low cost airline, low interest rates, manufacturing employment, means of production, Menlo Park, minimum wage unemployment, Mohammed Bouazizi, money market fund, Mont Pelerin Society, Network effects, new economy, Nixon triggered the end of the Bretton Woods system, oil shock, Paul Samuelson, Philip Mirowski, Phillips curve, plutocrats, precautionary principle, price stability, profit motive, public intellectual, Ralph Nader, RAND corporation, rent control, rent-seeking, Richard Thaler, road to serfdom, Robert Bork, Robert Gordon, Robert Solow, Ronald Coase, Ronald Reagan, Sam Peltzman, Savings and loan crisis, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, starchitect, Steve Bannon, Steve Jobs, supply-chain management, The Chicago School, The Great Moderation, The Myth of the Rational Market, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Kuhn: the structure of scientific revolutions, transaction costs, trickle-down economics, ultimatum game, Unsafe at Any Speed, urban renewal, War on Poverty, Washington Consensus, We are all Keynesians now

A few decades later, in 1817, the economist David Ricardo sharpened the point, arguing that nations could prosper by abandoning production of some goods and focusing on areas of “comparative advantage.” The other stuff could then be imported. This insight electrified opponents of Britain’s Corn Laws, which limited imports of grain.* They spread Ricardo’s gospel using a new technology, the postage stamp, which facilitated distribution of a new magazine, The Economist.21 The 1846 decision by Prime Minister Robert Peel to end the Corn Laws is probably the first significant example of economists reshaping public policy. The influence of economists grew with the availability of data, like bean vines wrapped around cornstalks.

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Bernstein writes in his history of trade, A Splendid Exchange (New York: Atlantic, 2008), that when Parliament approved the use of postage stamps, the era’s leading advocate of free trade, Richard Cobden, “is said to have shouted for joy, ‘There go the corn laws.’ ” For more on the role of The Economist, see Cheryl Schonhardt-Bailey, From the Corn Laws to Free Trade: Interests, Ideas, and Institutions in Historical Perspective (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2006). 22. Governments have been trying to count people for a very long time. The fourth book of the Bible is called Numbers because it records the details of a census.

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France relied on a onetime payment from France Telecom. Chapter 9. Made in Chile * Locke’s phrase was “life, liberty, and estate.” * “Manchesterian” is a synonym for “free-market,” deriving from the English industrial city’s role as an early hotbed of advocacy for an end to protectionist policies like the Corn Laws and, more broadly, for trade as the engine of prosperity. * Bush did. In 2005, he proposed the partial privatization of America’s Social Security system. * The journey from Chile to Taiwan is almost halfway around the world. Taipei’s antipode is closer to Asunción, Paraguay. * There are of course other relevant differences between the two countries.

Running Money by Andy Kessler

Alan Greenspan, Andy Kessler, Apple II, bioinformatics, Bob Noyce, British Empire, business intelligence, buy and hold, buy low sell high, call centre, Charles Babbage, Corn Laws, cotton gin, Douglas Engelbart, Fairchild Semiconductor, family office, flying shuttle, full employment, General Magic , George Gilder, happiness index / gross national happiness, interest rate swap, invisible hand, James Hargreaves, James Watt: steam engine, joint-stock company, joint-stock limited liability company, junk bonds, knowledge worker, Leonard Kleinrock, Long Term Capital Management, mail merge, Marc Andreessen, margin call, market bubble, Mary Meeker, Maui Hawaii, Menlo Park, Metcalfe’s law, Michael Milken, Mitch Kapor, Network effects, packet switching, pattern recognition, pets.com, railway mania, risk tolerance, Robert Metcalfe, Sand Hill Road, Silicon Valley, South China Sea, spinning jenny, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Suez canal 1869, Toyota Production System, TSMC, UUNET, zero-sum game

In fact, one particular machine, Samuel Crompton’s spinning mule, hooked up to a Boulton & Watt steam engine, would repeatedly stretch and wind cotton thread and yarn until it was as “smooth as silk,” like Kessler Whiskey. No one making clothes at home anywhere could match these mills for either cost or quality in terms of smoothness. But landowners who controlled Parliament, and these farmers, who didn’t know their ashes from their bellows, passed the Corn Laws. These tariffs set minimum prices on agriculture and kept out cheap corn and grain from the Continent (read, France). Workers started starving because they were not making enough in the factory to pay for now expensive bread. But factory owners couldn’t raise wages because they were having trouble selling their manufactured goods overseas.

…

With any foresight, the landowners should have dumped their unprofitable farms and invested the proceeds in highly profitable joint stock companies making pottery, shirts and potbelly stoves. England should have gladly bought French wheat and Dutch flowers and German barley and hops so that consumers in these countries could have turned around with the money they received and bought British manufactured goods. There was no substitute. Once you go silky smooth, you never go back. The Corn Laws foolishly lasted until 1846. So, go ahead, buy that Beemer so that Germans can afford to buy our software. Wait a second, I hear you screaming, “The U.S. is running trade deficits as deep as the Mariana Trench, $500 billion a year or more.” Relax—it’s just money, and funny money at Why It’s Imperative to Drive a Beemer that.

…

Even if the dollar stays where it is and we go to $6 trillion in trade deficits, our stock and bond markets might be worth $50, $60, $70 trillion, double or triple today’s value, run up by margin chasers. Just about everything about this margin surplus model is upside down. The modern U.S. has farm bills and textile quotas and on and off steel tariffs like the British Corn Laws, not to mention late-model-car flamers. How dumb. Because of our margin surpluses, big trade deficits are our just dessert. These foreign-made consumer items are our gold. Let them 277 278 Running Money flow. Tariffs, quotas and subsidies will return us to an industrial age. No thanks. Foreigners sweat and toil to make our physical delights, in exchange for our intellectual output.

The Regency Revolution: Jane Austen, Napoleon, Lord Byron and the Making of the Modern World by Robert Morrison

British Empire, Charles Babbage, colonial rule, Corn Laws, corporate social responsibility, financial independence, full employment, Isaac Newton, James Watt: steam engine, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, land tenure, Mahatma Gandhi, New Urbanism, railway mania, stem cell, trade route, transatlantic slave trade, upwardly mobile, urban planning, wage slave

The glaring injustices of the system manifested themselves in the Regency in an especially harsh form when in early 1815 the landowning interests passed the notorious Corn Law, which was designed to keep the price of bread – the staple food of laborers – artificially inflated by banning the import of foreign grain until the domestic price had reached eighty shillings per quarter, or ten shillings per bushel of wheat. Selling at this price, which was more than triple the daily wage of the average worker, guaranteed that huge profits would flow to the propertied elites, and cushioned their agrarian interests against postwar difficulties. At the same time, the agricultural protectionists who steered the Corn Law through Parliament also aimed at mitigating the rise of the industrial sector, which they typically regarded as destabilizing and unhealthy.

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., 97 Anglo-Chinese College (Malacca), 194 anti-heroes, Byron as influence on, 112, 115, 163 Anti-Jacobin Review, 135 Antiquary, The (Scott), 108, 254 antiquities, 94–5, 97, 188, 190 architecture, xiv, 3, 97, 110, 201–2, 209, 231–4, 242, 250, 288 Arctic Expeditions, The (Porden), 220 Arctic exploration, 217–20 aristocracy authors, patronage of, 111 Austen and, 103 and consumerism, 87 and entertainment, 88–91 and gambling, 83 marriage market, 86 and sexuality, 122–33 art, see landscape painting; specific artists art galleries, 64, 95–6, 97, 115 Ascalon, Israel, 189 assassinations/assassination attempts, 8–11, 18–20, 34, 74, 285 Astley’s Royal Amphitheatre, 88 Audubon, John James, 224 “Augustus Darvell” (Byron), 157 Austen, Cassandra, 146–7 Austen, Jane, xiii, xiv, 2, 64, 100–103, 244, 289 and Battle of Albuera, 170 and Battle of Waterloo, 178 Cassandra Austen and, 146–7 on Barrett’s The Heroine, 100 on Brunton’s Self-Control, 100 and Burney, 100 and Byron, 114 on Caroline, Princess Regent, 5 and Crabbe, 252 and dueling (in Sense and Sensibility), 17 and Maria Edgeworth, 103–4 and evangelicals, 128–9 and gambling in Pride and Prejudice, 83 on George, Prince Regent, 2, 5 and hunting in Persuasion, 76 and juggling, 89 on Kean, 72 marriage of cousins in works of, 162 on O’Neill, 69 and “Plan of a Novel”, 100 and rakery in Sanditon, 128 on Repton, 251 and Scott, 108, 109 and sexuality, 117, 118, 120, 121 on slavery, 212, 214 on Southey, 178 and the theater, 62, 69, 72 travel in the works of, 265, 267, 268 and the War of 1812 in Mansfield Park, 179 on weather in spring/summer of 1816, 198 and Harriette Wilson, 140 Australia, 23, 209–11, 217 Ayton, Richard, 264 Babbage, Charles, xiii, 97, 229, 276–8, 288 Back, George, 219 Badcock, John, 24, 230 badger-baiting, 76 Bailey, Benjamin, 121 Baillie, Joanna, 62, 72 Ballantyne, John, 108 Ballard, Joseph, 66, 95, 136 Baltimore, Maryland, 184–5 Bamford, Samuel, 41, 53 Banca Island, 195 Bang Up (Grimaldi), 241 Bankes, William John, 154, 189 Banks, Sir Joseph, 97 Bannister, John, 66–7 Baring, Alexander, 97 Barker, Robert, 94, 218 Barker’s Panorama, 94, 219 Barnes, Thomas, 25–6 Barnett, George, 18 Barrett, Eaton Stannard, 100, 119–20 Barrett Browning, Elizabeth, 212 Barrow, John, 216–17, 218–19, 225, 244 Bartholomew Fair, 90 Bathurst, Henry, 3rd Earl Bathurst, 212 Bathurst (Banjul), The Gambia, 212 bear baiting, 76–7 Beatlemania, as compared to Byronmania, 115 Beauclerk, Lord Frederick, 75, 81–2 Beckford, William collections of, 97 on Elliston, 65–6 homosexuality, 118, 158–60, 289 and slavery, 212 Beckwith, William, 8, 87 Bedford, 6th Duke (John Russell), 76, 250 Beethoven, Ludwig van, 171 Belcombe, Mary, 155–6 Bellerophon, HMS, 179 Bellingham, John, 7–12, 18, 60 Belzoni, Giovanni, 190 Benbow, William, 143 Bencoolen (Bengkulu), Sumatra, 196 Benedict, Maryland, 184 Bennelong (Aboriginal leader), 208–9 Bennet, Henry Grey, 15, 26 Bentham, Jeremy on capital punishment, 23 homosexuality defended by, 118, 160–62, 289 and Leigh Hunt, 25 on masturbation, 164 and reform movement, 39 Berczy, William, 182 Berens, Edward, 267 Berkley, Theresa, 165 Bessborough, Countess of (Henrietta Frances Ponsonby), 130 Betham, Matilda, 147 Bethnal Green, London, 13 betting, 81–5 Bible, The, 142, 161, 163–4 Bicknell, Maria, 121–2, 128, 257–9 Bigge, John Thomas, 209 Billiton Island, 195 Birkbeck, Morris, 223–4 Blackwood, William, 244–5 Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 244–5 Chaldee Manuscript, 245 and “Cockney School of Poetry”, 245 on Crabbe, 252 founding of, 227, 244 on Peterloo Massacre, 54 on political unrest, 47 on race, 79 and Scott, 244 on sports, 75, 79 Bladensburg, Battle of, 184 Blake, William, 234, 258 Blenkinsop, John, 271–2 Blind Man’s Buff (Wilkie), 253–4 “Bloody Code”, 21–3, 60 Blucher (locomotive), 272 Blücher, Gebhard, 173–8, 236, 272 Booth, Junius Brutus, 74 “Borough Boys” (grave robbing gang), 15–17 Bosquett, Abraham, 17 Bowdler, Thomas, 120 bowdlerization, 120 Bow Street Runners, 21, 151 Boxiana (Egan), 80, 126 boxing, 3, 77–82, 90, 92, 115 Brando, Marlon, 115 Brandreth, Jeremiah, 51–2, 56 Brawne, Fanny, 122 Brayfield, John James, 80 Brewster, David, 88, 288 bridges, 32, 209, 228, 230–31, 250, 269–70 Brief Account of Things that I have seen and heard during a Voyage Westwards around the World (Morrison), 194 Brighton Pavilion, 1, 201–2 Bristol, England, 171, 268–9 British East India Company, 192–6, 199, 201, 203, 206, 230 British Museum, 190–92 Brixton Prison, 24 Brock, Isaac, 180–83, 182 Brograve, Roger, 82 Broke, Philip, 180 Bromhead, Edward, 277 Brookes, John Benjamin, 143 Brooks’s (gambling club), 84–5 Brougham, Henry, 25, 138, 243 Bruce, Michael, 189 Bruce, Thomas, 7th Earl of Elgin, see Elgin, 7th Earl of Brummell, George “Beau”, xiii, 237–41, 289 and dandyism, 2, 237, 237–41, 289 French, study of, 92–3 and gambling, 82, 84 on Regent as entertainer, 63 on Regent as “fat friend”, 238 syphilis, 142 Brunton, Mary, xiii, 100, 119, 143, 265 Brunton, William, 271 Buchan, Alexander Peter, 164 Buchan, David, 218 Buckingham, 2nd Duke of (Richard Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville), 286 Buddle, John, 275 bullbaiting, 76 Bullock, William, 94–5 Bulwer, Edward, 199 Burder, Thomas Harrison, 141 Burdett, Francis on Hone, 45 and Peterloo Massacre, 53 Percy Shelley and, 56 and Spa Fields demonstrations, 47 Burlington Arcade, 87 Burney, Frances, xiv Austen and, 100 and domestic travel in The Wanderer, 265 on Kemble, 69 on Lady Caroline Lamb, 131 Meeke and, 99 on opium, need for during surgery, 204 Butler, Lady Eleanor, 118, 147, 167 Buxton, Thomas Fowell, 26–8 Byrne, James, 154 Byron, Allegra, 132 Byron, George Gordon, 6th Baron Byron, xiii–xv, 2–3, 62, 111–15, 118, 225, 289 and Bankes, 154, 189 and Battle of Waterloo, 173, 178 on Bellingham’s execution, 11 and boxing, 80 on Beckford, 160, 212 on Brummell, 238, 241 and celebrity, 64, 111–15, 289 on changes at end of Regency, 285 children, 132, 278 on Chunee, 94 and Clairmont, 131–2 and Coleridge, 97, 206 and Constable, 260 on Davies, 92 death of, 285 on the Elgin Marbles, 191 and fashion, 237 and female sexuality, 133 and free love, 132 and Galt, 131, 188 on gambling, 84 on George, Prince Regent, 4 and ghost-story competition, 124, 157, 281 gonorrhea, 141 and Greece, 191, 199 and homosexuality, 145, 149, 153–4, 157–8 and Leigh Hunt, 25, 26 incest in works of, 162, 163 on Jordan, 65 on Kean, 72 on Kemble, 69 and Lady Caroline Lamb, xv, 113, 114, 130, 131, 132, 136, 157 and Charles Lamb, 97 and Levant, 157, 188, 189 on Lewis, 154 libertinism of, 124, 131, 287 on Luddites, 34 on Mathews, 67 on Napoleon, 178, 241 and opium, 203, 206 and Orient, 199, 200 on Peterloo Massacre, 54 and Polidori, 124, 157, 281 Quarterly Review and, 244 and religious liberties, 214 and prostitution, 136, 141 sexuality, 118, 124, 129–33, 136, 141, 145, 149, 153–4, 157–8, 287 and Mary Shelley, 157, 281 and Percy Shelley, 14 and slavery, 212, 214 on Stanhope, 189 and the theater, 65, 67, 69, 72 and Turkey, 199 and Turner, 260 weather in summer of 1816 as inspiration for “Darkness”, 198 on Wellington, 170, 173 and Wilson, 140 “Byronic hero”, 112, 114, 188 calculating machine, 277 Caledonian Canal, 270 Calthorpe, Lord, 37 Calvert, Frances, 10 Cambridge, Duke of, 53 Campbell, Dorothea Primrose, 147 Canada emigration to, 220, 221 Franklin mission, 219 War of 1812 in, 179, 180, 181, 183, 184, 187 canals, 228, 260, 269–70 Canning, George, 10, 53 Cannon, George, 143, 165 capital punishment, 22–24, 31, 34, 51, 158 card games, 2, 64, 83–4, 86, 141, 173 caricatures, 2, 45–47, 60, 236; see also Cruikshank, George Carlile, Richard, 54 Carlyle, Thomas, xiv–xv, 61, 244, 264 Caroline of Brunswick, 4–5, 130, 225, 236 as Queen Caroline, 285 Carter, Jack, 79 Cartwright, William, 34 Cashman, John, 48–9 Castle, John, 49 Castle Rackrent (Maria Edgeworth), 104 Castlereagh, Lady (Amelia Stewart), 86 Castlereagh, Viscount (Robert Stewart), 43, 47, 53, 61, 86, 236 death of, 285 Lord Liverpool and, 28 and Perceval assassination (1812), 10 Percy Shelley on, 58 syphilis, 142 Catechism of a Ministerial Member (Hone), 43 Catholicism, 5–6, 9, 26, 29–31, 39, 42, 106, 215 and emancipation, 5–6, 26, 39, 215 in Ireland, 29–31 and Jacobite rebellion, 106 Regent and, 6, 5, 42 celebrity culture, xv, 64, 111–14, 115 Cenci, The (Percy Shelley), 56, 158, 163 censorship, 40, 117–18 “Chaldee Manuscript” (Hogg, Lockhart, and Wilson), 244–5 Chaplin, Charlie, 66 Chapman, Israel, 17 Chapman, William, 271–2 Charlotte, Princess of Wales, 5, 42, 56, 236 Charlotte, Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, 3, 139 Cheapside, London, 88, 143 Chesapeake, USS, 180, 181 Chesapeake Bay, 180, 184 Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (Byron), 3, 111–14 Ada, Countess of Lovelace in, 278 Battle of Waterloo in, 173, 178 Elgin Marbles in, 191 and Levant, 188 and religious liberties, 214–15 and slave trade, 214–15 children Aboriginal Australian, forcible removal of, 208 as criminals, 14, 22, 27 and education, 248 entertainment for, 90 and factory labor, 33, 246, 249 illegitimate, 92, 129, 132 and mining, 265 mortality, 16 and opium, 203 and poverty, 16 and slavery, 215–16 China, 194, 196–7, 201–2, 203, 207 “Christabel” (Coleridge), 156 Christison, Robert, 203 Christ’s Entry into Jerusalem (Haydon), 93–4 Church, John, 151 Church of England, 38, 39, 47, 192, 251 Church-of-Englandism (Bentham), 39 Cibber, Colley, 65 City Philosophical Society, 276 civil disobedience/unrest, 36–42, 47–56, 287 Clairmont, Claire, 131–3 Clare, John, xiii, 136, 141–2, 254–6, 288 Clarence, Duke of, see William IV Clarke, Charles Cowden, 74 Clarke, Mary Cowden, 67 Clarkson, Thomas, 211, 216 Clerkenwell, London, 12–13, 47, 235 climate change, Mount Tambora eruption and, 197–9 clothing, see fashion coal industry, 127, 151 mining, 51, 264–5, 274–6 Davy’s safety lamp, 274–6 railways and, 270–73 Coal Mines Safety Committee, 275 Cobbett, William on Bellingham’s execution, 11 on boxing, 77 and civil disobedience, 287 Hazlitt on, 40, 42 on Jocelyn case, 154–5 on political landscape in Regency Britain, 36–7 on poverty and crime, 23 Percy Shelley on, 56 and slavery, 215, 216 Spa Fields demonstrations, 47–8 writings of, 40–42, 56 Cochrane, Sir Alexander, 184–5 Cockburn, George, 180 Cockburn, Henry, 107 Cockerell, Sir Charles, 201 cockfighting, 76 “Cockney School of Poetry”, 245 Coldbath Fields Prison, 20, 25, 152 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor and Blackwood’s, 245 on Brent sisters, 146 Hazlitt on, 40 on Hone, 45 Kean on, 72 as lecturer, 97 and lesbianism in “Christabel”, 156 on Mathews, 67 and opium, 205, 206, 289 on Perceval assassination (1812), 10 as playwright, 62 Quarterly Review and, 244 at Ramsgate, 264 and religion, 38 Simond and, 152 and the theater, 62, 67, 72 on trade, 230 on weather in spring/summer of 1816, 198 on Wordsworth’s The Excursion, 247 colonialism, 105, 191–7, 199–202, 225, 229–30, 274 in Australia, 207–11 in China, 194 East India Company, 192–6, 199, 201, 203, 206 in East Indies, 195–7 in India, 29, 192–3, 199–202, 206, 234 in North America, 29, 179–88, 221 and Orientalism, 199–202 in West Indies, 186, 211–16, 234 Combe, William, 265–6 comedy, 43, 64–8, 101, 118 commerce, 12, 227–8 Badcock on, 230 international, see trade railway development and, 273 in Scott’s Waverley novels, 110 Committee on the State of the Gaols, 24 computers, 229, 277–8, 288 “conduct books”, 119 Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (De Quincey), 206–7 Congress of Vienna, 169–70, 172 Conlon, Philip, 31 Constable, Archibald, 105, 243–4 Constable, John, xiii, 95, 256–60, 289 and Bicknell, 121, 167, 257 Blake on, 258 on Byron, 260 Lawrence on, 258 paintings of, 95, 256–60, 289 Smith and, 234 Turner and, xv, 259–60 and Waterloo Bridge, 230 on Wolff, 236 Constitution, USS, 180 consumerism, xv, 2, 64, 87–8, 112, 201, 230, 233, 288 Cook, James, 151–2 Cooper, Astley, 15, 17 Cooper, George, 79 Cooper, Samuel, 204 Coote, Sir Eyre, 166 “Corinthians”, 92, 126 Corn Law, 37–8 Corporation of Dublin, 18 corruption, 14, 21, 37, 40, 43, 191, 287 Corsair, The (Byron), 112, 114, 188–9 Cotton Mills and Factories Act (1819), 246–7 cotton trade, 246–9 Courtenay, William, 159 courtesans, 138–9 Coutts, Thomas, 84 Covent Garden, 15, 85, 134, 234 Covent Garden Theatre, 62–3, 65, 66, 69, 71, 74, 265 Cowper, Lady, 86, 123–4, 129 Cowper, William, 56 Crabbe, George, 244, 251–3, 254 Austen and, 252 Crawford, William, 26–7 Creevey, Thomas, 123, 129, 173 Cribb, Tom, xiii, 78–9, 80–81, 111 cricket, 75, 81–2, 82, 173, 262 crime, 7–28 children as criminals, 14, 22, 27 grave robbing, 15–17 law enforcement and, 20–23 murder, 19–20 Perceval assassination, 7–11 prisons, 23–8 crofts, 31 Croker, John Wilson, 104, 202, 244 Croly, George, 47 Cross, Edward, 94 Crouch, Ben, 15 Cruikshank, George, 45–7 and Brighton Pavilion, 202 Coote, caricature of, 166 and dandyism, 241 and Egan’s Life in London, 126 George, Prince Regent, caricatures of, 45–7, 55, 202, 236 Henry “Orator” Hunt portrait, 49 Owen, caricature of, 248 Peterloo Massacre print, 56 Political House that Jack Built woodcuts, 55, 287 Shannon–Chesapeake battle depiction, 181 Cruikshank, Robert, 126 Cumberland, Duke of, 153, 162 Cumming, Jane, 148 Curse of Minerva, The (Byron), 191 “Cyprians”, 137, 138–9 Cyprian’s Ball, 138–9 Daffy Club, 92 dandyism, 237–41, 240 Daniell, William, 264 “Darkness” (Byron), 198 Davies, Scrope Berdmore, 92, 136 Davies, David, 18 Davy, Humphry, xiii, 3, 228–9, 236, 274–6, 279, 288 and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, 281 Davy Lamp, 274–6, 288 Dean, James, 115 death penalty, 21–2, 161 “Delicate Investigation”, 5 demonstrations, 47–56 De Quincey, Thomas and Blackwood’s, 245 on flagellation, 164 on Macadamised roads, 269 on Napoleon, 170 and opium, 6, 206–7, 289 on Regent’s assumption of crown, 6 Descent of Liberty, The (Leigh Hunt), 26 D’Esterre, John, 18 Detroit, Michigan, 180, 183 Devaun, Paddy, 31 Devon riots, 50 Devonshire, Duchess of, 113–14 dice games, 2, 64, 83–5 Dickens, Charles, xiv, 62, 241 Dictionary of the Chinese Language (Morrison), 194 Difference Engine, 277 Dighton, Richard, 125 dinner parties, 92–4 Discourse on the Manners of the Ancient Greeks Relative to the Subject of Love (Percy Shelley), 158 Disraeli, Benjamin, xiv, 146 Distraining for Rent (Wilkie), 253–4 Distressed Mother, The (Philips), 74 Don Juan (Byron), 113, 118, 132–3, 145, 287 Donnelly, Dan, 79 Dorothea, HMS, 218 Dort, or Dordrecht, the Dort Packet-Boat from Rotterdam Becalmed (Turner), 260 Douglas, Thomas, 5th Earl of Selkirk, 221, 223 drinking, see alcohol Dru, Ali, 159 Drury Lane Theatre, 18, 62, 66, 71–2, 74 Dubouchet, Amy, 137 Dubouchet, Fanny, 137, 139 Dubouchet, Harriette, see Wilson, Harriette Dubouchet, Sophia, 140 dueling, 17–18, 30, 84 Dulwich Picture Gallery, 95 Dundee riots, 50 East End, London, 13, 19, 127, 138, 227 East India Company, see British East India Company East Indies, 195–6 Eclectic Review, 251 Edgeworth, Maria Austen and, 103–4 on consumerism, 87 on Fry, 27 Leigh Hunt and, 25 novels of, xiii, 64, 103–5, 109, 215, 268 Scott and, 105, 107–8, 109 Edgeworth, Richard Lovell, 267, 271 Edinburgh, 15, 17, 22, 32, 61, 104, 106, 227, 241–5, 265, 267, 270 Edinburgh Review, 39, 227, 242, 243 Carlyle and, 61 on Crabbe, 252 on Maria Edgeworth, 104 Hazlitt and, 39, 243 Edinburgh University, 17, 22, 61 Egan, Pierce and boxing, 80–81 on “flash” language, 13, 126 on gambling, 84 libertinism in Life in London, 118, 125–8, 287 on prostitution, 134, 135 and sports journalism, xiii, 80–81, 288 Eglerton, John Attwood, 160 Egremont, 3rd Earl (George O’Brien Wyndham), 97, 123, 261 Egypt, 189–90, 207 electricity, 229, 274, 279, 280, 281–2, 283 Elements of Agricultural Chemistry (Davy), 274 Elements of Chemical Philosophy (Davy), 274, 281 Elgin, 7th Earl of (Thomas Bruce), 142, 190–92 Elgin Marbles, 190–92 elites, see aristocracy Ellenborough, Lord Chief Justice, 44–5 Elliston, Robert William, 65–6, 69 Elmes, James, 233 “emancipists”, 208–11 emigration, 188, 221–5 Emma (Austen), 2, 101, 214, 267 enclosure, 228, 255 Encyclopaedia Britannica, 243 England: Richmond Hill, on the Prince Regent’s Birthday (Turner), 261–2 “England in 1819” (Percy Shelley), 58 “Enquiry into the Probability and Rationality of Mr.

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Agnes, The” (Keats), 121, 220 Examiner, The (newspaper), 39 Hazlitt and, 26, 40, 263 Leigh Hunt essays in, 52, 54 Leigh Hunt libel case and, 24–6 Charles Lamb and, 26, 211 Turner and, 261, 263 on Wilkie’s Rent Day, 253 “exclusionists”, 208–10 Excursion, The (Wordsworth), 220, 247, 267 expeditions/exploration, 216–20 Factory Acts, 246 fairs, 89–91 Family Shakespeare (Bowdler), 120 Faraday, Michael, xiii, 229, 276, 288 Farington, Joseph, xiv, 68, 159 fashion, xiv, 2, 43, 87, 142, 237–41, 289 Father’s Legacy to his Daughters, A (Gregory), 119 Fawkes, Walter, 261 Fearon, Henry Bradshaw, 221 Felling Pit mine explosion, 275 Feltham, John, 89 Ferrier, Susan, 227, 244, 267 Field, Barron, 210–11 Field of Waterloo, The (Scott poem), 178 Field of Waterloo, The (Turner painting), 178 field sports, 76 First Fruits of Australian Poetry (Field), 210 Fitzherbert, Maria, 4–6, 46 flagellation, 118, 164–5 “flash” language, 13, 81, 92, 126 Florence Macarthy (Sydney Owenson, Lady Morgan), 100, 219–20 food and drink, 2, 64, 91–4 Fordyce, James, 119 Forster, John Wycliffe Lowes, 182 Fort Detroit, 180 Fort George, 181 Fort McHenry, 185 Fort Meigs, 183 Fox, Charles James, 3, 5 Fox, Elizabeth, 123 fox hunting, 76, 159 Fragments on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening (Repton), 250 Franchi, Gregorio, 159–60 Frankenstein (Mary Shelley), 118, 124, 157, 198, 280–83, 289 Arctic references in, 220 and ghost-story competition, 124, 157, 281 as modern myth, 199 necrophilia and incest in, 118, 166–7 weather in summer of 1816 as inspiration for, 198 Franklin, John, xiii, 217, 218–19 Freetown, Sierra Leone, 211 French Revolution, 4, 39, 47, 56 French Revolutionary Wars (1793–1802), 4, 53, 225, 229 Frost Fairs, 89–90 Fry, Elizabeth, xiii, 27–28, 288–9 Fry, Joseph, 27 Fudge Family in Paris, The (Moore), 43 Galt, John and Blackwood’s, 245 and Byron, 112, 131, 188 on Edinburgh, 241 on Lady Caroline Lamb, 131 Levant, travels in, 188–9 gambling, 2, 3, 24, 64, 82–5, 90, 196, 225, 232, 240, 248 Garrow, Sir William, 22, 25 Garvagh, Battle of, 30 gas lighting, 21 gay (term), 145 Genesis (biblical book), 164 George III, King of Great Britain and Ireland, xiii, 3, 4, 5, 58 George Augustus Frederick, Prince Regent, (later George IV), xiii, 1–6, 60, 94, 287–8 alcohol consumption, 2, 4–5, 42, 92 and Arctic exploration, 219 assassination attempt, 18–19 Bellingham and, 8 birth and early years, 3–4 Blenkinsop and, 271 and boxing, 80 and Brighton Pavilion, 201–2 Brock knighted by, 180 Brummell on, 63, 238, 239 Byron and, 3 and Catholic emancipation, 5–6 civil unrest and, 51, 52, 53 Cruikshank’s depictions of, 45–7, 55, 202, 236 culture, impact on, 2–3 Davy knighted by, 3, 274–5 Dickens on, 241 and domestic politics, 1–2, 29 Examiner’s criticism of, 24–5 and “flash” language, 13 and gambling, 2, 84 as King George IV, xiii, 285–7 Hazlitt on, 237 Hone on, 55 Leigh Hunt on, 24–5 Charles Lamb on, 42 Lawrence and, 236–7 and learning, 94, 288 legacy of, 287–8 as libertine, 123, 287 Liverpool and, 29 marriage to Caroline of Brunswick, 4–5, 130, 162, 236 marriage to Maria Fitzherbert, 4 Moira and, 192 Moore on, 42, 43, 80, 236 Nash and, 201–2, 232–3 and opium, 206 Owen and, 248 Perceval and, 10, 46 and Peterloo Massacre, 51, 53, 54, 55 and poetry, 2–3 and pornography, 144 as Prince of Wales, xiii, 3–5, 84, 287 Raffles knighted by, 195–6 Regency, accession to, 5 and Regent Street development, 231–2 Rennie and, 231 Repton and, 250 satire on, 42–7, 54–6, 60, 80, 241, 287 and Spa Fields petition, 48 Percy Shelley on, 58 Thackeray on, 286 and the theater, 63 Townsend and, 21 Turner and, 260, 262 and War of 1812, 180, 184 and Waterloo Bridge, 230 and Watier’s, 84 Wellington and, 6, 171, 172, 286 and Whigs, 5, 42, 287 Wilkie and, 253–4 Georgiou, Eustathios, 157 Gandhi, Mahatma, 52 Ghent, Treaty of, 185, 187 Gifford, William, 38, 40, 244 Gillies, Lord, 149 Giraud, Nicolo, 157 Gladstone, William, 212 Glenarvon (Lady Caroline Lamb), 100, 114, 131 Godwin, Mary, see Shelley, Mary Godwin, William, 74, 98, 163, 281 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 113 Goldsmith, Oliver, 66, 98 gonorrhea, 141–2 Gordon, Lady Helen Cumming, 148 Gordon, Pryse Lockhart, 113 Gowen, James, 19 Goya, Francisco, 171 Graham, Maria, 193 Grammar of the Chinese Language (Morrison), 194 Grant, Cuthbert, 223 Granville, Countess (Harriet Leveson-Gower), 91, 114 Granville Leveson-Gower, George, see Stafford, 2nd Marquess of grave robbing, 15–17 Gray, Robert, 175 Gray, Thomas, 271 Great Bardfield riots, 50 Great Fair (1814), 90–91 “Green Bag Committee”, 48–9 Greenway, Francis, 209–10 Gregory, John, 119 Greville, Charles, 84–5, 92 Grimaldi, Joseph, 62, 66, 154, 241 Gronow, Rees Howell, xiv on civil unrest following Napoleonic wars, 36 on dining, 91, 92 Lawrence and, 280 Guardian Society, 135 Guerrière, HMS, 180 Guide to all the Watering and Sea-Bathing Places (Feltham), 89 gun violence, 17–18 Guy Mannering (Scott), 108, 254 Guy’s Hospital, 15 “Hackney Phalanx”, 38 Hale, William, 134 Hall, Tom, 79 Hanger, George, 4th Baron Coleraine, 123 Harley, Jane, Countess of Oxford, 129, 130 Harrington, Bridget Anna, 19 Harrison, William Henry, 183 Hastings, Marquess of (Lord Moira), 1, 192 Hatton, Ann Julia, 99 Hawkins, Henry, 142 Hawkins, Laetitia-Matilda, 142 Haydon, Benjamin Robert on Bannister, 67 on Battle of Salamanca, 171 on the Elgin Marbles, 191 on Hazlitt, 39 Leigh Hunt and, 25 and “Immortal Dinner”, 93–4 on incest in literature, 163 on Kean, 72 on Liston, 67 and London exhibitions, 94 and prostitution, 136 on Ross mission, 218 and Waterloo Bridge, 230 Hayes River, Manitoba, 217 Hazlitt, William, 39–40 and boxing, 80 on Brighton Pavilion, 202 on Brummell, 238 on Cobbett, 40, 42 and “Cockney School of Poetry”, 245 and Edinburgh Review, 243 and French Revolution, 39 as “good hater”, 40 on Grimaldi, 66 Haydon on, 39 Leigh Hunt and, 25, 26 on juggling, 89 on Kean, 71, 72, 74 on Kemble, 71 on Lawrence’s portrait of the Regent, 237 lectures, 98 on Liston, 67 on Macready, 74 Mitford on, xv, 98 on O’Neill, 69 on Owen, 249 on Pentrich Rebellion, 52 and reform movement, 39–40 on Scott’s Waverley novels, 110 on Siddons, 69 and the theater, 62, 66, 67, 69, 71, 72, 74 on Turner, 263 on Vestris, 142 on Wilkie, 253 Headlong Hall (Peacock), 251 Heart of Mid-Lothian, The (Scott), 108, 265, 267 Heathcote, John, 35 Heber, Richard, 154 Hedley, William, 271–2 “hells” (gambling clubs), 85 “Helpstone” (Clare), 255 Hemans, Felicia, 191, 245 Hepburn, John Newbolt, 152–3 Heroine, The (Barrett), 100 Hertford, Lady, 46 Hertford, Lord, 46 Hertford, Marquess of, see Yarmouth, Lord (Francis Charles Seymour-Conway) Heyer, Georgette, xiv Highland Clearances, 1, 31–3, 60, 221 Hill, Thomas Noel, 2nd Baron Berwick of Attingham, 140 History of British India (James Mill), 199 History of Java (Raffles), 195 Hobhouse, John Cam, 136, 157, 188 Hogg, James, 244–5 Hogg, Thomas Jefferson, 281 Holland, Henry (architect), 201 Holland, Henry (physician), 188 Holloway, Robert, 146, 153 homosexuality, xiv, 118, 145–62, 168, 289 homophobia, 118, 145, 149–53, 157–8, 159–61 Hone, William, 43–45, 47, 54–6, 55, 287 Hood, Robert, 217 Hope, Thomas, 97 Hoppner, Henry Parkyns, 218 Horsemonger Lane prison, 25–6 horse racing, 2, 64, 75, 82, 86 Horsfall, William, 34 House of Commons, 7–10, 34, 37 Howard and Gibbs (moneylenders), 84 Hudson’s Bay Company, 221 “hulks” (prison ships), 23–4 Hull, William, 180, 183 Hunt, Henry “Orator”, 48, 49, 51, 53–4 Hunt, John, 24–6, 39, 261 Hunt, Leigh on Bannister, 66, 67 Byron on, 25, 26 and “Cockney School of Poetry”, 245 and The Examiner, 24–6, 39, 52, 123, 211, 287 incest in The Story of Rimini, 162, 163 Hazlitt and, 25, 26 on Jordan, 65 on Kean, 71 Keats on, 26 on Kemble, 71, 206 Charles Lamb and, 26, 211 libel conviction and imprisonment, 24–6, 42, 123, 287 on Munden, 67 on Pentrich Rebellion, 52 on Peterloo Massacre, 54 Percy Shelley and, 56 and the theater, 62, 65 Hunt, Robert, 261 Hunter, John, 278–9 Hyperion (Keats), 60, 199 incest, 118, 149, 162–3, 166–7 India, 29, 192–3, 197, 199–201, 206 Indigenous Confederacy, 181–3 Indigenous peoples, 180, 181–3, 187–8, 223 Indo-Chinese Gleaner (magazine), 194 Indonesia, 197 Industrial Revolution, 1, 41, 51, 110, 246–9, 250, 251, 252, 260 canals and, 269 Corn Law and, 37–8 Luddites and, 33–5 and Scott’s Waverley novels, 110 social costs of, 246–9 unrest and, 51, 53, 54, 60, 228 Intercepted Letters (Moore), 42–3 invention, 274–8 iodine, 276 Ireland, 1, 29–30, 56, 60, 95, 104–5 Ireland, William Henry, 143 Irving, James, 113 Irving, Washington, 62, 254 Isabella, HMS, 218 Ivanhoe (Scott), 61, 108 Jackson, Andrew, 186 Jackson, John “Gentleman”, 80 Jacobite rebellion (1745–1746), 105–7, 110 Jamaica, 154, 212–16 James, John Haddy, 175 Java, 194–5, 197 Jeffrey, Francis on Crabbe’s Tales of the Hall, 252 on Maria Edgeworth, 104 and Edinburgh Review, 39, 243 Henry Raeburn and, 242 Jersey, Lady, 86 Jocelyn, Percy, 154–5 Johnstone, Julia, 139–40 Jordan, Dorothy, 62, 64–5 journalism politics, 39–42 sports, xiii, 80–81, 288 Journal of a West India Proprietor (Lewis), 193, 212, 222 jugglers, 89 justice system, 21–2, 161 kaleidoscopes, 88, 288 Kean, Edmund, xv, 62, 71–5, 73, 289 alcohol consumption, 62, 72, 74, 92 Austen on, 72 and Booth, 74 Byron and, 72, 114 on flagellation, 165 Hazlitt on, 71, 72, 74 Keats on, 72 and prostitutes, 74 and venereal disease, 142 Wolves Club, 92 Keats, George, 222–4 Keats, Georgiana, 223–4 Keats, John, xiii–xv and Arctic exploration, 218, 220 Brawne, love letters to, 122 on brother George’s emigration to America, 223–4 Christmas celebrations, 61–2 and “Cockney School of Poetry”, 245 death of, 285 and Elgin Marbles, 191 on gas lights, 21 and Greece, 191, 199 Guy’s Hospital, studies at, 15 Hazlitt and, 40, 98 health of, 61–2 on Hone, 45 on Leigh Hunt, 26, 54 and “Immortal Dinner”, 93–4 in Ireland during famine, 29 on Kean, 72 on knowledge, 94 and London exhibitions, 94 and opium, 205 on Peterloo Massacre, 54 on prostitution, 134 at Randall–Turner fight, 79–80 sexual desire in poetry of, 118, 121 Percy Shelley and, 60 at the theater, 62, 72 and venereal disease, 142 walking tour of English Lake District, 264 Kelly, Frances, 18, 65 Kemble, John Philip, 69, 71–2, 74, 206, 236 Key, Francis Scott, 185 Killingworth, England, 272–3 Killingworth locomotive, 273 King, Martin Luther, Jr., 52 King’s Theatre, 62 Kingston, John, 93 Kingston Lacy, Dorset, 189 Kinnaird, Douglas, 132, 136 Kitchener, Henry Thomas, 134–5 Knight, Richard Payne, 97 Koenig, Friedrich, 278 “Kubla Khan” (Coleridge), 205 Ladies’ Association for the Reformation of the Female Prisoners in Newgate, 28 Ladies of Llangollen, 118, 147 La Haye Sainte farm compound, 175–7, 177 lairds, 31 Lake Borgne, Battle of, 185 Lake Erie, Battle of, 180 Lake Ontario, 183 Lalla Rookh (Moore), 121, 200, 205 Lamb, Lady Caroline Byron and, xv, 97, 113, 114, 130, 131, 132, 136, 157 on flagellation, 165 Glenarvon, 100, 114, 131 Lamb, Charles on Bannister, 66 at Coleridge lecture, 97 Field and, 210–11 on the Great Fair, 91 Leigh Hunt and, 25, 26 and “Immortal Dinner”, 93–4 on Jordan, 65 on Kelly, 65 and London exhibitions, 94 on Munden, 67 on Napoleon, 179 political satire, 42, 46 at the theater, 62 Lamb, Elizabeth, Viscountess Melbourne, 123, 129–30 Lamb, Mary, 25 Lamb, William, 2nd Viscount Melbourne, 130, 165 landscape gardening, 250–51 landscape painting, 256–9 Laon and Cythna (Percy Shelley), 162 laudanum, 203–7 law enforcement, 21–23 Lawrence, James, 134 Lawrence, Thomas, 95, 289 on Constable, 258 portraits of Regent, 2, 236–7 portraits of Regency high society, 234–7, 289 and Raeburn, 242 Siddons portrait, 70 and Waterloo Chamber, 236 Williams, John sketched by, 20 Lawrence, William, 97, 278–80 Lawton, Charles, 155 Le Couteur, John, 187 lecture series, 64, 97 Leigh, Augusta, 163 Lennox, Lord William Pitt, 238 lesbianism, 145, 148–9, 155–6 Leslie, Charles Robert, 65, 254 Letters from Illinois (Birkbeck), 223 Letters on Marriage (Kitchener), 134 Levant, 157, 188–9 Leveson-Gower, George Granville, 2nd Marquess of Stafford, 32–3, 97 Lewis, Matthew “Monk”, 153–4, 212–14 Liber Studiorum (Book of Studies) (Turner), 261 libertinism, 2, 24, 118, 123–9, 129–31, 143, 167, 287 libido (of women), 119, 121–2, 131, 144, 146 Lieven, Countess, 86, 202, 236 as Princess Lieven, 286 Life in London (Egan), 13, 80, 118, 125, 128, 287 Ligny, Battle of, 174–5 “Lines of Torres Vedras”, 170 Linwood, Mary, xiii, 95–7, 96 Lister, Anne, xiv, 118, 155–6, 289 Liston, John, 62, 66–7 literature; see also specific authors; specific works inspired by the East, 199–201 novels, 98–111 poetry, see under poetry rural life in, 251–6 urban life in, 124–8 Littleport riots (Cambridgeshire), 51 Liverpool, 2nd Earl of (Robert Banks Jenkinson), 28–9, 31, 35, 38, 43, 47, 236, 285 and Peterloo, 53, 58 Wellington and, 171, 179 Loch, James, 32 Lockhart, John Gibson and Blackwood, 244, 245 on Byron, 114 and “Cockney School of Poetry”, 245 and “Chaldee Manuscript”, 244 on Edinburgh, 242 on Scott’s Ivanhoe, 108 on Turner’s illustrations, 261 on Wilkie’s rustic scenes, 253 locomotives, 270–73, 273 L’Onanisme (Tissot), 164 London, 230–37 art galleries in, 95–7 Blackwood’s depiction of, 245 civil unrest in, 47–9 class divisions in layout of, 233 construction in, 230–33 crime in, 12–23 economy, 229–30 Edinburgh’s rivalry with, 241–2, 243, 245 entertainment for elites, 85–7 exhibitions in, 94–5 fairs in, 89–91 gambling in, 84–5 homosexuality in, 145–6 modernity in, 230 pleasure gardens, 88–9 population in 1811, 12 poverty in, 233–4, 235 prostitution in, 134–42 shopping in, 87–8 sport in, 75–6 theaters, 62–75 wealth in, 229–30, 234–7 Lord’s Cricket Ground, 75 Losh, William, 273 Louis XVIII, King of France, 169 Lovelace, Ada, 278 “Loyal Address’s & Radical Petitions” (Cruikshank), 46 Ludd, Ned, 34 Luddites, 33–5 Luttrell, Henry, 36, 93 Lynch, Edward, 31 McAdam, John Loudon, 268–9 Macarthur, John, 209, 210 Macaulay, Thomas, xiv, 19, 99 Macaulay, Zachary, 211 Macdonald, Margaret (or Margaritta), 243 Macdonell, Alastair Ranaldson, 242 MacKay, Betsy, 33 Macleod, Donald, 33 McMahon, John, 42, 46 Macquarie, Lachlan, 208–10 Macready, William Charles, 74 Madison, Dolley, 184 Madison, James, 179, 184 Maginn, William, 79, 80, 245 Manchester, 11–12, 37, 51–55, 228, 246–7, 264 Manfred (Byron), 163 Mansfield Park (Austen), 108, 162, 179, 212, 251, 252, 268 Maratha Confederacy, 192 Maratha Wars, 192 March of the Blanketeers, 51 Margate, Kent, 65, 89 Marr, Celia, 19 Marr, Timothy, 19 Marr, Timothy, Jr., 19 Marriage (Ferrier), 227, 267 Mary, Princess, Duchess of Gloucester, 162 Mary-le-Bone Park, 231, 233 “Mask of Anarchy, The” (Percy Shelley), 58 Massinger, Philip, 74 masturbation, 118, 163–4, 166 Mathews, Charles, 62, 67–8, 75 Matilda (Mary Shelley), 163 Matthews, Charles Skinner, 147, 149 Maturin, Charles Robert, 62, 99 Meadowbank, Lord, 148–9 medical students, cadavers for, 15–17 medicine, opium as, 203–4 Medwin, Thomas, 57 Meeke, Elizabeth, 99 Melbourne, Viscountess, see Lamb, Elizabeth Mellor, George, 34–5 Melmoth the Wanderer (Maturin), 99 Melville Island, 219 Memoir of the Principal Occurrences during an Embassy from the British Government to the Court of China (Morrison), 194 Memoirs of the Analytical Society, 277 menageries, 94 Merceron, Joseph, 13–14 “Merry Making on the Regent’s Birthday, 1812” (Cruikshank), 46 methane, 275 Métis people, 223 Middleton, Thomas Fanshaw, 192 Milbanke, Annabella, 111, 189 Mill, James, 25, 39, 198–9, 243 Mill, John Stuart, 39 Mills, Samuel, 13 Milne, William, 194 Milton, John, 44, 93, 97, 112, 133 Minerva Press, 99 Missionary, The (Owenson), 200 Mitford, Mary Russell on cricket, 75 on Hazlitt, xv, 98 on Macadamised roads, 269 on Orientalism, 201 Modern Greece (Hemans), 191 modernity, 33, 227–8, 259 Moira, Lord, see Hastings, Marquess of Molyneaux, Tom, 78–9, 81 Moncrieff, Robert Scott, 243 Moncrieff, William Thomas, 65–6 Monstrosities (Cruikshank), 241 Moore, Thomas and boxing, 79–80 and cholera, 203 and dandyism, 241 and Edinburgh Review, 243 Hazlitt and, 98 Lalla Rookh, 121, 200 on Lawrence’s portrait of the Regent, 236–7 Luttrell and, 93 and opium, 203, 205 and Orientalism, 121, 200, 201, 205 on Perceval assassination, 10 satire of, 43 on Regent, 42, 43, 80, 236 Percy Shelley and, 56 on theater audiences, 63 on Webster, 130 and wit, 93 Moraviantown, Battle of, 183 Morgan, Lady (Sydney Owenson), 100, 200, 219 Morning Chronicle, The, 20, 39, 40, 52, 71, 221 Morning Post, The, 24 Morrison, Robert, 193–4 “Mont Blanc” (Percy Shelley), 57 Moverley, John, 154–5 Munden, Joseph, 67–8 murder, 8–11, 18–20, 34, 54, 58, 110, 219, 223 Murray, John, 133, 158, 217, 244, 252 Murray, Lord James, 19 Murray, Matthew, 271–2 mythology, 59–60, 193, 199 Naples, Joseph, 15–17 Napoleon Bonaparte, 1, 36, 77, 153, 169–79, 225, 230, 236, 247 abdications, 169, 179, 184 Battle of Ligny, 174 Battle of the Nations, 169, 172 Battle of Quatre Bras, 174 Battle of Waterloo, 80, 175–9 bulletproof carriage, 95 Byron’s view of, 178, 241 Cruikshank and, 45 De Quincey’s view of, 170 death of, 286 Elba, exile on, 90, 169, 187 exhibition of memorabilia, 95 homosexuality, attitude toward, 149 Hazlitt and, 39 Charles Lamb’s view of, 179 on “nation of shopkeepers”, 230 Peninsular War, 169, 171 Regent and, 6, 80, 286 Russia, invasion of, 169 Scott’s view of, 178 on St.

Liberty's Dawn: A People's History of the Industrial Revolution by Emma Griffin

agricultural Revolution, Corn Laws, deskilling, equal pay for equal work, full employment, gentrification, informal economy, James Hargreaves, James Watt: steam engine, labour mobility, spinning jenny, Thomas Malthus, trickle-down economics, University of East Anglia, urban sprawl, women in the workforce, working poor

Crowe overcame his diffidence by practising his lectures in secluded corners of the city late at night and by this means established for himself a reputation as a ‘youthful orator, worthy to be hauked about to public meetings’.51 John Charles Buckmaster also credited the temperance movement with teaching him the art of public speaking. As a young apprentice, he became involved with a band of temperance reformers and toured the village holding open meetings. He later became a prominent agitator and propagandist for the Anti-­ Corn Law movement and founded an Anti-­Corn Law Association at Tiverton in Devon. It was all thanks to his little band of temperance advocates. Years later, Buckmaster opined that ‘whatever little success I may have achieved in after years as a public speaker or lecturer is due to these meetings’.52 And the temperance clubs needed their secretaries, fund-­raisers and treasurers just like any other voluntary association.

…

The leather-­dresser John 4017.indd 35 25/01/13 8:21 PM 36 earning a living Colin may have been frequently dismissed for drunkenness, but he was not slow to walk away from positions he disliked. He quit one master because he was ‘such a tyrant’; another because he cut his wages for going to a lecture against the Corn Laws; and another simply because he ‘got sick of the job’.59 William Swan left a good bake-­shop rather than ‘beg pardon’ from his master after the pair had had some ‘high words’.60 Another London baker handed in his notice rather than waste one more of his precious Sunday mornings at his pious master’s family services.61 There was no doubt some degree of story-­telling going on here: men whose lives had been devoted to serving other men’s needs seem to relish recounting the moment when the tables were turned.

…

The dream of social advancement proved elusive, but his education did draw him into a new world of political activism. In addition to his mutual improvement society, the anonymous writer attended political meetings and took ‘a subordinate part in the agitation of some of the great questions of the day – Reform, the Corn Laws, and Temperance’.32 Leatherland and our unnamed autobiographer never became leaders of the causes they espoused. Their contributions have long since been forgotten. Yet each played his part at a local level; ‘subordinate’ players were no less valuable than leaders. Mutual improvement societies helped to create a cadre of working-­class men capable of mobilising political agitation.

The Undercover Economist: Exposing Why the Rich Are Rich, the Poor Are Poor, and Why You Can Never Buy a Decent Used Car by Tim Harford

Alan Greenspan, Albert Einstein, barriers to entry, Berlin Wall, business cycle, collective bargaining, congestion charging, Corn Laws, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, decarbonisation, Deng Xiaoping, Fall of the Berlin Wall, George Akerlof, Great Leap Forward, household responsibility system, information asymmetry, invention of movable type, John Nash: game theory, John von Neumann, Kenneth Arrow, Kickstarter, market design, Martin Wolf, moral hazard, new economy, Pearl River Delta, price discrimination, Productivity paradox, race to the bottom, random walk, rent-seeking, Robert Gordon, Robert Shiller, Ronald Reagan, sealed-bid auction, second-price auction, second-price sealed-bid, Shenzhen special economic zone , Shenzhen was a fishing village, special economic zone, spectrum auction, The Market for Lemons, Thomas Malthus, trade liberalization, Vickrey auction

David Ricardo, for example, was an early campaigner for free trade. He was encouraged by his friend, James Mill, to run for parliament; he won a seat in 1819 when he campaigned for repeal of the Corn Laws, which severely restricted the import of grain. Ricardo’s theories had demonstrated clearly that the Corn Laws were shoveling money into the pockets of landlords at the expense of everyone else in the country. Ricardo was not content simply to observe the effects of the Corn Laws, he wanted to abolish them. Economists come to similar conclusions today about protectionist laws, which, as we will see in chapter 9, protect privileged pressure groups at the expense of the rest of us in the developed world and the developing world alike.

…

care See also externality charges Disney World, 37 Consilience (Wilson), 204 distribution of wealth, 252 contracts, 248 dividends, 140–41 convenience, 6, 12–13, 52, 93 domestic markets, 247 cookies (computer), 36 Douala, Cameroon, 177, 178 cooperation, 196 Dow 36,000 (Glassman and Hassett), Corn Laws, 29 149 corruption drug trade (illegal), 23–25 in Cameroon, 178, 182–86, 186– dual-pricing strategies, 56 89, 189–93 Dupont Circle, 6 • 265 • I N D E X DVDs, 53 Environmental Protection Agency Dye, Tony, 144–45 (EPA), 81, 98–100 Epsilon, 171 eBay, 154, 258n. ethical issues, 53.

Heaven's Command (Pax Britannica) by Jan Morris

British Empire, Cape to Cairo, centralized clearinghouse, Corn Laws, European colonialism, Fellow of the Royal Society, gentleman farmer, Khartoum Gordon, Khyber Pass, land reform, land tenure, Livingstone, I presume, Magellanic Cloud, mass immigration, means of production, Monroe Doctrine, plutocrats, profit motive, Ralph Waldo Emerson, sceptred isle, Scramble for Africa, Suez canal 1869, trade route

Westminster was called the Imperial Parliament only because it had, since 1800, incorporated the parliament of Ireland, while the State Crown was Imperial only in ancient defiance of the Holy Roman Empire. The eighteenth century British Empire, before the loss of the American colonies, had been a self-contained economic system, protected by tariffs, producing its own raw materials, providing its own markets, shipping its own products in its own vessels. The Corn Laws kept foreign competition to a minimum: the Navigation Acts ensured a British monopoly of trade throughout the empire. Now the economic arguments for such a system seemed to be discredited. The progressive theory now was Free Trade, which would allow the goods of all nations to flow without tariffs and restrictions all over the globe, and seemed to make the possession of colonies obsolete.

…

With Great Britain mistress both of the means of production and the means of distribution, was not the whole world her market-place? Why bother with the expense and worry of colonies? Free Trade was not yet accepted British policy, but already powerful lobbies were pressing for the repeal of the Corn Laws and the Navigation Acts, and deriding the idea of empire. Colonies, said Richard Cobden, ‘serve but as gorgeous and ponderous appendages to swell our ostensible grandeur without improving our balance of trade’, and if laissez-faire was the watchword of the nation’s new economic instincts, a suggested slogan for colonial policy was laissez-aller.

…

As the victorious British proceeded with their experiments of political reform, as the thrilling new railways crept across the island—‘the velocity is delightful’, reported Charles Greville the diarist, dubiously taking the Liverpool train that year—as the statesmen of England concerned themselves with the settlement of Europe, and the dumpy young Queen timorously submitted to the burdens of her office—‘very few have more real good will and more real desire to do what is fit and right than I have’—as Dickens got on with Oliver Twist and Landseer started Dignity and Impudence and Darwin worked up his notes on the voyage of the Beagle—as Cobden stormed on about the Corn Laws, and Charles Barry perfected his designs for the new Houses of Parliament, and the coal-grimed girls dragged their wagons through the stifling mine-shafts, and Gladstone settled down to his treatise on Church and State—as this most fascinating of island states entered upon the thirty-sixth reign of its ancient monarchy, the possession of an overseas empire seemed irrelevant to its wealth, dignity and interest.

The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World by Niall Ferguson

Admiral Zheng, Alan Greenspan, An Inconvenient Truth, Andrei Shleifer, Asian financial crisis, asset allocation, asset-backed security, Atahualpa, bank run, banking crisis, banks create money, Bear Stearns, Black Monday: stock market crash in 1987, Black Swan, Black-Scholes formula, Bonfire of the Vanities, Bretton Woods, BRICs, British Empire, business cycle, capital asset pricing model, capital controls, Carmen Reinhart, Cass Sunstein, central bank independence, classic study, collateralized debt obligation, colonial exploitation, commoditize, Corn Laws, corporate governance, creative destruction, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, credit default swaps / collateralized debt obligations, currency manipulation / currency intervention, currency peg, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, deglobalization, diversification, diversified portfolio, double entry bookkeeping, Edmond Halley, Edward Glaeser, Edward Lloyd's coffeehouse, equity risk premium, financial engineering, financial innovation, financial intermediation, fixed income, floating exchange rates, Fractional reserve banking, Francisco Pizarro, full employment, Future Shock, German hyperinflation, Greenspan put, Herman Kahn, Hernando de Soto, high net worth, hindsight bias, Home mortgage interest deduction, Hyman Minsky, income inequality, information asymmetry, interest rate swap, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Isaac Newton, iterative process, James Carville said: "I would like to be reincarnated as the bond market. You can intimidate everybody.", John Meriwether, joint-stock company, joint-stock limited liability company, Joseph Schumpeter, junk bonds, Kenneth Arrow, Kenneth Rogoff, knowledge economy, labour mobility, Landlord’s Game, liberal capitalism, London Interbank Offered Rate, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, market bubble, market fundamentalism, means of production, Mikhail Gorbachev, Modern Monetary Theory, Money creation, money market fund, money: store of value / unit of account / medium of exchange, moral hazard, mortgage debt, mortgage tax deduction, Myron Scholes, Naomi Klein, National Debt Clock, negative equity, Nelson Mandela, Nick Bostrom, Nick Leeson, Northern Rock, Parag Khanna, pension reform, price anchoring, price stability, principal–agent problem, probability theory / Blaise Pascal / Pierre de Fermat, profit motive, quantitative hedge fund, RAND corporation, random walk, rent control, rent-seeking, reserve currency, Richard Thaler, risk free rate, Robert Shiller, rolling blackouts, Ronald Reagan, Savings and loan crisis, savings glut, seigniorage, short selling, Silicon Valley, South Sea Bubble, sovereign wealth fund, spice trade, stocks for the long run, structural adjustment programs, subprime mortgage crisis, tail risk, technology bubble, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, The Wisdom of Crowds, Thomas Bayes, Thomas Malthus, Thorstein Veblen, tontine, too big to fail, transaction costs, two and twenty, undersea cable, value at risk, W. E. B. Du Bois, Washington Consensus, Yom Kippur War

He spent money as if it might go out of fashion: on mistresses, on illegitimate children, on suing his father-in-law’s executors, on buying his way into the Order of the Garter, on opposing the Great Reform Bill and the Repeal of the Corn Laws - on anything he felt was compatible with his standing as a duke of the realm and the living embodiment of The Land. He prided himself on ‘resisting any measure injurious to the agricultural interests, no matter by what Government it should be brought forward’. Indeed, he resigned as Lord Privy Seal in Sir Robert Peel’s government rather than support Corn Law Repeal.10 By 1845, however - even before the mid-century slump in grain prices, in other words - his debts were close to overwhelming him.

…

By contrast, the borrower’s sole security against the loss of his property to such creditors is his income. Unfortunately for the great landowners of Victorian Britain, that suddenly fell away. From the late 1840s onwards, the combination of increasing grain production around the world, plummeting transport costs and falling tariff barriers - exemplified by the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846 - eroded the economic position of landowners. As grain prices slid from a peak of $3 a bushel in 1847 to a nadir of 50 cents in 1894, so did the income from agricultural land. Rates of return on rural property slumped from 3.65 per cent in 1845 to just 2.51 per cent in 1885.8 As The Economist put it: ‘No security was ever relied upon with more implicit faith, and few have lately been found more sadly wanting than English land.’

…

Chongqing 332-3 Christians: in China 292 and money 1 and usury 35 Churchill, Sir Winston 204 Citadel Investment Group 2 Citigroup 337 City Bank of New York 352 civil rights 250 civil services 75-6 class conflicts 243 clay tokens and tablets 27-31 clergymen 191-2 climate change 14-15 Clinton, Bill 65 Clive, Robert 135 coal 235 Cobbett, William 99 Coen, Jan Pieterszoon 134 co-evolution 350 cognitive traps 345-7 coins/coinage 24-5 alternatives to 25; see also clay tokens and tablets; electronic money; paper money debasements, shortages and depreciations 25 ; see also currency devaluations shortages 25 collateral see shares collateralized obligations: debt (CDOs) 8 mortgage 260 Colombia 18 Colonial Loans Act 294 colonial securities 293-4 Colonial Stock Act 294 Columbus, Christopher 19 commercial banks 56 Commission for the Formalization of Informal Property 277 commodity markets and prices 10 surge in (2000s) 6 and war 10 communications, improvements in 287 Communists 17 and Great Depression 242 and money 17-18 Communist states: and capital debt market 308 central planning 19 and labour 18-19 and money 18 Community Reinvestment Act 251 companies: conglomeration 352 creation of 61 extinction among 349-50 invention and development of 120 new types 352-4 regulation of 156 Company of the Indies (Compagnie des Indes) see Mississippi Company Company of the West (Compagnie d’Occident) 140 competition 350 computers 116 concentration of ownership 351 condottieri 69-71 conduits 5 Confederacy 92-8 confidence intervals 189 conglomerates 352 conjunction fallacy 345-6 conquistadors 1 Conservative party: housing policies 251-2 and welfare state 210 Consolidated Fund 75 consols 76-7 Constable (Archibald) 196 Constantinople 36 construction industry 242 consumer durables 160 consumer finance and credit 3 consumption, falls in 342 convertibility see currency cooperatives see banks Corn Law Repeal 236 Coromandel 135 corporate finance 3 corruption 294 cost of living, rises 26 cotton 94-6 council housing 251-252. see also public housing counterparty risks 272 country banks 53 Countrywide Financial 272 coupon 67 crashes see financial crises Crawford, William 255 creationism 356 credit: borrowing against future earnings 282 essential for growth 31 instalment 160 origins of 30-1 ratings 249-50 as total of banks’ assets 51 see also debt; microfinance credit card holders 10-11 credit crunches: 1914: 299 2007-8: see financial crises credit default swaps (CDS) 4 credit markets: crisis (2007) 272 infancy 37 Crdit Mobilier 56 Credit Suisse 271 credit unions 280 creditworthiness 51 crises see financial crises Croatia 2 cross-border capital flows see capital (export) crowds 346-7 Crusades 25 currency: conversion problems 42 convertibility 300-1 first global (Spanish) 25-6 manipulation 338 pegs 58 reform: Amsterdam 48; Argentina 112 see also coins/coinage; exchange rates currency devaluations/crises/ collapses 67 Argentina 110-11 medieval monarchs 307 sterling devaluation (1992) 317-18 after First World War 107 current accounts 49 Dallas 253 Dante Alighieri 35 Darmstädter Bank 56 Darrow, Charles 231 Darwin, Charles 358 Darwinian processes in financial system 14 Datini, Francesco 186 Da Vinci Code, The 32n.

Open: The Story of Human Progress by Johan Norberg

Abraham Maslow, additive manufacturing, affirmative action, Albert Einstein, anti-globalists, basic income, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Bletchley Park, Brexit referendum, British Empire, business cycle, business process, California gold rush, carbon tax, citizen journalism, classic study, Clayton Christensen, clean water, cognitive dissonance, collective bargaining, Corn Laws, coronavirus, COVID-19, creative destruction, crony capitalism, decarbonisation, deindustrialization, Deng Xiaoping, digital map, Donald Trump, Edward Jenner, fake news, Fall of the Berlin Wall, falling living standards, Filter Bubble, financial innovation, flying shuttle, Flynn Effect, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, future of work, Galaxy Zoo, George Gilder, Gini coefficient, global pandemic, global supply chain, global village, green new deal, humanitarian revolution, illegal immigration, income per capita, Indoor air pollution, indoor plumbing, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invisible hand, Isaac Newton, Islamic Golden Age, James Watt: steam engine, Jane Jacobs, Jeff Bezos, job automation, John von Neumann, joint-stock company, Joseph Schumpeter, Kickstarter, knowledge economy, labour mobility, Lao Tzu, liberal capitalism, manufacturing employment, mass immigration, negative emissions, Network effects, open borders, open economy, Pax Mongolica, place-making, profit motive, RAND corporation, regulatory arbitrage, rent control, Republic of Letters, road to serfdom, Ronald Reagan, Schrödinger's Cat, sharing economy, side project, Silicon Valley, Solyndra, spice trade, stem cell, Steve Bannon, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Steven Pinker, tacit knowledge, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas L Friedman, too big to fail, trade liberalization, trade route, transatlantic slave trade, Tyler Cowen, Uber for X, ultimatum game, universal basic income, World Values Survey, Xiaogang Anhui farmers, zero-sum game

The most rapid economic and technological progress has always taken place in cultures that opened up and engaged in deep and long-distance commercial ties with others: bands of trading cities, like the Phoenicians and the Hanseatic League in the late Middle Ages; city-states like Athens, Venice, Singapore and Hong Kong; countries like the Dutch Republic, Great Britain, the US and Japan after the Meiji Restoration; the Muslim world before the Mongol invasions; India under Ashoka the Great and after the reforms of the 1990s; and China during the Song dynasty and after Mao’s death. Nineteenth-century Europe is another example. As steamships and railroads reduced the cost of transporting goods, countries also began to give their citizens greater freedom to trade. Britain led the way in 1846, as it abolished the Corn Laws that had increased the price of bread for the hungry masses by enforcing trade restrictions on imported food. In 1860, Richard Cobden, who had led the fight against the tariffs, negotiated an Anglo– French trade treaty that had a most-favoured-nations clause, which meant that any trade opening given to one country had to be extended to all other members.

…

Many of the changes had started before 1688, and many others would have to wait a long time. Catholic emancipation would only take its first, modest steps a century later, and the idea that human rights applied to the female half of humanity was still a long way off. The victory for free trade, with the abolition of the Corn Laws that benefited landowners at the expense of the hungry, would take more than 150 years. And even though they talked about rule of law, property rights and free speech, the British still enslaved, robbed and silenced colonial subjects. Nonetheless, compared to what had come before (not just in Britain, but all over the world), the changes were substantial and the country had been set on a new path that would make subsequent steps towards a more open society come more naturally.

…

INDEX Abbasid Caliphate (750–1258), 6, 136–7, 138, 169, 353 abortion, 113 absolutist monarchies, 154, 155, 170, 182, 185 Academy Awards, 82 Accenture, 375 accountants, 41 Acemoglu, Daron, 185, 187, 200 Achaemenid Empire (550–330 BC), 86–7, 88, 249 Acton, Lord, see Dalberg-Acton, John Adams, Douglas, 295 Adobe, 310 Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), 306 Aeschylus, 132 affirmative action, 244 Afghanistan, 70, 345 Age of Discovery, 177 agriculture, 39–40, 42, 74, 171, 263 Akbar I, Mughal Emperor, 98 Akkadian Empire (c. 2334–2154 BC), 42 Alaska, 76 Albania, 54 Albertus Magnus, Saint, 145 d’Alembert, Jean-Baptiste le Rond, 154 Alexander III ‘the Great’, Basileus of Macedon, 87–9 Alexandria, Egypt, 134 algae, 332 algebra, 137 Alibaba, 311 Allport, Gordon, 244–5 Almohad Caliphate (1121–1269), 137–8 alpha males, 227–8, 229 Alphaville, 245 altruism, 216 Amalric, Arnaud, 94 Amazon, 275, 311 America First, 19, 272 American Civil War (1861–5), 109 American Declaration of Independence (1776), 103, 201, 202 American Revolutionary War (1775–83), 102–3, 200–201 American Society of Human Genetics, 76–7 Americanization, 19 Amherst, William, 1st Earl Amherst, 176–7 amphorae, 48 Amsterdam, Holland, 150, 152, 153 An Lushan Rebellion (755–63), 352 anaesthesia, 279, 296 anagrams, 83 Anatolia, 42, 74 Anaximander, 127 Anaximenes, 127 al-Andalus (711–1492), 97, 137–9, 140 Andromeda, 88 Anglo–French Treaty (1860), 53–4 Anhui, China, 315 anti-Semitism, 11, 94–7, 109, 220, 233, 251, 254, 255 anti-Semitism, 254–5, 356 Antonine Plague (165–80), 77 Antoninus Pius, Roman Emperor, 91 Apama, 88 Appiah, Kwame Anthony, 5 Apple, 82, 195, 304, 311, 319 Apuleius, 89 Arab Spring (2011), 10, 342 Arabic numerals, 70, 137, 156 Arabic, 136, 137, 140 archaeology, 21–2, 31, 32, 38, 43, 50, 51 Archer Daniels Midland, 329 Aristides, Aelius, 48 Aristophanes, 129, 131, 132 Aristotle, 130–31, 132, 137, 141–6, 161 Armenians, 136, 220 ARPAnet, 306 Art Nouveau, 198 art, 198 Artaxerxes III, Persian Emperor, 87 Ashkenazi Jews, 99 Ashoka, Mauryan Emperor, 53 Assyria (2500–609 BC), 248–9 Assyrian Empire (2500–609 BC), 41, 43, 86 astronomy, 80, 145–6, 150 Atari, 304 Athens, 47, 53, 89, 90, 131, 134 Atlas Copco, 65 Augustine of Hippo, 133, 139 Australia, 50–53, 76, 262 Australopithecus afarensis, 24–5 Austria, 1, 150, 151, 190 Austria-Hungary (1867–1918), 179, 254 Battle of Vienna (1683), 237, 238 Habsburg monarchy (1282–1918), 151, 179, 190, 237 migration crisis (2015–), 342 Mongol invasion (1241), 95 Nazi period (1938–45), 105 Ötzi, 1–2, 8–9, 73, 74 Thirty Years War (1618–48), 150 Authoritarian Dynamic, The (Stenner), 343 authoritarianism, 4, 14, 220, 343–61, 363, 379 democracy and, 357 economics and, 346–51 exposure to difference and, 242 innovation and, 318 insecurity and, 338, 342, 378 media and, 346–9 nostalgia and 351–4 predisposition, 220, 343–6 populism and, 325, 350–51 scapegoats and, 355–6 science and, 161–3 automatic looms, 179 automation, 63, 312–13 Averroes, 137–8, 143, 144, 145 Aztec Empire (1428–1521), 55 Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, 75 baby-boom generation (1946–64), 294, 340 Babylon, 39, 86–7 Babylonia (1895–539 BC), 39, 42, 43, 86–7, 128, 131, 249, 267 Bacon, Francis, 147, 156, 165–6, 201 bad news, 322 Baghdad, 70, 136, 353 Bahrain, 42 Bailey, Ron, 11 Bailyn, Bernard, 201 balance of trade, 59–60 Banda Islands, 100 Bangladesh, 270 Bannon, Steve, 14, 108 Barcelona, Catalonia, 320 Basel, Switzerland, 152 Battle of Vienna (1683), 237, 238 Bayezid II, Ottoman Sultan, 98 Bayle, Pierre, 158 Beginning of Infinity, The (Deutsch), 332 Behavioural Immune System, 222 Beirut, Lebanon, 236 benefit–cost ratio, 60, 61, 62 Berges, Aida, 80 Bering land bridge, 76 Berkeley, see University of California, Berkeley Berlin Wall, fall of (1989), 10, 340, 341, 363, 364 Berners-Lee, Timothy, 307–8 Bernstein, William, 42 Berossus, 267 Better Angels of Our Nature, The (Pinker), 243 Beveridge, William, 59 Béziers, France, 94 Bezos, Jeffrey, 274, 275–6, 277 Bi Sheng, 171 Bible, 46, 72, 248–50, 296 bicycles, 297 de Biencourt, Charles, 189 Big Five personality traits, 7 Black Death (1346–53), 77, 139, 208, 356, 352, 356 Blade Runner, 334 Bletchley Park, Buckinghamshire, 124–6 Blue Ghosts, 236 Bohr, Niels, 105 Bolt, Beranek and Newman (BBN), 307 bonobos, 226–7 Book of Jonah, 248–50 Borjas, George, 116 Boston, Massachusetts, 122, 223 Boudreaux, Donald, 62, 270 Boulton, Matthew, 194 Bowles, Samuel, 216 Boym, Svetlana, 288 Brandt, Willy, 364 Brewer, Marilynn, 247 Brexit (2016–), 9, 14, 118, 238, 240–41, 349, 354, 379 Brezhnev, Leonid, 315 Britain, 169, 181–99 Acts of Union (1707), 101, 194 Afghanistan War (2001–14), 345 Amherst Mission (1816), 176–7 anti-Semitism in, 254 arts, 198 Bletchley Park, 124–6 Brexit (2016–), 9, 14, 118, 238, 240–41, 349, 354, 379 Cheddar Man, 74 Cobden–Chevalier Treaty (1860), 53–4 coffee houses, 166 colonies, 84, 191, 194, 200 Corn Laws repeal (1846), 53, 191 creative destruction in, 179 crime in, 119, 120 Dutch War (1672–4), 101 English Civil War (1642–1651), 148, 183, 184, 201 Glorious Revolution (1688), 101, 185–8, 190, 193 hair powder tax (1795), 72 immigration in, 113, 115, 118, 119, 120, 193–4 Industrial Revolution, 188–99, 202 innovation in, 53, 189–90 Internet, development of, 307–8 Iraq War (2003–11), 345 Levellers, 183–4, 186 literacy in, 188, 198 literature, 188–9 London Bridge stabbings (2019), 120 London 7/7 bombings (2005), 341 Macartney Mission (1793), 176 Magna Carta (1215), 5 monopolies, 182 MPs’ expenses scandal (2009), 345 Muslim community, 113 Navigation Acts, 192 nostalgia in, 294 open society, 169, 181–2, 195–9 patent system, 189–90, 203, 314 Peasants’ Revolt (1381), 208 political tribalism in, 238, 240–41 poverty in, 256 railways in, 297 Royal Society, 156, 157, 158, 196, 296 ruin follies, 286–7 slavery, abolition of (1807), 182, 205 smuggling in, 192 Statute of Labourers (1351), 208 United States, migration to, 104 West Africa Squadron, 205 Whig Party, 185, 201 World War II (1939–45), 124–6 British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), 135 Bronze Age (c. 3300–600 BC) Late Bronze-Age Collapse (1200–1150 BC), 44, 49, 54 migration to Europe, 74–5 Phoenician civilization, 43–6, 49, 70 Sumerian civilization, 42–3 Brotherton, Rob, 322 Brown, Donald, 219, 283 Bruges, Flanders, 208 Bruno, Giordano, 150 Bryn Mawr College, 201 Buddhism, 96, 149, 352 Bulgaria, 73, 342 Bureau of Labor Statistics, US, 65 Burke, Edmund, 152, 292 Bush, George Walker, 328 ByteDance, 318 Byzantine Empire (395–1453), 94, 134, 135, 155, 224 California Gold Rush (1848–1855), 104 Calvin, John, 149 Calvinism, 6, 99, 153, 356 Canada, 235, 258 Caplan, Bryan, 258 Caracalla, Roman Emperor, 91 Carbon Engineering, 332 Cardwell, Donald, 10 Cardwell’s Law, 10 Carlson, Tucker, 82, 302 Carlyle, Thomas, 206 Carthage (814–146 BC), 45 Caspian Sea, 75 Cathars, 94, 142 Catherine II, Empress of Russia, 154 Catholicism, 208 in Britain, 101, 185–6, 191 Crusades, 94, 138 in Dutch Republic, 99 exiles and, 153 in France, 154 Jews, persecution of, 97–8, 100, 106, 140, 233 Inquisition, 94, 97, 98, 100, 143, 150 in Italy, 6, 169 Muslims, persecution of, 97, 106, 233 Papacy, 102, 142, 143, 152, 155, 178, 237 in Rwanda, 230–31 in United States, 102, 104, 108, 254 values and, 114 Cato’s Letters (Trenchard and Gordon), 201 Celts, 89, 289 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 313 Ceres, 89 Cerf, Vinton, 307 CERN (Conseil européen pour la recherche nucléaire), 306, 307 chariot racing, 224 Charles I, King of England, Scotland and Ireland, 148, 179, 183 Chávez, Hugo, 354 Chechen War, Second (1999–2009), 354 Cheddar Man, 74 cheongsam dresses, 73 Chesterton, Gilbert Keith, 286, 300 Chicago principles, 164–5 Chicago, Illinois, 202 child mortality, 168–9 Child, Josiah, 184 children, 26 chimpanzees, 24, 25, 32, 36, 226–7, 228 China, 4, 5, 6, 13, 84, 270, 314–18 Amherst Mission (1816), 176–7 An Lushan Rebellion (755–63), 352 Antonine Plague (165–80), 77 authoritarianism, 4, 162–3, 175, 318, 325, 343 budget deficits, 60 cheongsam dresses, 73 Confucianism, 129, 149, 169, 176 COVID-19 pandemic (2019–20), 4, 11–12, 162–3 Cultural Revolution (1966–76), 355 dictatorships, support for, 367 dynamism in, 315–18 ethnic groups in, 84 Great Wall, 178 industrialization 169, 172–3, 207 intellectual property in, 58 kimonos, 73 literacy in, 148 Macartney Mission (1793), 176 Ming dynasty (1368–1644), 54, 148, 175, 177–8, 179, 215 national stereotypes, 235, 236 overcapacity in, 317 paper, invention of, 136 private farming initiative (1978), 315–16 productivity in, 317 poverty in, 273, 316 Qing dynasty (1644–1912), 148, 149, 151, 153, 175–7, 179, 353 Reform and Opening-up (1979–), 4, 53, 56, 315–16 SARS outbreak (2002), 162 science in, 4, 13, 70, 153, 156, 162–3, 169–73, 269 Silk Road, 171, 174, 352 Song dynasty (960–1279), 53, 169–75 state capitalism in, 316–17 Tang dynasty (618–907), 84, 170, 177, 352 Taoism, 129, 149 trade barriers, 59 United States, migration to, 104, 109, 254 United States, trade with, 19, 57, 58–9, 62–3, 64 WTO accession (2001), 63 Yuan Empire (1271–1368), 174–5 Zheng He’s voyages (1405–33), 177–8 Chinese Exclusion Act (1882), 254 Christensen, Clayton, 305 Christianity, 46, 70, 96, 129 Bible, 46, 72, 248–50, 296 in Britain, 101 Calvinism, 6, 99, 149, 153, 356 Cathars, 94, 142 clash of civilizations narrative, 237 Crusades, 94, 138 Catholicism, see Catholicism Dominican order, 356 in Dutch Republic, 99 economic hardship and, 359 fundamentalism, 133–5, 149 Great Awakening (1730–55), 102 Great Vanishing, 134–5 Inquisition, 97, 98, 100 Jews, persecution of, 95, 96, 97 Lutheranism, 99, 356 in Mongol Empire, 96 Old Testament, 46, 72 orthodox backlash, 149–50 Orthodox Church, 155 Papacy, 102, 142, 143, 152, 155, 178, 233 Protestantism, 99, 104, 148, 149, 153, 169, 178 Puritanism, 99, 102 Rastafari and, 72 Reformation, 148, 155 in Roman Empire, 90, 93–4 science and, 133–5, 141–6, 149–50 Thirty Years War (1618–48), 97 tribalism and, 230–31, 246 zero-sum relationships and, 248–50 Chua, Amy, 84 Cicero, 141 Cilician, Gates, 42 cities, 40, 79, 140 division of labour in, 40 immigration and, 114, 250 innovation and, 40, 53, 79, 140, 145, 172, 287 liberalism and, 339 Mesopotamia, 37–43 open-mindedness and, 35 productivity and, 40, 98 tradition and, 287, 291 turtle theory and, 121–2 civic nationalism, 377–8 civil society, 6, 199, 253, 358, 363 clash of civilizations narrative, 237, 362–3, 365–6 ‘Clash of Civilizations?’

The Pursuit of Power: Europe, 1815-1914 by Richard J. Evans

agricultural Revolution, Albert Einstein, Alfred Russel Wallace, Anton Chekhov, British Empire, clean water, company town, Corn Laws, demographic transition, Edward Jenner, Ernest Rutherford, Etonian, European colonialism, feminist movement, Ford Model T, full employment, gentleman farmer, germ theory of disease, glass ceiling, Great Leap Forward, hiring and firing, Honoré de Balzac, Ignaz Semmelweis: hand washing, imperial preference, income inequality, independent contractor, industrial cluster, Isaac Newton, it's over 9,000, Jacquard loom, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, joint-stock company, Khartoum Gordon, land bank, land reform, land tenure, Livingstone, I presume, longitudinal study, Louis Blériot, Louis Daguerre, Louis Pasteur, means of production, minimum wage unemployment, mittelstand, Monroe Doctrine, moral panic, New Urbanism, Panopticon Jeremy Bentham, pneumatic tube, profit motive, railway mania, Ralph Waldo Emerson, safety bicycle, Scaled Composites, Scientific racism, Scramble for Africa, source of truth, spinning jenny, strikebreaker, Suez canal 1869, the scientific method, Thomas Malthus, trade route, University of East Anglia, Upton Sinclair, urban renewal, vertical integration

In November 1845 the Mansion House Committee, consisting of a number of important figures including Augustus Fitzgerald, Duke of Leinster (1791–1874), and the Lord Mayor of Dublin, condemned ‘the culpable conduct of the present administration’ for the ‘crime of keeping the ports closed against the importation of foreign provisions’, which drove up prices ‘for the benefit of a selfish class who derive at the present awful crisis pecuniary advantages to themselves by the maintenance of the oppressive Corn Laws’. Worse still, the ports remained open for the export of Irish grain, in ‘a quantity nearly adequate to feed the entire people of Ireland’. The government of Sir Robert Peel (1788–1850) in London announced in January 1846 its intention to repeal the Corn Laws, a triumph for a lengthy campaign waged by the liberal, mostly middle-class proponents of free trade; but the passage of the Bill in June 1846 came too late for Ireland, since it only provided for a gradual reduction of import duties until their final abolition in 1849.

…

The mantle of the country’s leading pressure group fell on the Anti-Corn-Law League, which enjoyed strong middle-class backing for the ending of import tariffs on corn, and mounted a sophisticated and well-organized campaign that ended in success in 1846. The aristocratic Whigs voted with Peel, recognizing the need for a concession despite their identification with the landowning interest, but a strong minority of Tory MPs, led by the opportunistic young novelist-politician Benjamin Disraeli and counting among its number many gentry farmers, voted to support the Corn Laws and split the party, with the result that the Whigs were returned to office.

…

During the crisis, mortality rose in Ireland by a staggering 330 per cent, compared to a more modest but still grim rise of 40 per cent in Flanders. Distressing reports of the rapidly deteriorating situation in Ireland were already beginning to reach England in the autumn of 1845. Action had to be taken. But there were political obstacles in the way. The most important of these were the Corn Laws, which protected British agriculture by favouring exports while imposing extremely steep import duties on grain from outside the country. Their existence reflected the domination of landowning, grain-producing aristocrats in British politics, and they were not going to abandon them without a fight.

The English by Jeremy Paxman

back-to-the-land, British Empire, Charles Babbage, colonial rule, Corn Laws, Etonian, game design, George Santayana, global village, high-speed rail, Isaac Newton, James Hargreaves, Khartoum Gordon, mass immigration, Neil Kinnock, Own Your Own Home, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Right to Buy, sensible shoes, Stephen Fry, Suez canal 1869, urban sprawl, women in the workforce

More than that, the revolution gave the cities a deep suspicion of much of the countryside for its supposed royalist sympathies: the new republican France was aware of its peasant roots but determinedly and sophisticatedly urban. In England, too, there was a political dimension to the division between the conservatism of the country and the radical ideas born in cities. It was in Manchester that the agitation began that led the Anti-Corn Law League to campaign for fairer grain prices. Birmingham nurtured the Liberal caucus. The Independent Labour party was founded in Bradford. Apart from a few leafy enclaves of prosperity, cities like Manchester, Bradford and Newcastle became the sort of places where you could have pinned a red rosette to a donkey and seen it elected.

…

Robert Runcie, ‘Lecture on the 1400th Anniversary of the Mission of St Augustine to Canterbury’, 27 February 1997. 6. Like many of Melbourne’s bons mots (e.g. ‘While I cannot be a pillar of the church, I must be regarded as a buttress, because I support it from the outside’ or his question after cabinet discussions on Corn Law reform ‘Now, is it to lower the price of corn, or isn’t it? It is not much matter which we say, but mind, we must all say the same’) the remark is attributed. G. W. E. Russell, Collections and Recollections, Chap. 6. 7. The talk is reprinted in The Spirit of England, Allen & Unwin, 1942, pp. 74–9. 8.

…

INDEX Abbey National Bank, 122 abortion, 101 Académie Française, 237 Ackroyd, Peter, 175 Act of Settlement (1701), 97 Act of Union, 20, 43 Acton, Dr, 179, 180, 228–9 Addison, Joseph, 185 Agincourt, battle of, 83 After London (Jefferies), 160 Alexander, Grand Duke Carl, 119 Alfred of Wessex, 135 Alivuhare, Ruwan, 172 All the Year Round (magazine), 216 Alms for Oblivion (Raven), 203 American War of Independence, 194 Amis, Kingsley, 210–11 Amis, Martin, 175 Amsterdam, 171–2 Anatomy of Melancholy (Burton), 186 ancestral enemy, French as, 25 Anderson, Elizabeth Garrett, 227 ‘Angel in the House’, 223 Anglo–French Alliance, The (Jerrold), 24 Anglo-Saxons, racial purity and, 53 Anita Street, Manchester, 121 Annual Register, 215, 216 Anti-Corn Law League, 163 Anti-Slavery Society, 140 Anyone for England? (Aslet), 15 Arbuthnot, John, 126, 184 Arkwright, Richard, 157 Armstrong, Herbert W., 94 Army, ranks in, 138 arrogance, 129–40 art, 110–11 Ashdown, Paddy, 168 Ashton, Winifred, see Dane, Clemence Aslet, Clive, 15 Asquith, Henry Herbert, 220 Atlantic Charter, 39 Auchinleck, Marshal, 180 Austen, Jane, 105 Axelrod, George, 127 Babbage, Charles, 63 Badawi, Dr Zaki, 75 Baden-Powell, Robert, 181 Bagehot, Walter, 53 Baldwin, Stanley, 142–3, 168 Barnes, Julian, 175 Barnett, Henrietta, 220 Barot, Dr, 68 Barrow, John, 134 Barzini, Luigi, 63 Battle of Britain, 3, 84–5, 150, 196 Beaminster, Dorset, 166 Beatles, 174 Beaufort, Bishop, 84 Beaumarchais, Pierre Augustin Caron de, 194 Beaverbrook, Lord, 85 Beeton, Mrs, 224 Behn, Aphra, 228 Belgae, 53 Bennett, Alan, 17–18 Benson, A.

Behemoth: A History of the Factory and the Making of the Modern World by Joshua B. Freeman

anti-communist, British Empire, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, Charles Babbage, classic study, clean water, collective bargaining, company town, Corn Laws, corporate raider, cotton gin, deindustrialization, Deng Xiaoping, disruptive innovation, driverless car, en.wikipedia.org, factory automation, flying shuttle, Ford Model T, Ford paid five dollars a day, Frederick Winslow Taylor, global supply chain, Great Leap Forward, Herbert Marcuse, high-speed rail, household responsibility system, indoor plumbing, interchangeable parts, invisible hand, James Hargreaves, joint-stock company, knowledge worker, mass immigration, means of production, mittelstand, Naomi Klein, new economy, On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures, Panopticon Jeremy Bentham, Pearl River Delta, post-industrial society, Ralph Waldo Emerson, rising living standards, Ronald Reagan, scientific management, Shenzhen special economic zone , Silicon Valley, special economic zone, spinning jenny, Steve Jobs, strikebreaker, techno-determinism, technoutopianism, the built environment, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thorstein Veblen, Tim Cook: Apple, transaction costs, union organizing, Upton Sinclair, urban planning, Vanguard fund, vertical integration, women in the workforce, working poor, Works Progress Administration, zero-sum game

He blamed neither the factory system nor the mill owners but depressed economic conditions stemming from Britain’s extended conflict with France and restrictions on trade, a view echoed by Charlotte Brontë in her novel Shirley (set at the time of the Napoleonic Wars). For Taylor, there was one thing worse than juvenile labor, “juvenile starvation.” “I would rather see boys and girls earning the means of support in the mill than starving by the roadside, shivering on the pavement, or even conveyed in an omnibus to Bridewell.” As a propagandist against the Corn Laws, which put a tariff on imported grain, for Taylor the solution to the ills of the factory lay in free trade, which would expand markets abroad and cheapen food at home.75 Thomas Carlyle shared Taylor’s view that the ills of the factory system were not intrinsic to it: “Cotton-spinning is the clothing of the naked in its results; the triumph of man over matter in its means.

…

Some factory defenders opposed regulation on the grounds that property rights were absolute.77 A potentially powerful argument in the defense of the factory system—that if conditions were bad, they were no worse than elsewhere—gained little purchase, even though in many respects it was true. Cooke Taylor took a jab at the rural gentry—supporters of the Corn Laws—in claiming that conditions for agricultural workers were worse than for factory workers. Ure argued that the lot of handcraft workers was worse than “those much-lamented labourers who tend the power-driven machines of a factory,” while children working in coal mines were worse off than in textile factories.

…

The failure of the Chartists to win their demands, in spite of their huge success in mobilizing support, took much of the wind out of the sails of the radical movements. At the same time, Chartism, with its emphasis on male suffrage, shifted attention away from female and child mill workers to adult men: artisans, construction workers, and other nonfactory laborers. The campaign against the Corn Laws, which began in 1838 and triumphed eight years later, rearranged the political terrain, too, in effect bringing workers and mill owners into alliance against the landed gentry, at least on this one, much debated issue. Further easing tensions, more mill owners began adopting paternalist practices, which had been prevalent among some of the earliest textile manufacturers, like Arkwright and Strutt, but rejected by many others.101 Textile workers continued to protest conditions they faced in the mills, but their struggles were no more prominent than those of miners and other groups acting through unions.

Small Men on the Wrong Side of History: The Decline, Fall and Unlikely Return of Conservatism by Ed West

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, anti-communist, assortative mating, battle of ideas, Beeching cuts, Berlin Wall, Black Lives Matter, Boris Johnson, Brexit referendum, British Empire, Broken windows theory, Bullingdon Club, centre right, clean water, cognitive dissonance, Corn Laws, David Attenborough, David Brooks, deindustrialization, delayed gratification, desegregation, different worldview, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, en.wikipedia.org, Etonian, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Ferguson, Missouri, future of work, gender pay gap, George Santayana, Herbert Marcuse, illegal immigration, Jeremy Corbyn, labor-force participation, laissez-faire capitalism, lump of labour, mass immigration, means of production, megacity, meta-analysis, moral hazard, moral panic, Neil Kinnock, Nelson Mandela, Norman Mailer, obamacare, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, Overton Window, pattern recognition, Ralph Nader, replication crisis, rising living standards, Ronald Reagan, Scientific racism, Social Justice Warrior, Stephen Fry, Steve Bannon, Steven Pinker, TED Talk, Thomas Malthus, Tragedy of the Commons, Turing test, twin studies, urban decay, War on Poverty, Winter of Discontent, zero-sum game

The Tories had first been referred to as the Conservative Party by John Wilson Croker in 1830 and they came to be officially known as such under Robert Peel, who wished to allow in more moderates, uniting the middle class and old landowners. Unfortunately Peel’s government was wrecked by the Corn Laws controversy, the big cut-across issue of the day; people living in the cities, including merchants and the urban poor, wanted these tariffs abolished because it would lower the cost of food, but the majority of Tories – with their agricultural base – supported them, as they protected farmers. Although the Corn Laws had been repealed by Peel, most of his MPs rebelled and so the free-trade Peelites joined former Whigs in forming the Liberal Party. They came to dominate the next few decades, the golden age of Victorian Liberalism, while Disraeli and the other romantic medievalists were roundly beaten, and on a demographic hiding to nothing, with the urban population rapidly rising each year and the rural Tory world disappearing.

…

And it has gone not entirely to our advantage, for Buchanan’s vision of his country – Christian, European, conservative and basically 1950s-like – has not just been defeated as an idea but made completely unacceptable, beyond the realms of decency. Benjamin Disraeli once said of protectionism that it was ‘not only dead but damned’ after the great nineteenth-century Corn Law dispute was finally resolved, and the same could be said of many conservative ideas by the 1990s; conservatives were not only losing, but holding these ideas put you beyond the norms of society. It made you a bad person. After Buchanan’s famous address journalist Molly Ivins made the cutting remark that it sounded better in the original German; it was a brilliant put-down making a rather unfair point in a memorable and clever way – if you’re a conservative in the Buchanan mould you’re basically a Nazi.

…

K. 69, 210, 265 Chick-fil-A 228–9 child abuse scandals 218, 232 child-rearing 242–7, 250–1 children, indoctrination 256–64 children’s stories 261 China 97, 139, 226–7, 230 Chindamo, Learco 122 Chinese Revolution 256 chlamydia 168 Chown, Marcus 197 Christian Judeaophobia 88 Christian saints 105–6 Christian socialists 240 Christian-run colleges 145–6, 152 Christianity 2, 4, 12, 54, 95, 100, 173, 208, 211, 215–23, 225, 227–9, 229, 264, 275–7, 280, 289, 291–3, 361, 366, 373 and charities 199–200, 202 evangelical 86, 219–20, 243, 338–9 and gender bias 254–5 and human nature 261 ‘Judaising’ 64 and the Left 19 and Marx 93 national 97 norms 79 and original sin 28 Roman 254, 275–6 traditional 167, 219 Western division 48 and women 6 see also Anglicanism; Catholicism; Protestantism; Puritans Christianity 2.0 328 Church 31–2, 37, 60, 64, 66–7, 75, 188, 189, 190, 193, 200, 271 Church of England 49, 50, 64, 145, 197, 202, 211, 212, 220, 222, 289 monarch as the head of 48, 291 churchgoing 211–12, 213–14 Churchill, Winston 82, 106, 161, 196, 274 CIA see Central Intelligence Agency Cincinnatus 328 Cirta 254 City of London 164, 165, 189, 200, 281 civil society 197 civilising process 143, 255 Clarence, Thomas 308 Clark, Alan 157–8 Clark, Kenneth 370 Clarkson, Jeremy 87 Clash 101 class interests 9 Clemenceau, Georges 274 clickbait 343 Clinton, Bill 153, 154, 155–6, 313 Clinton, Hilary 247, 249, 338–9, 340, 363 Clinton era 155 Clooney, George 23, 24, 25, 288 Clovis 254 CND see Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament CNN 297, 314 Cocoa Tree coffee house, Pall Mall 51 Coe, Jonathan 267 Cohen, Geoffrey 294 Cohen, Stanley 34 Cold War 15, 21, 31 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor 55, 78–9, 91–2, 279 collectivism 93 Collot d’Herbois, Jean-Marie 60 comedians 190–2, 265 comedy 331–3 communism 14, 15, 17, 20–1, 80, 93–6, 98, 100, 126, 128, 143–5, 198, 226, 228, 268, 334 fall of 15, 153 see also anti-communism Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist) 244 Communist Party of Great Britain (Provincial Central Committee) 244 Conan the Barbarian 12 Condorcet, Marquis de 239 Congress 300 Conquest, Robert, Three Laws of Politics 198–9, 201, 202 conscientiousness 108 Conservative government 17–18 see also Tory government Conservative Party 1–2, 5, 23, 50, 65, 79, 209, 234, 267, 283 establishment 77 post-Thatcher 280 victory 1992 103 Constantine, Emperor 276 Constantinople 291 constitutions American 345 English 159 Continental Congress 56 Contras 14 Cool Britannia 156 Cooper, Alice 24 Cooper, Gary 161 Coppen, Luke 212 Corbyn, Jeremy 3, 234, 235 Corn Laws 77, 155 Corrigan, Mark 20, 125 Costner, Kevin 131 Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts 197 council housing 176 Counter Reformation 45, 48 Cox, Jo 367–8 crime 84–5, 118–23, 153–4, 163, 181 see also homicide critical theory 135 Croker, John Wilson 77 Cromwell, Oliver 49 Crown, The (TV show) 161–2 Cultural Marxism 103–4, 127 cultural relativism 134 culture wars 31, 86, 100, 124, 154–6, 173, 201–2, 212, 214, 218, 226, 228, 253, 257, 266, 284, 292, 308, 311–13, 342–3, 359–60 ‘Culture Wars’ (blog) 244–5 Cumberbatch, Benedict 10 curat Deus injuria Dei 288 Cyrus, Miley 358 Czechoslovakia 15 Da Vinci Code, The (film, 2006) 213 Dafoe, Willem 110 Daily Express (newspaper) 157, 161, 310–11 Daily Mail (newspaper) 83–4, 87–8, 103, 118–19, 122, 142, 151, 157, 183, 190, 246, 285, 331, 332–3 Daily Telegraph (newspaper) 2, 3, 83, 104, 157, 162, 187, 213, 232, 244–5, 266, 269, 282, 307–8, 315–16 Daley, Janet 46 Dalrymple, Theodore 144, 145, 162–3 Damon, Matt 24 Dance, Charles 235 Dances with Wolves (1991) 131 Danton, Georges 60 Dark Ages 4 Darwin, Charles 148, 350 Davy, Humphry 91 Dawkins, Richard 215, 218, 264, 339 The Blind Watchmaker 72, 164 DDR see German Democratic Republic de Beauvoir, Simone 139 de Maistre, Joseph 67, 89–90, 94, 97, 116, 119 de Montaigne, Michel 373 De Niro, Robert 24, 358 de Rais, Gilles 186 de Tocqueville, Alexis 226 de Tracy, Antoine 221 de Warens, Mme 39–40 Deacon, Joey 141 Dean, James 341 Death Wish (1974) 185 Delingpole, James 307–9 democracy 17, 336, 355, 362 Democrats 5, 7, 51, 73, 112, 117, 224, 237–8, 247–8, 252, 274, 294–5, 297, 300–3, 305, 313, 319–20, 324, 326, 329, 339, 346–7, 360, 363 demos 31 Demos (think tank) 111 Denmark 351 Department of Work and Pensions 204 D’Épinay, Madame 39 Depression 115 depressive realism 30 Derbyshire, John 243 Derry, Lord 159 di Lampedusa, Giuseppe Tomasi, The Leopard 158–9 Diana, Princess 160–1, 310–11 DiCaprio, Leonardo 24 Dickens, Charles 174 Diderot, Denis 213 Dion, Céline 362 ‘dirt gap’ 247 Dirty Harry series 181 disability discrimination 141–2 discrimination 141–2, 304–5 Disraeli, Benjamin 53, 76, 77, 155, 274 Dissenters 50, 51, 52, 57, 61, 211, 293 Divine Right of Kings 50, 67 divorce 166 Dorsey, Jack 228–9 Douglas, Michael 22 DRD4 gene 349 Dre, Dr 122–3 dreams 180 Drebin, Frank 22 Dreger, Alice 328 Dreher, Rod 279, 373 Driscoll, Bill 335 Drop the Dead Donkey (TV show) 194 Drummond, Henry 279 Dufresne, Todd 139 Durkheim, Émile 78, 173, 225 Dworkin, Andrea 170 Dylan, Bob 24, 274 East Germany 15, 268 see also German Democratic Republic eastern Europe 15, 211 Eastwood, Clint 24 Eazy-E 122–3 Ecclestone, Christopher 24, 185 economic deregulation 153 economics 126–7 Economist (magazine) 3, 246, 355 Edexcel 262–3 education 175, 262–3 see also higher education; schools ‘education effect’ 250 educational philosophy 41–3 Edward VI 48 Efteling 339 Eich, Brendan 289 Einsatzgruppen 303 Ekman, Paul 146 ‘Elect’ 64 Electronic Frontier Foundation 290 Elias, Norbert 143 Elizabeth I 48–9, 291 Elizabeth II 161, 293, 331 empiricism 52 Enfield, Harry 208 Engels, Friedrich 173–4, 224 English Civil War 36, 49, 51, 64, 211, 326 English constitution 159 Enlightenment 222, 228, 229, 288 environmental movement 225, 284–6 envy, politics of 281 Episcopalians 115, 145 epistemological modesty 73–4 Equality Act (2006/2010) 199, 217–18, 289 eschatology 227 establishment, the 9–10, 56 Ethelbert of Kent 254 Eton 47 eugenics 139 Euripides 187 Europe 12 eastern 15, 211 European Union (EU) 353–8 referendum (2016) 3, 173, 222, 270, 275, 302, 354–5, 357, 359 Euroscepticism 353–4, 355 Eve 33, 219 Eve, Lady Balfour 284 Everyone Says I Love You (1996) 102 evolution 72 extroversion 108 F (Fascism) Scale 195 FA Cup 193 Fabians 80, 96 Facebook 4, 19–20, 26, 103, 174, 219, 237–8, 296–7, 298–300, 311, 343, 354 ‘Fairness Doctrine’ 312 faith schools 137 Falklands War 194 Falling Down (1993) 22, 185 Family Planning Association 241 Farage, Nigel 309, 355 fascism 94–7, 179 Fascism (F) Scale 195 Father Ted (TV show) 1, 186, 232 Fawlty, Basil 192, 205, 331 fear 113, 115–22 Federal Communications Commission 312 Feiling, Keith 69–70 femininities 114, 136 feminism 170–1 fertility rates 362–4 Festival of Reason 1793 228 FHM (magazine) 169 film 184–5 Financial Times (newspaper) 3, 355 Finland 351 First World War 176–7, 180, 196, 209 Fitzwilliam, Lord 62 Food Standards Agency 203 Four Lions (2010) 185 Fourth Reich 229 Fox 313–14 Fox, Charles James 55, 56, 81 Fox News 5, 194, 313 France 52, 72, 210–11, 261, 358–9 Francis, Pope 24 Franco, Francisco 14, 178–9 Frank, Thomas 115, 155 Frankfurt School 103–4, 126, 245 Franks 254 Free French 211 free market 96, 97, 280, 364–5 free speech 324, 325 freedom, inability to handle 133 Freemasons 197 French Republic 210 French Revolution 46–7, 55–6, 58–61, 69, 72, 81, 89–90, 167, 181, 216–17, 221 Frenkel–Brunswik, Else 105 Freud, Sigmund 104, 109, 138–9 Freudian theory 104–5, 138 Friedman, Milton 204 Friendly Societies 197 Friends of Abe 185–6 Fromm, Erich 105 Frum, David 280 Fry, Stephen 195 Galileo Galilei 350 Gallup polls 302 Garnett, Alf 192 Gaskell, Peter 174 Gatiss, Mark 309 Gay Pride 219, 229 Gellner, Ernest 136 gender equality 73, 129, 140, 170–1 pay gap 73, 246 performative nature 136, 139–40 traditional norms 246 gender studies 136–7 Generation X 2, 221 Genet, Jean 121 genetics 138–40 Gentile, Giovanni 95 gentry 9 geographical segregation 295–6 German Democratic Republic (DDR) 20–1, 373 see also East Germany Germany 95, 103–5, 295, 303, 366–7, 372–3 and the First World War 176–7 Nazi 139, 205, 246, 329 Gerson, Jean 33 Gibson, Mel 24, 130 Gibson, William 345 Gilbert, W.S. 101 Gingrich, Newt 270 Girondins 59–60 Gissing, George 242, 367 Giuliani, Rudy 42 GLC see Greater London Council globalisation 78 Glorious Revolution 52 God 45, 50, 56, 57, 64, 67, 69, 90, 97, 130, 188, 215, 219, 223, 288 God Squad 215 Godwin, William 61, 239 Goldberg, Jonah 96, 230 Goldberg, Whoopi 24 ‘golden-age’ myth 172–3, 176, 177 Goldman, Lisa 187 Gollancz, Victor 81 Goodfellas (1990) 123 Goodhart, David 46–7 Google 4, 339 Gore, Al 313 Gorky, Maxim 182 Gottfried, Paul 345 Gramsci, Antonio 126–7 Gray, John 280 ‘Great Awakening’ 9, 273, 329 ‘Great Awokening’ 329–30, 333, 335, 348 Great Realignment 365 Greater London Council (GLC) 20 Green Party 8, 232 Greene, Graham 166 Greene, Sir Hugh Carleton 165, 166 Griffin, Nick 87 Guardian (newspaper) 3, 11, 17, 27, 38, 83, 115, 169, 213, 232, 241, 244, 260, 270, 278–9, 296, 302, 308, 315, 331, 355 Guevara, Che 21, 25, 100 guillotine 60 Gulags 145, 240, 290 Gule, Lars 236 Guthrie, Woody 24 Hague, William 102 Haidt, Jonathan 184, 311 Hamid, Shadi 240 Hamilton, William 147 Hammond, Barbara 174 Hammond, John Lawrence 174 Handmaid’s Tale, The (1985) 168, 183 Hanks, Tom 24 Hare, David 189 Haringey Council 268–9 Harlesden 47 Harman, Harriet 217 Harris, John 310 Harvard 145, 146–7 Hawley, George 248 Heathers (1989) 112 ‘hegemonic degeneration’ 342 Heineken 4–5 help-to-buy scheme 247 Hemingway, Ernest 186 Henri IV 47 Henry, Lenny 193 Henry VIII 11, 48 as head of the Church of England 48 heresy 12, 37, 221, 254, 326 Herrnstein, Richard 146–7, 148 Heston, Charlton 24 higher education, expansion 136, 138 historical consequentialism 66–7 historical utilitarianism 67 Hitchens, Christopher 370 God is Not Great 214 Hitchens, Peter 46, 126, 161, 192, 273, 285 Hitler, Adolf 97–8, 99, 103, 106, 117, 236, 246, 303, 373 Hitler Youth 218 HM Revenue & Customs 204 Hobbes, Thomas 36–7, 42, 113, 326 Leviathan 36–7 Hobsbawm, Eric 80 Holland, Lady 81 Holland, Lord 81 Holland, Tom 271 Holland House 81 Hollywood 184–6 Holocaust 100 Holy Land 362 homicide 69, 84–5, 119, 122, 131, 163, 181 homophobia 28, 273, 280, 291 homosexuality 9, 16, 166, 184, 216–19, 222–3, 228–9, 272–3 see also same-sex marriage Honeyford, Ray 17 Hopkins, Katie 11 ‘horseshoe’ theory 96 Houellebecq, Michel, Submission (2015) 261 House of Commons 50, 55 House of Lords 159 house prices 125, 247, 248 House of Representatives 300 housing 175–6 Howard, Michael 163 Hugo, Victor 274 Hulk Hogan 195 human nature 54, 69–70, 105, 120, 130, 138–40, 231–2, 365–6 as ‘blank slate’ 138, 140 and children’s stories 261 Unconstrained Vision 130 human rights legislation 205 humanitarianism 74 Hume, David 38, 50, 129, 224 Humphreys, Nicholas 218 Hungarian Uprising 1956 80 Hungary 198 Hunter, James Davison 154 hunter-gatherers 131 Huxley, Aldous 148 hypocrisy 81, 86, 173, 189, 231–2 Ibsen, Henrik 188 identarians 345 identity politics 4, 9, 12, 117, 129, 317, 343 Ideological Turing Test 275 IMF see International Monetary Fund immigration 131, 164, 189, 194–5, 208, 367–8 ‘implicit bias’ 350–1 Independent (newspaper) 169, 207 individualism 283–4, 352 Industrial Revolution 75, 77–8, 174 Industrialisation 78 InfoWars 340 Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) 18–19 Inner London Teachers’ Association (ILTA) 19 Innocent III, Pope 33 Institute of Fiscal Studies 266 intelligentsia 12, 15 International Monetary Fund (IMF) 79 internationalism 97 Internet 298 intolerance 326–7 Inuit 131 IPC media 169 IRA see Irish Republican Army Iran 292 Iraq War 189, 201 Irish hunger strikes 201 Irish Republican Army (IRA) 367 ISIS 27, 43, 367 Islam 172–3, 190, 238–9, 339, 367–8 see also Muslims Islamic extremism 190 Islamic terrorism 115, 136, 367–8 Islamists, radical 27, 65–6 Israel 236, 300, 362 It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) 123–4, 287 Ivins, Molly 155 Jacobins 59, 60 Jahiliyyah (‘Age of Ignorance’) 173, 177 James I 49 James II 52 Jansenism 45 Jefferson, Thomas 53, 61, 109, 206–7 Jeffreys, Henry 259 Jensen, Arthur 147 Jeremiah 34–5 Jesuits 261 Jesus 56, 64, 215, 229 Jewish Tanakh 294 Jews 57, 88, 89, 95, 117, 294, 362, 366 see also Judaism Jindal, Bobby 10 job discrimination 12 Johansson, Scarlett 24 Johnson, Boris 1, 270 Johnson, Paul 46, 121, 181, 188, 273 Johnson, Samuel, Dictionary (1755) 64 Jones, Bridget 11, 25 Jones, Owen 26, 235–6 Jost, John 334–5 journalism 11, 316–17 Journey’s End (play) 180 Judaism 93 see also Jews Julian the Apostate 276 Justinian 291 Kael, Pauline 336 Kahneman, Daniel 29 Kant, Immanuel 69 Kassam, Raheem 309 Kelling, George L. 69 Kelly-Woessner, April 326–7 Kemp, Peter 14 Kennedy, John F. 24, 158, 178 Kennedy, Robert 178 Kennet, Baron 42 Kerr, Judith, The Tiger Who Came to Tea 258 King, Martin Luther 24, 85, 131, 178, 214, 227 King, Stephen 106, 242 Kinnock, Neil 82 Kirk, Russell 68, 91, 286–7, 362, 365 Knox, John 335 Koch Foundation 233 Koran 66 Kristol, Irving 120 Ku Klux Klan 193 Kutcher, Ashton 311 Labour government 163–5, 164, 175, 208, 217 post-war 47 Labour MPs 235–6 Labour Party 5, 18–19, 166, 226, 234–5, 250, 265, 267–9, 271–2, 367 and academia 8 centrist tendencies 21 and Clause 4 153 image 11 and personality types 108–9 and women 6 Lady Gaga 358 Lakoff, George 111 Lammy, David 186 Lasch, Christopher 132, 231 L’Aurore (newspaper) 132 law making 70 Lawrence, D.H., Lady Chatterley’s Lover 166 Lawrence, Philip 122 Laws, David 266 Lawson, Nigel 230 Le Chatelier 271 Le Conservateur (journal) 63 learning, ‘child-centred’ 41 Leave faction 238, 243–4, 322, 354, 355–7 Lee, Laurie 179 Lee, Stewart 191–2 Lego Movie, The (2014) 259 Legutko, Ryszard 228 Lehrer, Tom 178 Lennon, John 24, 186 Levasseur, Thérèse 40 Levin, Yuval 59, 71 Lewis, C.

Company: A Short History of a Revolutionary Idea by John Micklethwait, Adrian Wooldridge

affirmative action, AOL-Time Warner, barriers to entry, Bear Stearns, Bonfire of the Vanities, book value, borderless world, business process, Carl Icahn, Charles Lindbergh, classic study, company town, Corn Laws, Cornelius Vanderbilt, corporate governance, corporate raider, corporate social responsibility, creative destruction, credit crunch, crony capitalism, double entry bookkeeping, Etonian, Fairchild Semiconductor, financial engineering, Great Leap Forward, hiring and firing, Ida Tarbell, industrial cluster, invisible hand, James Watt: steam engine, John Perry Barlow, joint-stock company, joint-stock limited liability company, Joseph Schumpeter, junk bonds, knowledge economy, knowledge worker, laissez-faire capitalism, manufacturing employment, market bubble, Michael Milken, military-industrial complex, mittelstand, new economy, North Sea oil, pneumatic tube, race to the bottom, railway mania, Ronald Coase, scientific management, Silicon Valley, six sigma, South Sea Bubble, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, strikebreaker, The Nature of the Firm, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thorstein Veblen, trade route, transaction costs, Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, tulip mania, wage slave, William Shockley: the traitorous eight

Throughout the first half of the nineteenth century, the leaders of the world’s most important economy labored to free up its commercial laws. Parliament made the currency convertible to gold (1819), relaxed the restrictive Combination labor laws (1824), opening the East India Company’s markets to competition (1834), and eventually repealed the protectionist Corn Laws (1846). They also began to tackle the issue of company law. In 1825, parliament finally repealed the vexatious Bubble Act. Reformers called for the statutory recognition of unincorporated companies, but conservative judges were skeptical. Lord Eldon, for example, maintained that it was an offense against the common law to try to act as a corporation without a private act of parliament or a royal charter.16 Despite attempts to speed up the process of obtaining charters, it could still be expensive—one estimate put the cost at £402—and fraught with political risk.17 The crucial change was the railways, and their demands for large agglomerations of capital.

…

Limited liability was still anathema to many liberals. Adam Smith, remember, had been adamant that the owner-managed firm was a purer economic unit: the only way the joint-stock firm could compete was through the “subsidy” of limited liability. Some of the industrialists who had helped get rid of the Corn Laws were suspicious.23 Surely entrepreneurs could raise the necessary sums by tapping family savings and plowing back the firm’s earnings? Wouldn’t limited liability just impose the risk of doing business on suppliers, customers, and lenders (a complaint that modern economists later echoed)? And wouldn’t it attract the lowest sort of people into business?

Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism by Anne Case, Angus Deaton

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, basic income, Bertrand Russell: In Praise of Idleness, Boeing 737 MAX, business cycle, call centre, collapse of Lehman Brothers, collective bargaining, company town, Corn Laws, corporate governance, correlation coefficient, crack epidemic, creative destruction, crony capitalism, declining real wages, deindustrialization, demographic transition, Dissolution of the Soviet Union, Donald Trump, Downton Abbey, Edward Glaeser, Elon Musk, falling living standards, Fellow of the Royal Society, financial engineering, fulfillment center, germ theory of disease, income inequality, Jeff Bezos, Joseph Schumpeter, Ken Thompson, Kenneth Arrow, labor-force participation, Les Trente Glorieuses, low skilled workers, Martin Wolf, meritocracy, Mikhail Gorbachev, obamacare, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, pensions crisis, pill mill, randomized controlled trial, refrigerator car, rent-seeking, risk tolerance, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, The Spirit Level, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Tim Cook: Apple, trade liberalization, Tyler Cowen, universal basic income, working-age population, zero-sum game

But we end this introduction with another, but more optimistic, historical parallel. In Britain at the beginning of the nineteenth century, inequality was greater than anything we see today. The hereditary landowners not only were rich but also controlled Parliament through a severely limited franchise. After 1815, the notorious Corn Laws kept out imports of wheat until the local price was so high that people were at risk of starving; high prices of wheat, even if they hurt ordinary people, were very much in the interests of the land-owning aristocracy, who lived off the rents supported by the restriction on imports—rent-seeking of the classic and here literal kind, and rent-seeking that did not stop at killing people; laws that were “written in blood.”

…

Religious observance fell, if only because churches were in the countryside, not in the new industrial cities. Wages were stagnant and would remain so for half a century. Profits were rising, and the share of profits in national income rose at the expense of labor. It would have been hard to predict a positive outcome of this process. Yet by century’s end, the Corn Laws were gone and the rents and fortunes of the aristocrats had fallen along with the world price of wheat, especially after 1870 when wheat from the American prairie flooded the market. A series of reform acts had extended the franchise, from one in ten males at the beginning of the century to more than half by its end, though the enfranchisement of women would wait until 1918.25 Wages had begun to rise in 1850, and the more than century-long decline in mortality had begun.26 All of this happened without a collapse of the state, without a war or a pandemic, through gradual change in institutions that slowly gave way to the demands of those who had been left behind.

…

., 284n41, 284n43 Comcast, 242 Coming Apart (Murray), 70 Commonwealth Fund, 197 communication, 229 communications technology, 233 community, 173, 179; destruction of, 189; white working-class losing, 178 competition: capitalism and, 230; elimination of, 232; foreign, 68; free markets and, 212; globalization and, 225; labor markets and, 236, 237; permanent advantage in, 235; Robinson and, 236; stifling of, 227 Congress, 13, 100, 120, 124–26, 197, 210, 211, 225, 242, 261 Conner, Marcy, 37, 49 consumer price index (CPI), 158 consumers, 208, 221, 230; benefits to, 227; immiseration of, 188; market power used against, 187; technological change socially beneficial for, 233 contraceptive pills, 160, 169 Cook, Tim, 12 Cooper, Zack, 283n27, 283n28, 284n56 copayments, 192 copyright laws, 256 Corn Laws, 14, 15 corporate choices, 227 corporate lobbies, 228, 232, 239, 241–43, 256–57; healthcare and, 209–11, 250 Corwin, Steven, 201 Cotton, Tom, 285n5 Courtwright, David, 115, 118, 274n11, 274n12 Cowen, Tyler, 286n6 Cox, Daniel, 265n8, 279n28 crack cocaine epidemic, 5, 62, 64; opioid epidemic and, 68–69 Craig, Stuart V., 283n27 creative destruction, 235 Crestor, 197 crime, 68, 179 crime rates, 5, 69 crony capitalism, 245.

A Small Farm Future: Making the Case for a Society Built Around Local Economies, Self-Provisioning, Agricultural Diversity and a Shared Earth by Chris Smaje

agricultural Revolution, Airbnb, Alfred Russel Wallace, back-to-the-land, barriers to entry, biodiversity loss, Black Lives Matter, Boris Johnson, carbon footprint, circular economy, clean water, climate change refugee, collaborative consumption, Corn Laws, COVID-19, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, decarbonisation, degrowth, deindustrialization, dematerialisation, demographic transition, Deng Xiaoping, Donald Trump, energy transition, European colonialism, Extinction Rebellion, failed state, fake news, financial deregulation, financial independence, Food sovereignty, Ford Model T, future of work, Gail Bradbrook, garden city movement, Garrett Hardin, gentrification, global pandemic, Great Leap Forward, green new deal, Hans Rosling, hive mind, intentional community, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invisible hand, Jevons paradox, land reform, mass immigration, megacity, middle-income trap, Murray Bookchin, Naomi Klein, Peace of Westphalia, peak oil, post-industrial society, precariat, profit maximization, profit motive, rent-seeking, rewilding, Rutger Bregman, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley billionaire, Steven Pinker, Stewart Brand, Ted Nordhaus, the scientific method, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Tragedy of the Commons, transaction costs, vertical integration, Washington Consensus, Wolfgang Streeck, zero-sum game

No wonder he favoured international trade. In early 19th-century England, with its growing population and growing industry, this Ricardian view manifested in an argument for free trade in agricultural products against the domestic protectionism of the Corn Laws passed by a landlord-dominated parliament, which imposed tariffs on imported grain. The Corn Laws were repealed in 1846, allowing cheap imported grain to fund Britain’s rise to economic dominance and helping the country enforce global ‘free’ trade, often from the barrel of a gun. In the words of economic historian Robert Heilbroner, The dire implications of rent envisaged by Ricardo never came to pass.

…

The hillsides up which the wheatfields were ominously climbing in Ricardo’s day were, within a few decades, returned to pasture.… But consider for a moment the situation if Britain today were forced to feed a population of, say, a hundred million entirely from the produce of home-grown crops. And suppose the old Corn Laws had never been repealed. Is there any doubt that Ricardo’s picture of a landlord-dominated society would be a frightening reality?111 Two centuries after Ricardo’s death, it’s worth contemplating whether that frightening reality may come back to haunt us, not just in Britain but across the world.

Manias, Panics and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises, Sixth Edition by Kindleberger, Charles P., Robert Z., Aliber

active measures, Alan Greenspan, Asian financial crisis, asset-backed security, bank run, banking crisis, Basel III, Bear Stearns, Bernie Madoff, Black Monday: stock market crash in 1987, Black Swan, Boeing 747, Bonfire of the Vanities, break the buck, Bretton Woods, British Empire, business cycle, buy and hold, Carmen Reinhart, central bank independence, cognitive dissonance, collapse of Lehman Brothers, collateralized debt obligation, Corn Laws, corporate governance, corporate raider, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, credit default swaps / collateralized debt obligations, crony capitalism, cross-border payments, currency peg, currency risk, death of newspapers, debt deflation, Deng Xiaoping, disintermediation, diversification, diversified portfolio, edge city, financial deregulation, financial innovation, Financial Instability Hypothesis, financial repression, fixed income, floating exchange rates, George Akerlof, German hyperinflation, Glass-Steagall Act, Herman Kahn, Honoré de Balzac, Hyman Minsky, index fund, inflation targeting, information asymmetry, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, Japanese asset price bubble, joint-stock company, junk bonds, large denomination, law of one price, liquidity trap, London Interbank Offered Rate, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, margin call, market bubble, Mary Meeker, Michael Milken, money market fund, money: store of value / unit of account / medium of exchange, moral hazard, new economy, Nick Leeson, Northern Rock, offshore financial centre, Ponzi scheme, price stability, railway mania, Richard Thaler, riskless arbitrage, Robert Shiller, short selling, Silicon Valley, South Sea Bubble, special drawing rights, Suez canal 1869, telemarketer, The Chicago School, the market place, The Myth of the Rational Market, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, too big to fail, transaction costs, tulip mania, very high income, Washington Consensus, Y2K, Yogi Berra, Yom Kippur War

Expansion also came from joint-stock banks in Britain and Germany and from the Crédit Mobilier, Crédit Foncier, and Crédit Agricole in France which made large loans to trade and industry. Scandinavia in particular had been stimulated by the boom in trade generated by the repeal of the British Corn Laws, timber duties, and Navigation Acts.45 Bad harvests and the Crimean War, which cut off Russian exports, raised the price of grain for farmers worldwide. These were, in fact, golden years for British farmers, despite the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846. After the war, grain prices sank as Russian supplies came back on the market, and railroad building declined. The dominoes started their collapse in Ohio – or, rather, the New York branch of an Ohio bank – and fell in New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Rhode Island, and Virginia, and then in Liverpool, London, Paris, Hamburg, Oslo, and Stockholm.

…

The price of wheat had risen from 46 shillings in August 1846 to 93 shillings in May 1847 because of violent storms that ruined the crop and because of the potato blight in Ireland and on the Continent. The price dropped in July 1847 with favorable weather and the prospect of a good crop. Imports of wheat and flour rose from 2.3 million quarters in 1846 to 4.4 million in 1847, aided by the repeal of the Corn Laws;41 the 70,000 quarters are a trivial proportion of this sum. In 1846 France had its smallest crop of wheat in 100 years (a problem exacerbated by the potato crop failure); in 1847 the crop was the largest for 100 years. But the condition was general, and British wheat speculation had been excessive.

…

Schaaffhausen Bank, Cologne 162–4, 218 ABN-AMBRO 120–1 accommodation (finance) bills 52, 62, 72, 73, 226 Wisselruiti 62, 66, 159 accountancy firms (CPAs) 120, 149–50 adaptive expectations theory 39 Adelphia Communications 20, 119, 134–5, 144 adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) 259 AIG 24, 87, 121, 185 Åkerman, Johan 158, 161, 162, 164–5 Albania 52, 109, 264, 268–9 Aldrich Commission, 1910 (US) 219 Alliance Capital 137 Allied Irish Bank 124 Alsace, 1827–28 crisis 161, 204 American Civil War, 1861–65 124, 164 see also United States American Express 144 Ames, Oakes 139 Amsterdam 152, 159–60, 163, 224 1772 crisis 159–60 1799 crisis 210–11 see also Bank of Amsterdam; Holland Arthur Andersen 22–3, 120, 131, 139 André, Alfred 165 Andréadès, A. 50, 226, 306n44 Angelis, Tino De 122 arbitrage/arbitrageurs 21, 31, 155 Argentina 21, 24, 278 1980s crisis 98–9, 234 2001 crisis 156, 233 Baring crisis, 1890 and 100, 166, 207 art, as an investment 12, 20 Arthur Andersen 22, 23, 120, 131–2 Ashton, T.S. 58, 72, 214 Asian Financial Crisis, 1997 1, 3, 4, 8, 27–8, 85, 170, 184, 186, 223, 233, 278 IMF and 104, 234 asset-backed securities (ABS) 74, 149 asset price bubbles 2, 56, 108, 170–1, 173, 177, 178, 183, 187–8, 229, 285 1985–89 (Japan) see Japan 1985–89 (Nordic countries) 1, 5, 27, 157 1990s (United States) see United States 1997 Asian Financial Crisis see Asian Financial Crisis international contagion of 154ff in NASDAQ stocks see United States, 1990s asset price bubble see also bubbles asset prices 2, 13, 14, 15, 25, 30, 88, 109, 112, 115 economic activity and 107–8 monetary policy and 115–16 see also real estate prices Australia 37, 124, 164, 168, 307n54 gold discoveries 60, 164 Austria (Austria-Hungary) 21, 63 1869 crisis 165 1873 crisis (krach) 82, 151, 165–6 1931 crisis 168, 252, 253 Baubanken 63 Austrian National Bank 82 Ayr Bank 58, 81, 96, 142 Babson, Roger 90 Bagehot, Walter 41, 67, 84, 214, 216, 239–40, 263, 304–5n22, 327n41 on lenders of last resort 223, 224, 225, 226, 227, 228, 235, 243, 253 on Malthus 51 Baker, James 256 Ball, Sir John 73 Balzac, Honoré de 55, 141, 144 Banca d’Italia 167 Bank Act 1844 (England and Wales) 81, 82, 91, 102, 206 Bank Act 1845 (Scotland) 81 Bank of America 4, 86, 132, 195, 262–3 Bank of Amsterdam 66 Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) 124–5 Bank of England 16, 66, 72, 77, 83, 142, 211 1763 crisis 235 1772 crisis 96, 224, 226, 235 1836–39 crisis 82, 236 1890 Baring crisis and 100–1, 166, 206–7, 208, 238 1995 Baring crisis and 16, 123–4 and Northern Rock 86 discount rates 82, 102, 103, 196, 216, 225, 226, 234 East India Company and 159 as lender of last resort 214, 217, 235 South Sea Bubble and 104, 200–1 ‘W banks’ and 103, 226 bank failures 3, 4, 168–9, 232, 278 Bank of France 51, 89, 91, 92, 93, 204, 217, 218, 225, 235–6, 241, 245, 246, 249 Bank of England, loans to 105, 162, 236, 237, 238–9 bank holidays 23, 191–3, 201, 202 Bank for International Settlements (BIS) 242, 243, 244, 249–50, 251, 252, 254 Bank of Japan 22, 36, 102, 113, 114, 115, 173, 176, 188, 284, 285, 289 Bank of Lending, Amsterdam 66 Bank of Mexico 5, 6, 179, 253, 285–6 Bank of New York 82, 150 Bank of Thailand 6, 180, 286 Bank of the United States 44, 219, 224 Bankers Trust Co. 150 Banking School, on money supply 65ff, 92, 102, 215–16 banking system 78, 80, 198 central banks 15, 19, 44, 64, 77–8, 81–2, 83, 90, 115, 178, 191 clearing-houses 63, 203–4 investment banks 4, 9, 23, 56, 71, 74, 86, 119, 130, 149–51, 182, 183, 194, 257ff, 300–1 swindles/fraud and 117ff see also individual banks bankruptcies 15, 16, 59, 85–6, 105, 133, 148, 151, 157, 162, 164, 180 Banque Adam, Paris 168 Banque de Crédit Maritime, Trieste 76 Banque Générale (Banque Royale) 62 Banque du Havre 217 Banque de Lyon et de la Loire 75, 76, 146, 311n38 Banque Oustric, Paris 168 Banque de Paris et des Pays Bas (Paribas) 77 Banque de Savoie 218 Baring Brothers 236 Baring crisis, 1890 21, 100, 166, 200 Baring crisis, 1995 16, 123–4 Baring loan, 1819 55 Baruch, Bernard 100 Basel Agreement, 1961 249 Baubanken (Austria) 63 Bear Stearns 25, 85ff, 121, 192, 222, 262, 263, 267, 297 Belmont, Auguste 235 Benedict, Ruth 59 Bernanke, Ben 222, 223 Bernard, Samuel 159 Beyen, J.W. 53 Biddle, Nicholas 162 bills of exchange 19, 62, 63, 64, 66, 71ff, 78, 202, 224, 235, 310n21 bimetallism 19, 54 Black Friday, 1745 201 Black Friday, 1866 165 Black Friday, 1869 41 Black Monday 1987 202, 227 Black Thursday, 1929 see Great Depression Blanqué, Pascal 81 Bleichröder, Gerson von 144 Blodgett, Henry 22, 119, 137–8, 151 Blunt, Charles 151 Blunt, John 142, 143, 144 Boesky, Ivan 152 Böhme, Helmut 237 bonds 1, 5, 20, 45, 50, 57, 89, 95, 98, 100, 130 Brady 177, 178, 189, 285 junk 20, 45, 70–1, 128, 129 Panama Canal 219 Bonelli, Franco 167, 222, 240 Bontoux, Eugène 74–5, 76, 100 Bouchard, Charles 151 Boutwell, George S. 219 Bouvier, Jean 75 Brady Bonds 177, 178, 189, 285 Braine, G.T. 226 Braudel, Fernand 41 Brazil 45, 48, 96, 156, 160, 253 1982 crisis 94, 157 1998 depreciation 98 Brennan, Robert B. 47, 138 Bretton Woods system 171, 187, 246ff, 250, 256, 283 brewery companies 49 Brunswick Bank 55 Bubble Act 1720 (GB) 53, 57, 88 bubbles 59, 74, 84ff, 96, 102, 108, 111, 113, 121, 126, 142–8, 170ff, 185ff asset price see asset price bubbles Mississippi Bubble, 1720 57, 158ff South Sea see South Sea Bubble, 1720 see also crises; manias bucket/boiler shops 46–7, 144 Buenos Aires Drainage and Waterworks Company 100 Burj Dubai 107 Caldwell, Rogers 44 call money 63, 69, 74–5, 80 canals 11, 28, 55, 58, 62 Canary Capital 137 capital flows 31, 162, 247–8 cross-border 2, 157, 170, 186, 187, 190, 230, 231, 248, 276, 277, 279, 280, 281, 282, 290 venture capital 12, 56, 181, 182, 183 see also money movements Carswell, John 47 Cassenscheine (Austria) 63 central banks 19, 21, 64, 77–8, 81–2, 83, 90, 115, 191, 224, 226 cooperation between 193, 243 and the ‘Bagehot doctrine’ 263 and Basel Agreement 249 and the ‘lender of last resort’ 213ff, 276 and international money flows 249, 250 see also individual banks certificates of deposit (CDs) 63, 65, 138 Chalmers, George 159 Chicago 46 real estate booms 111–12 Chicago Mercantile Exchange 77 Chicago School see monetarists China 62–3, 85, 229, 285 Citibank/Citicorp/Citigroup 43, 138, 151, 193 City of Glasgow Bank 155 Clapham, Sir John 41, 48, 142, 164, 211, 225, 226, 227, 235, 236, 238 Clark, Edward 197 clearing-house certificates 203ff Clifford & Co. 58 cobweb model 48 Cole, Arthur H. 320n21 collateralized mortgage obligations (CMOs) 258–9 commodity prices copper 43, 51 increases in 3, 8, 21, 31, 50 oil 3, 4, 13, 125, 251 stability of 98–9 volatility in 1, 3, 50, 51 Compagnie des Indes 158 Compagnie d’Occident 142 Comptoir d’Escompte (France) 51, 166, 218 conditionality 252 condominiums, investment in 12, 45 consumption theory 49 contagion domestic 20 international 1, 20–1, 154ff; of asset price bubbles 170ff transmission mechanisms 156ff Continental Illinois Bank 16, 94, 103, 210 Cooke, Jay 21, 44, 50, 165–6 copper prices 43, 51 Corn Laws (GB) 100, 164 corn prices 100 corruption see swindles/fraud corso forzoso (Italy) 165 cotton 155–6 CPAs (certified public accountants) 149–50 crashes see crises Crédit Agricole (France) 164 Credit Anstalt, Vienna 55, 142, 168, 243 credit-default swaps (CDSs) 121, 264 credit expansion 62ff, 69 destabilization and 82–3, 84–5 Great Depression and 78–80 impact of 290–4 manias and 12, 13, 14, 28, 33–5, 46 new bases for 62ff swindles/fraud and 117–53 Crédit Foncier (France) 164 Credit Foncier and Mobilier (GB) 97 Crédit Lyonnais 3, 218 Crédit Mobilier (France) 164 credit-rating agencies 149–50, 260 Credit Suisse First Boston 152 Crimean War, 1854–56 50–1, 164 crises 1–8 1763 54, 58, 62, 66, 73, 96, 152, 159–60, 196 1772 58, 96, 142, 160, 224 1808–9 48, 101 1816 160–1 1825 16, 58, 83, 88, 92, 102, 105, 161, 196, 199–200, 217 1836–39 102, 103, 155, 161–2, 206, 226 1847 58–9, 91, 92, 96–7, 100, 161, 162, 195, 196–7, 215, 225 1857 51, 73, 82, 89, 92, 101, 105–6, 142, 145, 147–8, 164, 197, 203, 205–6, 219, 226, 227–8, 239 1864–66 82, 97, 164 1873 21, 52, 82, 89, 97, 101, 112, 139, 144, 165–6, 197–8, 202, 220, 228, 238 1884 198 1907 21, 63, 82–3, 97, 167, 202 1929 see Great Depression 1980s 1, 3, 4, 7, 34, 98 1987 (Black Monday) 202, 227 1990s/2000 1–3, 4, 5–6, 7, 24, 85, 170–1 2006–2009 1, 7–8, 9, 10, 85, 86, 108, 116, 120, 170, 191, 200, 210, 222, 257–72, 286–8, 297–8, 299, 301 causes of 21, 27, 32–3, 53, 99–104, 154–6, 157–8 currency crises 4, 11, 231; see also individual countries as cyclical 26 development of 84 financial distress and 84–5, 90–4 historical survey 234–9 international contagion of 1, 21, 154–6 Minsky model of 18–19, 26–36 modern prevalence of 233–4, 273ff policy implications 15–18 warnings of 84–6 see also bubbles; manias; panics crisis management 15–18, 191–212 by central banks 191, 235–9 domestic 23–4, 213ff interventionist 199–212 by lender of last resort 198–9 domestic 213ff international 229ff monetarist view on 19, 199–200 non-interference 191–3 crony capitalism 126, 253 Countrywide Financial 4, 86, 262–3, 270 currency board arrangements 98 currency crises 4, 11, 231 see also individual countries Currency School on money supply 19, 65ff Currie & Co. 207 Darmstäder und Nationalbank (Danatbank) 142, 168, 244 Davillier, J.

Value of Everything: An Antidote to Chaos The by Mariana Mazzucato

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", activist fund / activist shareholder / activist investor, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Airbnb, Alan Greenspan, bank run, banks create money, Basel III, behavioural economics, Berlin Wall, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, bonus culture, Bretton Woods, business cycle, butterfly effect, buy and hold, Buy land – they’re not making it any more, capital controls, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, carbon tax, Carmen Reinhart, carried interest, clean tech, Corn Laws, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, creative destruction, Credit Default Swap, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, debt deflation, European colonialism, Evgeny Morozov, fear of failure, financial deregulation, financial engineering, financial innovation, Financial Instability Hypothesis, financial intermediation, financial repression, full employment, G4S, George Akerlof, Glass-Steagall Act, Google Hangouts, Growth in a Time of Debt, high net worth, Hyman Minsky, income inequality, independent contractor, index fund, informal economy, interest rate derivative, Internet of things, invisible hand, John Bogle, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Arrow, Kenneth Rogoff, knowledge economy, labour market flexibility, laissez-faire capitalism, light touch regulation, liquidity trap, London Interbank Offered Rate, low interest rates, margin call, Mark Zuckerberg, market bubble, means of production, military-industrial complex, Minsky moment, Money creation, money market fund, negative equity, Network effects, new economy, Northern Rock, obamacare, offshore financial centre, Pareto efficiency, patent troll, Paul Samuelson, peer-to-peer lending, Peter Thiel, Post-Keynesian economics, profit maximization, proprietary trading, quantitative easing, quantitative trading / quantitative finance, QWERTY keyboard, rent control, rent-seeking, Robert Solow, Sand Hill Road, shareholder value, sharing economy, short selling, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, smart meter, Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits, software patent, Solyndra, stem cell, Steve Jobs, The Great Moderation, The Spirit Level, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, Tobin tax, too big to fail, trade route, transaction costs, two and twenty, two-sided market, very high income, Vilfredo Pareto, wealth creators, Works Progress Administration, you are the product, zero-sum game

Without bargaining power, these workers were paid a meagre subsistence wage. Ricardo's portrayal of rents dominating production also had a political impact. It helped to persuade Britain to abolish the Corn Laws in 1846 and embrace free trade, which diminished the power of big vested interests and allowed production costs, rather than embedded monopoly and the privileges that went with it, to govern production. The ensuing decades saw Britain become the ‘workshop of the world'. But the abolition of the Corn Laws brought about a political transformation as well as an economic one: it tipped the balance of power away from aristocratic landlords and towards manufacturing as the nineteenth century wore on.

…

Equally, his staunch advocacy of free trade, in an era in which mercantilist policies were beginning to be seen as old-fashioned (Smith, indeed, believed that merchants were unproductive because they only provided the ephemeral service of moving goods around, rather than producing anything of value), made his book a hit among the ‘free traders' who eventually overturned England's Corn Laws, which imposed heavy tariffs on imported corn to protect domestic landowners, and other protectionist measures. Armed with Smith's ideas, free traders showed that nations could get richer even if there was no trade surplus and no gold accumulation. Amassing gold was unnecessary and insufficient for growth.

The City on the Thames by Simon Jenkins

Ascot racecourse, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Black Monday: stock market crash in 1987, Boris Johnson, bread and circuses, Brexit referendum, British Empire, clean water, computerized trading, congestion charging, Corn Laws, cross-subsidies, Crossrail, deindustrialization, estate planning, Frank Gehry, gentrification, housing crisis, informal economy, Isaac Newton, Jane Jacobs, John Snow's cholera map, light touch regulation, Louis Blériot, negative equity, new economy, New Urbanism, Northern Rock, Peace of Westphalia, place-making, railway mania, Richard Florida, Right to Buy, South Sea Bubble, sovereign wealth fund, strikebreaker, the built environment, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, the market place, Traffic in Towns by Colin Buchanan, upwardly mobile, urban renewal, Winter of Discontent, women in the workforce

So-called Chartist clubs, societies and ‘conventions’ were formed to press the cause. Conventional politics took note. The Tory leader, Robert Peel, elected to government in 1841, warned his party that it had to ‘reform to survive… to review all institutions, civil and ecclesiastical’. He marked his party’s conversion to free trade by repealing the Corn Laws and reducing the price of bread. Over the course of the 1840s, a series of Chartist demonstrations culminated in 1848 in a rally on Kennington Common which, though peaceful, unnerved the authorities. A small army of some 80,000 special constables was recruited to police it and defend the capital.

…

A Timeline of London’s History 43 London founded in reign of Emperor Claudius 60 Boudicca’s revolt; London sacked 80–90 Building of London Bridge c.120 London extensively damaged by fire 410 Roman withdrawal; the city abandoned 604 Mellitus first Bishop of London; St Paul’s founded c.830 First Viking raids on the Thames 886 Alfred the Great retakes London, declares it a burgh 1018 Cnut crowned king 1042 Edward the Confessor bases court at Westminster 1066 Norman Conquest spares London expropriation 1087 First great fire of London; St Paul’s destroyed 1189 First mayor elected in the City 1209 London Bridge rebuilt 1290 Expulsion of the City’s Jews 1348 Black Death arrives 1381 Peasants’ revolt; Wat Tyler killed 1397 Dick Whittington mayor for first time 1476 Caxton sets up press at Westminster 1536–41 Dissolution of the monasteries; mass transfer of wealth from church to crown 1571 Opening of Gresham’s Royal Exchange, modelled on Antwerp’s 1576 Burbage’s Theatre opens in Finsbury Fields 1580 Elizabeth I’s first edicts against London growth 1598 Stow’s survey of the metropolis published 1616–19 Inigo Jones’s Queen’s House in Greenwich and Banqueting House in Whitehall 1630 Earl of Bedford licensed to build Covent Garden piazza 1649 Execution of Charles I in Whitehall (the Tower rejected for risk of riot) 1653 First coffee house opened 1660–69 Pepys’s diary records events in the capital 1665 Earl of St Albans wins licence for St James’s Square 1665 The Great Plague 1666 Great Fire of London destroys 80 per cent of the City 1673 Wren begins rebuilding of St Paul’s 1683–84 Frost fair on the frozen Thames 1688 William of Orange arrives; he and Mary establish palace at Kensington 1694 Founding of the Bank of England 1702 First London newspaper, the Daily Courant, appears 1712 Act to build fifty ‘Queen Anne’ churches, twelve finished in the capital 1717 Handel’s Water Music played on the Thames; ‘Whig’ Hanover Square and ‘Tory’ Cavendish Square laid out 1721 Grosvenor Square laid out 1729 Opening of Vauxhall pleasure gardens, followed by Ranelagh in 1741 1739 Thomas Coram founds Foundling Hospital 1748 Henry Fielding appointed first stipendiary magistrate at Bow Street 1750 Opening of first river crossing since London Bridge at Westminster 1751 Act to tax and curb gin consumption begins to control the gin menace 1768 Royal Academy founded, moved to Somerset house ten years later; John Wilkes elected to parliament for Middlesex 1769 New toll bridge at Blackfriars 1774 Building Act lays down classes for Georgian houses 1780 Gordon riots, London’s worst civil disturbance 1812 Nash publishes his plan for a ‘royal way’ from Carlton House to Regent’s Park 1818 Church Building Act heralds ‘Waterloo churches’ 1820 Work on ‘royal way’ begins 1825 Cubitt acquires Belgravia leases from Grosvenor estate 1829 Metropolitan Police Act 1832 Great Reform Act updates parliament, initiates Poor Law reform 1834 Destruction of Palace of Westminster by fire; competition demands gothic replacement 1836 Opening of first London railway from Greenwich to London Bridge 1837 Railway links Birmingham and Euston 1841 Repeal of Corn Laws reduces London prices and aids boom 1851 Great Exhibition initiates Kensington building boom 1858 The Great Stink spurs reform of London sewerage; building of Embankment begins 1863 First underground train runs from Paddington to the City under Marylebone Road 1866 City bank failure and collapse of London shipbuilding 1867 Hyde Park riots lead to Second Reform Act; most male Londoners enfranchised 1870 Forster Education Act sets up elementary board schools; women vote and stand for school boards 1871 Hampstead Heath saved from development and left ‘wild’ 1880 First luxury flats built by Norman Shaw next to the Albert Hall 1888 London County Council replaces Metropolitan Board of Works; women can vote in local elections 1890 First ‘tube’ train runs, from King William Street to Stockwell 1891 Arrival of first trams 1899 Vestry government outside City boundary replaced by metropolitan boroughs 1903 Works starts on Yerkes’s Piccadilly and Bakerloo lines 1904 LCC takes over board schools 1907 First petrol buses take to the streets 1915 Zeppelin bombing raids over London docks 1919 Addison’s ‘homes for heroes’ leads to rampant house-building boom 1929 Formation of London Passenger Transport Board, later London Transport 1929–31 Wall Street crash and recession have little impact on London 1932 First Town and Country Planning Act 1934 LCC declares a ‘green belt’ around London 1940–41 The Blitz 1944–45 V-1 flying bomb and V-2 rocket attacks 1947 Town and Country Planning Act gives teeth to local planning 1948 London stages ‘austerity’ Olympics; NHS removes hospitals from LCC control; ‘Windrush’ recruits arrive for London Transport 1951 Festival of Britain 1953 Abercrombie report approved as London Plan 1956 First Clean Air Act in response to worsening London smog 1963 Secret deal to allow Centre Point, London’s first skyscraper 1965 LCC replaced by larger Greater London Council; Barbican building begins north of London Wall 1966 First Notting Hill Carnival 1967 Civic Amenities Act establishes conservation areas for London; Tory landslide in local elections, winning 28 of 32 new London boroughs 1968 Collapse of Ronan Point tower block 1973 Planning revolution as proposals for Piccadilly Circus, Motorway Box and Covent Garden all fail 1981 Livingstone takes control of GLC; last London dock closes 1984 Thames Barrier opens 1986 GLC abolished; Big Bang transforms City 1990 Poll tax riot in Trafalgar Square 1997 Labour attempts to sell off London Underground 1999 GLA established 2000 London mayoralty election won by Livingstone 2001 Census reveals London’s population rising again 2003 Huge London demonstration against Iraq war; Prescott approves Shard for Bermondsey; London’s high-rise boom takes off 2005 Islamist bombs explode on public transport, causing 52 deaths 2008 Boris Johnson elected as mayor, launches civic bike scheme 2012 London Olympics at Stratford 2016 Sadiq Khan elected as mayor 2016 Londoners reject Brexit in national referendum 2017 Grenfell Tower fire causes 72 deaths Author’s Note This book completes a trilogy of short histories, previously of England and Europe.

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., The Napoleon of Notting Hill 192 Cheyne, Charles (later 1st Viscount Newhaven) 104 Cheyne, William (later 2nd Viscount Newhaven) 104 Chigwell 210 Chinatown 207, 338 Chingford 210 Chislehurst 230 Chiswick 106, 125 cholera 154–5, 162, 163, 164, 176 Christ Church, Spitalfields 95 Christianity 12, 16–18, 136–7; see also Catholicism; Protestantism Christie, James 128 Christ’s Hospital 46 church building: 17th century 61, 66, 80–82; 18th century 94–5, 108, 136; 19th century 136–7, 153, 198; 20th century 209; Norman and medieval 22, 27, 30–31; Saxon 12, 17, 21; Tudor 40 Church Building Act (1818) 136–7 church demolitions 198 Church of England 17–18, 28, 38, 44, 65, 108–9, 136–7, 187; Dissenters and Nonconformists 66, 93, 109, 136 Churchill, Caryl, Serious Money 299 Churchill, John (later 1st Duke of Marlborough) 89, 93 Churchill, Sir Winston 219, 235, 237, 238, 239, 240, 247 Churchill Gardens estate 252 CIAM (Congrès International d’Architecture Moderne) 241 Cibber, Colley 108 cinemas 213, 232 Circle Line 168, 193, 194 City airport 295 City Hall 309 City of London: 17th century (early) 58, 60, 63; 17th (late) and early 18th centuries 87–9, 90–91, 92–4, 95; 1970s 275, 283–5; 1980s 293–4, 295–7; 1990s 290; 21st century 290, 309, 310, 312, 337–8; Civil War and Commonwealth 63–7, 68; Edwardian 198; Georgian 110, 113–14, 115–18, 126, 130–31, 136, 146, 148; Great Plague 1, 73–5, 80; Great Fire 1, 75–6, 80, 81; Great War 214–15; interwar 221, 227; Norman and medieval 22–3, 25–32, 34–9; post-fire reconstruction 76–83, 86, 244; post-war 239, 242–3, 251, 252–3, 253–5; Restoration 68, 88; Roman 9–14; Saxon 15–21; topography 7–8; Second World War 235, 236, 239; Tudor 39–42, 45–6, 47–50, 55; under William IV 151, 155; Victorian (early) 155, 162–3, 167; Victorian (late) 175, 177, 179–80, 188, 193–4; Viking attacks 18–19, 20–21 City of London Club 284 City of London School 177 City Road 325; Wesley’s Chapel 109 City and South London Railway (CSLR) 193–4 Civic Amenities Act (1967) 270, 282 Civil War, English 1, 2, 63–6, 68, 88, 90 Clapham 17, 143, 242 Clapham Common 183 Clapham sect 136 Clapton 143, 307 Clare Market 197 Clarence House 147 Clarendon, Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of 84 Claridge’s (hotel) 200 Claudius, Roman Emperor 9 Clean Air Act (1956) 259, 262, 271 Cleary Garden 13 Clegg, Sir Nick 315 Clerkenwell 27, 51, 76, 82, 207, 306, 339; Northampton estate 143, 187, 220 Cleveland House 147 Clifford Street 106 climate change activism 291 Clockwork Orange, A (film) 269 Clore, Sir Charles 245, 258 Cloth Fair (street) 86 clubs, private members’ 137–8, 147, 180, 192, 284 CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) 262, 291 Cnut, King 20–21 Coade, Eleanor 123 Coade stone 123 Coal Drops Yard 330 Coal Exchange 284 coal fires 87, 259 coal tax 79, 95 Cobbett, William 171 Cockerell, Samuel Pepys 141 ‘cockney’, use of term 161 coffee houses 67, 93, 131, 137, 306 Coin Street Community Builders 288 Colchester 9, 10 Colechurch, Peter 28 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor 153 Coliseum (theatre) 200 College of Arms 86 College of Estate Management 245 College Street 338 Collet, Clara 184 Colman, George, The Clandestine Marriage 126 Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) 314 Commission for Local Democracy 308 Commission of Woods and Forests 133 Common Council (City of London) 34–5, 63, 64 Common Market see European Economic Community Commons Preservation Society 183 Commonwealth of England (1649–60) 32, 63, 66–8 Commonwealth Immigrants Acts (1962/1968) 274 Compton, Francis 84 Compton, William, 2nd Baron (later 1st Earl of Northampton) 143, 190 Comyn Ching Triangle 283 congestion charge zone 309–10 Congregationalists 66 Conrad, Joseph, The Heart of Darkness 324 conservation areas 205, 270–71, 282, 325, 326–7 Constable, John 182–3 Constantine the Great, Roman Emperor 12 Constantinople 33, 57 Constantius Chlorus, Roman Emperor 12 contraception 260 Cooper’s Row 13 Copenhagen, Battle of (1807) 130 Coram, Thomas 111, 112, 125 Corbusier, Le (Charles-Édouard Jeanneret) 121, 241, 253 Cork Street 84, 106 Corn Laws, repeal of (1841) 161 Cornelys, Teresa 108 Cornhill 93 Cotton, Jack 245, 256, 257, 258, 281 council housing 190, 202, 222–3, 225, 226, 252–3, 255, 265–9, 272, 285, 298, 321–3, 335; selling of 289, 298–9, 322 Council for the Preservation of Rural England 242 council tax 290, 321 counter-reformation 47, 50 County Hall 199, 289, 309 Covent Garden 8, 15, 61–2, 82, 100, 127, 147, 220, 338; market 16, 61–2, 281; piazza 61–2, 70, 100, 220, 333; proposed redevelopment 281–3, 337; shops 128, 283; theatres and opera house 128, 181, 195, 200, 283 Coward, Sir Noël, ‘London Pride’ 236 Cranach, Lucas 40 Cranbourn Street 60 Crawley 251 Crichlow, Frank 261 Cripplegate 253–4; fort 11 Critical Review 126 Cromwell, Oliver 32, 63, 65, 66–7, 68, 74, 171 Cromwell, Richard 67 Cromwell, Thomas 45 Cromwell Road 171, 263 Cross, Richard Assheton, 1st Viscount, Artisans’ and Labourers’ Dwellings Improvement Act (1875) 188 Crossness pumping station 164 Crossrail 204, 281, 303, 318 Crown Estate 133, 169, 221–2, 339 Croydon 270, 317; aerodrome 239 Cruikshank, George, March of Bricks and Mortar 141 Crusades 29 Crystal Palace 170 Cubitt, Thomas 139–41, 142, 152, 156, 169, 250, 333 Cumberland Terrace 134, 135 Cundy, Joseph 140 Cundy, Thomas 153 ‘Cundy’ churches 153 Curtain Theatre 52 Cutler, Sir Horace 285, 287 cycling 205, 316 Dagenham 223, 228, 324 Daily Courant (newspaper) 93, 108 Dalston 17, 216, 301; Fassett Square 334 Dalyell, Sir Tam 303 Dance, George the Elder 113 Dance, George the Younger 113, 121 dandyism 59, 138 Danelaw territory 19 Danes 14, 18–19, 20–21, 24, 26 Darling (film) 261 Dartford 324 Davies, Mary 100–101 de Montfort, Simon, 6th Earl of Leicester 31 De Montfort University 51 death duties 220 death penalty, abolition 260 Debenham & Freebody (department store) 180 decks and decking (architectural design features) 254, 268, 278–9, 280, 281 Defoe, Daniel 74, 96, 98 Dekker, Thomas 53 Delaney, Shelagh 262 demonstrations, political 162, 260–61, 262, 291, 304 department stores 180–81, 200, 222 depression (1929–33) 227, 228 Deptford 95, 109, 175; Pepys estate 253, 322; station 156; town hall 201 Deutsche Bank 296 Devereux Street 84 Devonshire, William Cavendish, 6th Duke of 170 Devonshire, Victor Cavendish, 9th Duke of 220 Devonshire House 147, 220 Diana (goddess) 11 Diana, Princess of Wales 299; death 303 Dickens, Charles 160–61, 164, 180, 181, 184–5, 186, 187, 259; Bleak House 160; A Christmas Carol 160; Dombey and Son 157; The Old Curiosity Shop 197; Oliver Twist 185; Our Mutual Friend 160; The Pickwick Papers 161, 180, 182 Dickins & Jones (department store) 180 Diderot, Denis 106, 107 Dilke, Sir Charles 191 Diocletian’s Palace 122 Dior, Christian 239 Disraeli, Benjamin (later 1st Earl of Beaconsfield) 122, 164, 175 Dissenters and Nonconformists 66, 93, 109, 136 dissolution of the monasteries 45–6, 47, 48–9, 53, 56 District Line 168, 194, 203 Dobson, Frank 308 Docklands Light Railway 295 docks and docklands 9, 32, 42, 131, 175, 189, 206, 235, 275, 291; redevelopment 291–5, 313–14, 323–4 Domesday Book 25 Dominicans 30 Dorchester House 220 Dorking 251 Dorling, Danny 320 Dorset, Thomas Sackville, 1st Earl of 45 Dostoevsky, Fyodor 184 Dover 165 Dowgate 58, 338 Downing, Sir George 98 Downing Street 98, 120; No. 10 98–9, 290 Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan 186 D’Oyly Carte Opera Company 200 Drake, Sir Francis 48, 258 drugs (narcotics) 185, 276–7, 305, 318 Drury Lane 128, 181, 200; Theatre Royal 69, 108 Dryden, John 107 dual-carriageway roads 243, 270, 279–80, 281, 282 Duke of York’s Theatre (Lincoln’s Inn Fields) 69–70 Dulwich 17, 171, 210 Dulwich College 143 Dunbar, William 43 Dürer, Albrecht 40, 62 Dutch style (architecture) 89, 178, 179, 198 Dyckhoff, Tom 272 Eagle (comic) 246 Ealing 179, 270 Ealing comedies (films) 246, 248, 261 Earls Court motor show 239 East Cross Route (dual-carriageway road) 280 East Ham 201 East India Company 92 Eastcheap 7, 19 EastEnders (soap opera) 334 Eastern Avenue 228 Eastminster Abbey 42 Eaton Square, St Peter’s Church 137, 153 Ebury, manor of 139–40 Economist Buildings, St James Street 280 ecstasy (drug) 305 Edgar Atheling 24 Edgware 229 Edgware Road 9, 10, 263 Edington, Battle of (878) 19 Edmonds, Richard 257 Edmonton 208 Education Act (1870) 176–7 Edward the Confessor, King 21–2, 30 Edward I, King 31–2, 67 Edward II, King 32 Edward III, King 32, 34, 35, 36, 42 Edward IV, King 39 Edward VI, King 47, 49 Edward VII, King 197; as Prince of Wales 195 Edwards, John 132–3 Egremont House 147 Eia, Manor of 100 Eleanor of Provence, Queen Consort 30 elections, general: (1830) 149; (1831) 149; (1907) 202; (1918) 218; (1945) 238; (1964) 260, 262; (1970) 275; (1974) 276, 277; (1979) 287; (1987) 299; (1997) 302, 307; (2015) 330 elections, GLC 264, 274–5, 280, 282, 285, 287 elections, LCC 191, 202, 203, 218, 227 elections, mayoral 309, 315, 317 electoral reform 117, 119, 149–50, 161–2, 175–6, 191 electrification of railways and Underground 193–4, 203, 228, 230 Elementary Education Act (1870) 176–7 Elephant and Castle 251, 322, 325; pub 3, 208 Elizabeth I, Queen 47–8, 49, 51–2, 55–6, 57, 59, 60, 77, 258 Elizabeth II, Queen 296; Diamond Jubilee (2012) 154 Ellerman, Sir John 220 Eltham 230 Embankment 122, 164, 168, 177, 197, 221, 316, 338; gardens 168 Emma of Normandy, Queen Consort 21 Enfield 317 Enfield Chase 230–31 Enlightenment 106–7 Epping Forest 183, 210, 309 Epsom 230 Erasmus 40 Erconwald, Bishop of London 18 Erith 164 Ermine Street 10 Escoffier, Auguste 200 Escorial Palace 99 Esher, Lionel Brett, 4th Viscount 229, 245, 246, 254, 266 Essex, Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of 84 Ethelred the Unready, King 20, 21 Eton College 142, 315 European Economic Community/European Union: British admission 275, 276; British exit 13, 330–31 European Monetary System, sterling’s forced withdrawal (1992) 314 Euston Road 104, 167, 256, 279, 316; British Library 250; St Pancras New Church 137; underpass 256; see also New Road Euston Square 101, 125; station 157, 168 Euston station 125, 165, 168, 283 evacuation, wartime 235, 236 Evelyn, John 67, 68, 70, 75–6, 77, 83, 87, 90 Evening Standard (newspaper), planning campaigns 282, 284 Evesham, Battle of (1265) 31 Ewell, Nonsuch Palace/Park 51, 230–31 executions, public 109–10; see also death penalty Eyre estate 142 Fabians 190–91 fairs 31; Bartholomew Fair 37; frost fair 87; ‘Tyburn fairs’ 109–10 Farrell, Sir Terry 283 Farringdon 51, 53, 76, 126, 167, 168 fashion (clothing) 59, 138, 239, 245, 248, 261 Fawkes, Guy 288 Fenston, Felix 245 Ferdinand II, King of Aragon 42 ferries, river 113 Festival of Britain (1951) 246–7 Festival Hall 247 Field of the Cloth of Gold (1520) 44 Fielding, Henry 98, 110–11, 112, 159 Fielding, Sir John 112, 159 Fifty Shilling Tailors (shop chain) 245 film industry 185, 248, 261, 269, 306, 338; Ealing comedies 246, 248, 261; see also cinemas financial crises: (1720) 98, 102, 158; (1847) 158; (1866) 175, 176; (1929) 227; (1973) 276; (1987) 296; (2008) 316, 320 financial services industry see banking and financial services industry Finchley 112, 207 Finchley Road 141 Fings Ain’t Wot They Used T’Be (musical) 248 Finsbury 10, 51, 52, 53, 82; Moorfields 60, 76, 109 fires: 16th century 52; 18th century 128; 19th century 152; 21st century 322; Great Fire (1666) 1, 75–6, 80, 81; Middle Ages 27, 28, 76; Roman era 11; Saxon era 19 Firestone Tyre Factory 228 First World War see Great War Fiske, Bill, Baron 257 Fitz-Ailwyn, Henry 28–9 Fitzrovia 124–5, 206–7, 279; Charlotte Street 207; Fitzroy Square 124, 279 Fitzroy family 124, 142 Fitzstephen, William 41, 333 Fleet river/ditch 8, 11, 16, 23, 26, 42, 113, 143, 162 Fleet Street 8, 11, 27, 107, 127; journalism and printing trade 26, 93, 292; Temple Bar 65, 120 Flemish immigrants 34, 48, 49 Fletcher of Saltoun, Andrew 94 Florence 40 Florida, Richard 306 fog 71, 186, 259 Foley, Thomas, 2nd Baron 124 Foley House 124 Fontainebleau Palace 51 Ford Motor Company 228 Forster, William, Elementary Education Act (1870) 176–7 Fortnum, William 128 Fortnum & Mason (shop) 128 Foster, Norman, Baron Foster of Thames Bank 309, 327; Canary Wharf station 294–5; City Hall 309; Gherkin 290, 310, 312 foundation myth 8 Foundling Hospital and estate 111, 112, 125, 135, 143 Fowler, Sir John 167–8 Fox, Charles James 118, 129 Foxe, John, Book of Martyrs 47 franchise see voting rights Francis I, King of France 44 Francis, John 158 Franciscans 30 Franco-Prussian War (1870) 176 Frankfurt 275, 296 Franks 18, 24 Franz Joseph I, Emperor of Austria 174 Frayn, Michael 246 French immigrants 172, 206, 207; see also Huguenots French Revolution 119, 129–30, 136, 149, 152 Friends Meeting House (Bloomsbury) 230 frost fair 87 Fry, Maxwell 232, 241 Fryth, Richard 84 Fulham 171, 257, 268, 272 Gainsborough, Thomas 117, 128 Galsworthy, John 172, 180 gangs and gangsterism 34, 277, 305, 318 ‘garden bridge’ project (cancelled) 317 Garibaldi, Giuseppe 172 Garrick, David 117, 128 gas supplies 147 Gatwick airport 291 gay community 260, 261, 299 Gay, John, Beggar’s Opera 98 Geddes, Sir Eric 218, 223 Gehry, Frank 327 General Strike (1926) 219, 276 gentrification 73, 271–2, 275, 282–3, 300, 307–8, 335 Geoffrey of Monmouth 8 George I, King 97–8, 108 George II, King 97, 98, 128 George III, King 97, 109, 115–16, 118, 131, 144 George IV, King 144–6, 149; as Prince Regent 131–3, 134, 139, 183 George, M.

Money and Government: The Past and Future of Economics by Robert Skidelsky

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", Alan Greenspan, anti-globalists, Asian financial crisis, asset-backed security, bank run, banking crisis, banks create money, barriers to entry, Basel III, basic income, Bear Stearns, behavioural economics, Ben Bernanke: helicopter money, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, book value, Bretton Woods, British Empire, business cycle, capital controls, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, Carmen Reinhart, central bank independence, cognitive dissonance, collapse of Lehman Brothers, collateralized debt obligation, collective bargaining, constrained optimization, Corn Laws, correlation does not imply causation, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, credit default swaps / collateralized debt obligations, David Graeber, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, debt deflation, Deng Xiaoping, Donald Trump, Eugene Fama: efficient market hypothesis, eurozone crisis, fake news, financial deregulation, financial engineering, financial innovation, Financial Instability Hypothesis, forward guidance, Fractional reserve banking, full employment, Gini coefficient, Glass-Steagall Act, Goodhart's law, Growth in a Time of Debt, guns versus butter model, Hyman Minsky, income inequality, incomplete markets, inflation targeting, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Rogoff, Kondratiev cycle, labour market flexibility, labour mobility, land bank, law of one price, liberal capitalism, light touch regulation, liquidationism / Banker’s doctrine / the Treasury view, liquidity trap, long and variable lags, low interest rates, market clearing, market friction, Martin Wolf, means of production, Meghnad Desai, Mexican peso crisis / tequila crisis, mobile money, Modern Monetary Theory, Money creation, Mont Pelerin Society, moral hazard, mortgage debt, new economy, Nick Leeson, North Sea oil, Northern Rock, nudge theory, offshore financial centre, oil shock, open economy, paradox of thrift, Pareto efficiency, Paul Samuelson, Phillips curve, placebo effect, post-war consensus, price stability, profit maximization, proprietary trading, public intellectual, quantitative easing, random walk, regulatory arbitrage, rent-seeking, reserve currency, Richard Thaler, rising living standards, risk/return, road to serfdom, Robert Shiller, Ronald Reagan, savings glut, secular stagnation, shareholder value, short selling, Simon Kuznets, structural adjustment programs, technological determinism, The Chicago School, The Great Moderation, the payments system, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, Thorstein Veblen, tontine, too big to fail, trade liberalization, value at risk, Washington Consensus, yield curve, zero-sum game

It also makes sense globally. The era of ‘conservative’ economics opened with the publication of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations in 1776. Yet despite the early intellectual ascendancy of free trade, it took a major crisis – the Irish potato famine of the early 1840s – to produce an actual shift in policy: the repeal of the Corn Laws in Britain in 1846 ushered in the free trade era. In the 1870s, the pendulum started to swing back to what the historian A. V. Dicey called the ‘age of collectivism’. The major crisis that triggered this was the first great global depression, produced by a collapse in food prices. It was a severe enough shock to produce a major shift in political economy.

…

‘A Chancellor was judged not only on his ability to balance his budget but also to reduce the National Debt.’36 Maintaining a regular sinking fund for debt redemption was considered part of ‘balancing the budget’. Surpluses were to be used only to reduce the national debt and not spent the following year. Free trade triumphed after 1846, when Parliament repealed the Corn Laws protecting British agriculture. Ricardo would have been pleased with the progress in reducing the national debt shown in Figure 8; by the outbreak of the First World War, the debt–GDP ratio had fallen to a fifth of its peak in the aftermath of the Napoleonic wars. In a recent analysis of debt reduction between 1831 and 1913, Nicholas Crafts argues that much of this success can be attributed to a strong commitment to balancing the budget.

…

., 59 Callaghan, James, 169–70, 197 Cameron, David, 221, 225, 227 Cannan, Edwin, 100 capital movements and banking crises, 331, 333, 333–43, 334, 335, 337 controls on in post-war era, 308, 332 hot money as main story, 318–19, 337, 382 Keynes on, 382 liberalization from 1970s, 17, 318–19, 332–3 post-war liberalization, 16 recycling of OPEC surpluses (1970s), 308, 332 regulated in Great Depression era, 16 see also global imbalances 464 i n de x Carney, Mark, 261–2, 273 central banks actions during 2008 crisis, 3, 217, 219, 234–5, 253–4, 254, 256–8, 359 forecasting models, 5, 197, 233, 310–11 ‘dual mandate’ proposal, 358 during Great Moderation, 215, 252–3, 310, 359, 360 independent, 1, 32, 43, 129, 140, 188, 198, 215, 249, 272–3 inflation targeting, 2, 101, 188–9, 189, 196, 215, 249–53, 347, 358 in Keynesian economics, 101, 102–4, 105, 115–16 need for revived regulatory tools, 361 in new macroeconomic constitution, 352, 355, 359–61 open-market operations, 71, 102–4, 105, 185–6, 257–8 in post-W W1 period, 100, 102–6 pre-crash models of 2000s, 197, 212–13, 233, 310–11 purchase of government debt, 234–5, 256–8, 260–61, 274 and quantity theory, 61, 69, 70, 71 ‘resolution regimes’, 364–5 ‘stress testing’ by, 364 Taylor Rule, 213, 251 and twentieth-century monetary reformers, 60, 61, 69, 70, 71, 99, 100, 101, 125, 129, 178, 200 see also Bank of England; Bank Rate; European Central Bank; Federal Reserve, US Chamberlain, Neville, 113 Chang, Ha-Joon, 378 Chartist movement, 48 Chi Lo, 381–2 Chicago School, 174, 194, 349, 350–51 see also Friedman, Milton China and 2008 crash, 217, 218 ancient, 33, 73 bank liquidity ratios, 364 current account surplus, 331, 333, 334, 336, 338–41, 342, 380, 381 Churchill, Winston, 99, 109, 110 City of London, xviii, 58, 113, 226, 328, 367 Clark, John Bates, 288 class business class as not monolithic, 7 creditors and debtors, 29–32, 37 growth of merchant class, 79 and ideas, 13–14 and Keynesian theory, 128–9, 130–31, 169–70, 386–7 and Marx, 6, 7, 14, 130, 131, 288, 296, 386 and neo-liberal model, 305, 374 rentier bourgeoisie, 31, 43, 288, 297 shift of power from labour to capital, 7, 32, 169–70, 187, 190, 192–3, 299–301, 304, 305–6 and theory of money, 27–8 under-consumption theory, 293–6, 297–8, 303–6, 370 see also distribution; inequality classical economics tradition, xviii abstraction from uncertainty, 385–6 ‘anti-state’ view as deception, 93 contrast with Keynesian-theory modelled, 132–3 ‘crowding out’ argument, 83–4, 109–11, 226, 233–5 government as problem not solution, 1, 3, 6, 9, 10, 29, 74–5, 76, 82–3, 85–7, 93, 347 and Keynes, 122–3, 128, 130, 175–6 and labour flexibility, 56, 245 money supply in, 1, 38–9, 47 no theory of output and employment, 96 465 i n de x classical economics tradition – (cont.) post-W W1 ‘back to normalcy’, 96–7, 102 and price of labour, 107, 108, 115, 121–2, 123, 128, 130, 132, 138, 172 ‘real’ analysis of money (‘money as veil’), 22, 24, 37, 45, 84–5, 121 repudiation of mercantilism, 74–5, 78, 79, 81–5, 93 and role of state, 73, 74–5, 76, 81–5, 109, 110 Smith’s ‘invisible hand’ metaphor, 10, 312, 385 and unemployment, 10, 37, 56, 96, 118, 121–2, 123, 128, 129, 130, 138, 172 wage-adjustment story, 107, 108, 115, 121–2, 123, 128, 130, 132, 172 Walras’ general equilibrium theory (1874), 10, 173, 181, 385 see also balanced budget theory; equilibrium, theory of; neoclassical economics tradition Clay, Henry, 115 climate change, 383 Clinton, Bill, 309, 319 Coalition government (2010–15), 227–8, 243–4, 265–6 Cochrane, John, 233–4 Coddington, Alan, 173 Colbert, Jean-Baptiste, 75, 140 Cold War, 140, 158, 159, 162–3, 186, 374 collateralized debt obligations (CDOs), 323–4, 327, 330 collateralized loan obligations (CLOs), 327 communism, xviii, 13, 16, 175 collapse of (1989–90), xviii, 16 see also Marx, Karl; Marxism Congdon, Tim, 40, 105, 185, 197, 258, 268–9, 276, 279–81 on free trade, 377 and monetarism, 279–85 Money in the Great Recession (2017), 281–2, 287 ‘real balance effect’ argument, 283–5 total rejection of fiscal policy, 280, 285–7 Conservative Party ‘Barber boom’, 167, 168 governments (1951–64), 142–3, 147, 150, 152 Howe’s 1981 budget, 186–7, 192 and Keynesian ascendancy, 138–9, 142–3, 147, 150, 152 Lawson’s counterrevolution, 185, 192–3, 222, 358 Maudling’s ‘dash for growth’, 150, 152 narrative of 2008 crash, 226–8, 229–31, 233, 234–5, 237–9 and orthodox Treasury view in 1920s/30s, 109–10, 112, 113 Osborne’s economic policy, 227–8, 229–30, 231, 233, 234–5, 237–9, 243–4, 244, 245 supply-side policies, 197 Constantini, Orsola, 171 Corn Laws, repeal of (1846), 15, 85 counter-orthodoxy to Keynesianism ‘Colloque Walter Lippmann’ conference (1938), 174–5 emergence of, 163, 170, 171–2, 174–8 Friedman’s onslaught, 177–83 Hayek’s Road to Serfdom , 16, 175–6 inflation as greatest evil for, 162 Mont Pelerin Society, 176–7 rooted in political ideology, 6, 93, 176–8, 183–4, 202–3, 245–6, 258, 287, 292, 354, 386 see also Friedman, Milton; monetarism; neo-liberal ideology 466 i n de x Crafts, Nicholas, 85, 111 credit and debt and anti-Semitism, 30–31 ‘bank lending channel’, 64 credit theory of money, 23, 24–7, 33, 34, 39, 100–101, 102–3 ‘debt forgiveness’, 30 derivation of word ‘credit’, 30 doctrine of ‘creditor adjustment’, 127–8, 139, 159 excess credit problem and 2007–8 crisis, 4, 104, 303, 366–7 and gold-standard, 53 ‘hoarding’ during Great Depression, 104, 127 and inflation/deflation, 37, 42, 47 Keynes and control of credit, 100–101, 102–3, 105, 115–16 Keynes’ Clearing Union plan (1941), 127–8, 139, 159, 380–81 loan sharks and ‘pay day loans’, 32 Locke’s social contract theory, 41–2 moral resistance to credit, 30–31 private debt and 2008 collapse, 3–4 prohibition of usury, 31 USA as post-W W1 creditor, 95, 103 and value of money, 27–8, 29–31 see also national debt credit default swaps (CDSs), 324–5 credit rating agencies (CR As), 320, 326–7, 329–30 Crimean War, 91 criminality, 3, 4, 5, 7, 328, 350, 366, 367 Cunliffe Report (1918), 54–5, 102, 145 Currency School, 49–50 current account imbalances see balance of payments; global imbalances Dale, Spencer, 275 Dante, Divine Comedy, 31 Darling, Alistair, 224, 225, 254 Dasgupta, Amir Kumar, 12–13 Davies, Howard, 253 de Grauwe, Paul, 341, 376, 377 debt see credit and debt; national debt deflation ‘Austrian’ explanation of recessions, 33, 104, 303 classical view of, 44 contemporary, 358, 360 and debtor class, 37 depressions in later nineteenthcentury, 9, 15, 51–2, 89 at end of Napoleonic wars, 48 and hoarding, 64, 104 in inter-war Britain, 107–8 and quantity theory, 32–3, 60, 65, 66 US ‘dollar gap’, 159 DeLong, Brad, 225 democratic politics Bretton Woods system, 16, 139, 374 corrupted capitalism as threat to, 351, 361 election finance, 7 EU ‘democratic deficit’, 376 extensions of franchise, 87, 96, 100 neo-liberal capture of, 6, 292 political left in 1960s, 148–9, 150 and ‘public choice’ theory, 198–9 Rodrik’s ‘impossible trinity’, 375 social democratic state, 16, 149, 176, 198, 292, 293, 303–4, 348, 373–4 structural power of finance, 6–7, 309 taboos against racism, 383 twentieth-century triumph of, 32, 96 unravelling of social democracy (1970s), 16, 304 467 i n de x Democrats, American, 151, 152 Descartes, Rene, 22 developing countries and 2008 crash, 217 Keynesian era growth, 162 in monetarist era, 186 ‘neo-liberal’ agenda of IMF, 139, 181, 318–19 ‘peripheries’ in gold standard era, 56–7 and promise of globalization, 17 and protectionism, xviii, 90, 378 World Bank loans to, 332 Devine, James, 298 Dicey, A.

Capitalism and Freedom by Milton Friedman

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", affirmative action, Berlin Wall, central bank independence, Corn Laws, Deng Xiaoping, floating exchange rates, Fractional reserve banking, full employment, invisible hand, Joseph Schumpeter, liquidity trap, market friction, minimum wage unemployment, price discrimination, rent control, road to serfdom, Ronald Reagan, secular stagnation, Simon Kuznets, the market place, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, union organizing

We would be benefited by dispensing with our tariffs even if other countries did not.’2 We would of course be benefited even more if they reduced theirs but our benefiting does not require that they reduce theirs. Self interests coincide and do not conflict. I believe that it would be far better for us to move to free trade unilaterally, as Britain did in the nineteenth century when it repealed the corn laws. We, as they did, would experience an enormous accession of political and economic power. We are a great nation and it ill behooves us to require reciprocal benefits from Luxembourg before we reduce a tariff on Luxembourg products, or to throw thousands of Chinese refugees suddenly out of work by imposing import quotas on textiles from Hong Kong.

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., 186 conscription, 36 consensus, 2, 23 conservatism, 6 Constitution, U.S., 2–3, 24, 51 Consumer’s Research, 146 Consumer’s Union, 146 contractions, economic, 38, 43, 44–50, 69, 75, 198. See also Great Depression contracts, 27, 34, 60, 146 “control of engagements” order, 11 Cook, Paul W., Jr., 106 n. copyrights, 27, 127–28, 147 corn laws, 73 corporate tax, 79–84, 130, 132, 135, 174, 198 corporations: ownership of vs. control of, 135–36; “social responsibility” of, 133–34, 135 cotton, 182 Council on Medical Education and Hospitals, 150–51, 152, 153, 154, 155 “Cross of Gold” speech (Bryan), 43 currency: devaluation of, 65; foreign reserves of, 63, 65, 67; inconvertibility of, 57–58.

The Victorian City: Everyday Life in Dickens' London by Judith Flanders

anti-work, antiwork, centre right, Corn Laws, Dutch auction, it's over 9,000, John Snow's cholera map, Ralph Waldo Emerson, traveling salesman, urban sprawl, working poor

Given those geographical and physical limitations, and the fact that most people bought muffins only at teatime, being a muffin man was not profitable. Neither was being a pieman. These men either had fixed pitches, or were flying piemen, walking the streets carrying a tray about three feet square, either on their heads or hanging from a strap around their necks. In the 1840s, the Corn Laws kept the price of flour high and, with it, the cost of pies.96 To maintain their price at the expected penny, the piemen were forced to scrimp: their pies were made with cheap shortening, or had less filling, or poor-quality meat. Many of the legends of cats’-meat, or worse, in pies spring from this period.

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In 1833, Sam Weller advises the horrified Mr Pickwick, ‘Wery good thing is weal pie, when you…is quite sure it ain’t kittens,’ but in summer ‘fruits is in, cats is out’. The legend of Sweeney Todd, the barber who murdered customers for his neighbour to bake into pies, was also created in the Hungry Forties. Even the repeal of the Corn Laws did not help, because once flour became cheaper, pie shops began to open, which damaged the street-trade of the piemen even further. Their customer base became confined almost entirely to boys, who worked in the streets, eating coffee-stall breakfasts, shellfish at lunch, hot eels or pea soup for dinner, perhaps with a potato, and a pie to fill in the gaps when they could afford it.

…

Nineteenth-century muffins were, of course, not American cake-like muffins. The modern ‘English muffin’ (an American anomaly too) is the descendant of what was being sold here. Made from a yeast batter, they were cooked on a griddle rather than baked, then cut in half, and served hot, spread with butter. 96. The Corn Laws were passed in 1815, as Britain moved to a peacetime economy after a quarter of a century of war. The import of grain (corn in this context generally meaning wheat, but legally all grain) from abroad was prohibited unless the home price rose above a certain – astronomical – level, to protect the home markets.

The Globotics Upheaval: Globalisation, Robotics and the Future of Work by Richard Baldwin

agricultural Revolution, Airbnb, AlphaGo, AltaVista, Amazon Web Services, Apollo 11, augmented reality, autonomous vehicles, basic income, Big Tech, bread and circuses, business process, business process outsourcing, call centre, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, Cass Sunstein, commoditize, computer vision, Corn Laws, correlation does not imply causation, Credit Default Swap, data science, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, declining real wages, deep learning, DeepMind, deindustrialization, deskilling, Donald Trump, Douglas Hofstadter, Downton Abbey, Elon Musk, Erik Brynjolfsson, facts on the ground, Fairchild Semiconductor, future of journalism, future of work, George Gilder, Google Glasses, Google Hangouts, Hans Moravec, hiring and firing, hype cycle, impulse control, income inequality, industrial robot, intangible asset, Internet of things, invisible hand, James Watt: steam engine, Jeff Bezos, job automation, Kevin Roose, knowledge worker, laissez-faire capitalism, Les Trente Glorieuses, low skilled workers, machine translation, Machine translation of "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." to Russian and back, manufacturing employment, Mark Zuckerberg, mass immigration, mass incarceration, Metcalfe’s law, mirror neurons, new economy, optical character recognition, pattern recognition, Ponzi scheme, post-industrial society, post-work, profit motive, remote working, reshoring, ride hailing / ride sharing, Robert Gordon, Robert Metcalfe, robotic process automation, Ronald Reagan, Salesforce, San Francisco homelessness, Second Machine Age, self-driving car, side project, Silicon Valley, Skype, Snapchat, social intelligence, sovereign wealth fund, standardized shipping container, statistical model, Stephen Hawking, Steve Jobs, supply-chain management, systems thinking, TaskRabbit, telepresence, telepresence robot, telerobotics, Thomas Malthus, trade liberalization, universal basic income, warehouse automation

But when the war ended, grain imports surged and prices plunged. This triggered a backlash by aggrieved landowners. But they didn’t have to hold rallies and break things. A simpler solution was at hand. Large landowners held the reins of power in Parliament and engineered a protectionist backlash called the “Corn Laws.” Passed in 1815, these laws raised prices of grain by keeping cheaper foreign grain out of Britain. This kept bread prices high for thirty years. These British examples illustrate the general and very natural tendencies of great changes to generate great reactions. Similar things were happening on the Continent, but with a lag.

…

There, the combination of income stagnation, the destruction of good industrial jobs, and long-running decimation of communities that used to thrive around manufacturing hubs has yielded some very bad non-economic problems. The massive economic transformation that came with the ICT-led automation and globalization produced backlashes in America and Europe. The 2016 backlash is nowhere near as big as the great backlashes of the early 1900s. It is more like the small backlashes of the early 1800s—the Luddites and Corn Laws—but we don’t yet know where it is heading. The surprise election of the populist outsider Donald Trump as president was the largest backlash so far. NEW UPHEAVAL PRODUCES A NEW BACKLASH Donald Trump got Jeff Fox’s backlash vote, but not for the reason you might expect given the economic hardships he faces.

Bureaucracy by David Graeber

a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, airport security, Albert Einstein, Alvin Toffler, banking crisis, barriers to entry, borderless world, Bretton Woods, British Empire, collateralized debt obligation, Columbine, conceptual framework, Corn Laws, David Graeber, Future Shock, George Gilder, High speed trading, hiring and firing, junk bonds, Kitchen Debate, late capitalism, Lewis Mumford, means of production, music of the spheres, Neal Stephenson, new economy, obamacare, Occupy movement, Oklahoma City bombing, Parkinson's law, Peter Thiel, planetary scale, pneumatic tube, post-work, price mechanism, Ronald Reagan, self-driving car, Silicon Valley, South Sea Bubble, stock buybacks, technological determinism, transcontinental railway, union organizing, urban planning, zero-sum game

As Giovanni Arrighi pointed out, an analogous corporate model was emerging at the same time in Germany, and the two countries—the United States and Germany—ended up spending most of the first half of the next century battling over which would take over from the declining British empire and establish its own vision for a global economic and political order. We all know who won. Arrighi makes another interesting point here. Unlike the British Empire, which had taken its free market rhetoric seriously, eliminating its own protective tariffs with the famous Anti–Corn Law Bill of 1846, neither the German or American regimes had ever been especially interested in free trade. The Americans in particular were much more concerned with creating structures of international administration. The very first thing the United States did, on officially taking over the reins from Great Britain after World War II, was to set up the world’s first genuinely planetary bureaucratic institutions in the United Nations and the Bretton Woods institutions—the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and GATT, later to become the WTO.

…

Obviously, the planetary bureaucracy remained in place, but policies like IMF-imposed structural adjustment ended, and Argentina’s writing down of its loans in 2002, under intense pressure from social movements, set off a chain of events that effectively ended the Third World debt crisis. 29. The League of Nations and the UN up until the seventies were basically talking-shops. 30. In England, for instance, the anti–Corn Law legislation eliminating British tariff protections, which is seen as initiating the liberal age, was introduced by Conservative Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel, mainly famous for having created the first British police force. 31. I was reminded of this a few years ago by none other than Julian Assange, when a number of Occupy activists appeared on his TV show The World Tomorrow.

The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves by Matt Ridley

"World Economic Forum" Davos, 23andMe, Abraham Maslow, agricultural Revolution, air freight, back-to-the-land, banking crisis, barriers to entry, Bernie Madoff, British Empire, call centre, carbon credits, carbon footprint, carbon tax, Cesare Marchetti: Marchetti’s constant, charter city, clean water, cloud computing, cognitive dissonance, collateralized debt obligation, colonial exploitation, colonial rule, Corn Laws, Cornelius Vanderbilt, cotton gin, creative destruction, credit crunch, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, decarbonisation, dematerialisation, demographic dividend, demographic transition, double entry bookkeeping, Easter island, Edward Glaeser, Edward Jenner, electricity market, en.wikipedia.org, everywhere but in the productivity statistics, falling living standards, feminist movement, financial innovation, flying shuttle, Flynn Effect, food miles, Ford Model T, Garrett Hardin, Gordon Gekko, greed is good, Hans Rosling, happiness index / gross national happiness, haute cuisine, hedonic treadmill, Herbert Marcuse, Hernando de Soto, income inequality, income per capita, Indoor air pollution, informal economy, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invention of agriculture, invisible hand, James Hargreaves, James Watt: steam engine, Jane Jacobs, Jevons paradox, John Nash: game theory, joint-stock limited liability company, Joseph Schumpeter, Kevin Kelly, Kickstarter, knowledge worker, Kula ring, Large Hadron Collider, Mark Zuckerberg, Medieval Warm Period, meta-analysis, mutually assured destruction, Naomi Klein, Northern Rock, nuclear winter, ocean acidification, oil shale / tar sands, out of africa, packet switching, patent troll, Pax Mongolica, Peter Thiel, phenotype, plutocrats, Ponzi scheme, precautionary principle, Productivity paradox, profit motive, purchasing power parity, race to the bottom, Ray Kurzweil, rent-seeking, rising living standards, Robert Solow, Silicon Valley, spice trade, spinning jenny, stem cell, Steve Jobs, Steven Pinker, Stewart Brand, supervolcano, technological singularity, Thales and the olive presses, Thales of Miletus, the long tail, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thorstein Veblen, trade route, Tragedy of the Commons, transaction costs, ultimatum game, upwardly mobile, urban sprawl, Vernor Vinge, Vilfredo Pareto, wage slave, working poor, working-age population, world market for maybe five computers, Y2K, Yogi Berra, zero-sum game

So Augustus locked him even more securely in a hilltop castle at Meissen and put him to work churning out teapots and vases. In short, competition was a grand incentive to European industrialisation, and a brake on bureaucratic suffocation, at the national as well as the corporate level. Repeal the corn laws again The greatest beneficiaries of European political fragmentation were the Dutch. By 1670, uncommanded by emperors and even fragmented among themselves, the Dutch so dominated European international trade that their merchant marine was bigger than that of France, England, Scotland, the Holy Roman Empire, Spain and Portugal – combined.

…

Victorian Britain’s great good fortune was that at the moment of industrial take-off Robert Peel embraced free trade, whereas Yong-Le had banned it. Between 1846 and 1860, Britain unilaterally adopted a string of measures to open its markets to free trade to a degree unprecedented in history. It abolished the corn laws, terminated the navigation acts, removed all tariffs and agreed trade treaties with France and others incorporating the ‘most favoured nation’ principle – that any liberalisation applied to all trading parties. This spread tariff reduction like a virus through the countries of the world and genuine global free trade arrived at last – a planetary Phoenician experiment.

…

Abbasids 161, 178 Abelard, Peter 358 aborigines (Australian): division of labour 62, 63, 76; farming 127; technological regress 78–84; trade 90–91, 92 abortion, compulsory 203 Abu Hureyra 127 Acapulco 184 accounting systems 160, 168, 196 Accra 189 Acemoglu, Daron 321 Ache people 61 Acheulean tools 48–9, 50, 275, 373 Achuar people 87 acid rain 280, 281, 304–6, 329, 339 acidification of oceans 280, 340–41 Adams, Henry 289 Aden 177 Adenauer, Konrad 289 Aegean sea 168, 170–71 Afghanistan 14, 208–9, 315, 353 Africa: agriculture 145, 148, 154–5, 326; AIDS epidemic 14, 307–8, 316, 319, 320, 322; colonialism 319–20, 321–2; demographic transition 210, 316, 328; economic growth 315, 326–8, 332, 347; international aid 317–19, 322, 328; lawlessness 293, 320; life expectancy 14, 316, 422; per capita income 14, 315, 317, 320; poverty 314–17, 319–20, 322, 325–6, 327–8; prehistoric 52–5, 65–6, 83, 123, 350; property rights 320, 321, 323–5; trade 187–8, 320, 322–3, 325, 326, 327–8; see also individual countries African-Americans 108 agricultural employment: decline in 42–3; hardships of 13, 219–20, 285–6 agriculture: early development of 122–30, 135–9, 352, 387, 388; fertilisers, development of 135, 139–41, 142, 146, 147, 337; genetically modified (GM) crops 28, 32, 148, 151–6, 283, 358; hybrids, development of 141–2, 146, 153; and trade 123, 126, 127–33, 159, 163–4; and urbanisation 128, 158–9, 163–4, 215; see also farming; food supply Agta people 61–2 aid, international 28, 141, 154, 203, 317–19, 328 AIDS 8, 14, 307–8, 310, 316, 319, 320, 322, 331, 353 AIG (insurance corporation) 115 air conditioning 17 air pollution 304–5 air travel: costs of 24, 37, 252, 253; speed of 253 aircraft 257, 261, 264, 266 Akkadian empire 161, 164–5 Al-Ghazali 357 Al-Khwarizmi, Muhammad ibn Musa 115 Al-Qaeda 296 Albania 187 Alcoa (corporation) 24 Alexander the Great 169, 171 Alexander, Gary 295 Alexandria 171, 175, 270 Algeria 53, 246, 345 alphabet, invention of 166, 396 Alps 122, 178 altruism 93–4, 97 aluminium 24, 213, 237, 303 Alyawarre aborigines 63 Amalfi 178 Amazon (corporation) 21, 259, 261 Amazonia 76, 138, 145, 250–51 amber 71, 92 ambition 45–6, 351 Ames, Bruce 298–9 Amish people 211 ammonia 140, 146 Amsterdam 115–16, 169, 259, 368 Amsterdam Exchange Bank 251 Anabaptists 211 Anatolia 127, 128, 164, 165, 166, 167 Ancoats, Manchester 214 Andaman islands 66–7, 78 Andes 123, 140, 163 Andrew, Deroi Kwesi 189 Angkor Wat 330 Angola 316 animal welfare 104, 145–6 animals: conservation 324, 339; extinctions 17, 43, 64, 68, 69–70, 243, 293, 302, 338–9; humans’ differences from other 1, 2–4, 6, 56, 58, 64 Annan, Kofi 337 Antarctica 334 anti-corporatism 110–111, 114 anti-slavery 104, 105–6, 214 antibiotics 6, 258, 271, 307 antimony 213 ants 75–6, 87–8, 192 apartheid 108 apes 56–7, 59–60, 62, 65, 88; see also chimpanzees; orang-utans ‘apocaholics’ 295, 301 Appalachia 239 Apple (corporation) 260, 261, 268 Aquinas, St Thomas 102 Arabia 66, 159, 176, 179 Arabian Sea 174 Arabs 89, 175, 176–7, 180, 209, 357 Aral Sea 240 Arcadia Biosciences (company) 31–2 Archimedes 256 Arctic Ocean 125, 130, 185, 334, 338–9 Argentina 15, 186, 187 Arikamedu 174 Aristotle 115, 250 Arizona 152, 246, 345 Arkwright, Sir Richard 227 Armenians 89 Arnolfini, Giovanni 179 art: cave paintings 2, 68, 73, 76–7; and commerce 115–16; symbolism in 136; as unique human trait 4 Ashur, Assyria 165 Asimov, Isaac 354 Asoka the Great 172–3 aspirin 258 asset price inflation 24, 30 Assyrian empire 161, 165–6, 167 asteroid impacts, risk of 280, 333 astronomy 221, 270, 357 Athabasca tar sands, Canada 238 Athens 115, 170, 171 Atlantic Monthly 293 Atlantic Ocean 125, 170 Attica 171 Augustus, Roman emperor 174 Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony 184–5 Australia: climate 127, 241, 300, 334; prehistoric 66, 67, 69–70, 127; trade 187; see also aborigines (Australian); Tasmania Austria 132 Ausubel, Jesse 239, 346, 409 automobiles see cars axes: copper 123, 131, 132, 136, 271; stone 2, 5, 48–9, 50, 51, 71, 81, 90–91, 92, 118–19, 271 Babylon 21, 161, 166, 240, 254, 289 Bacon, Francis 255 bacteria: cross fertilisation 271; and pest control 151; resistance to antibiotics 6, 258, 271, 307; symbiosis 75 Baghdad 115, 177, 178, 357 Baines, Edward 227 Baird, John Logie 38 baking 124, 130 ‘balance of nature’, belief in 250–51 Balazs, Etienne 183 bald eagles 17, 299 Bali 66 Baltic Sea 71, 128–9, 180, 185 Bamako 326 bananas 92, 126, 149, 154, 392 Bangladesh 204, 210, 426 Banks, Sir Joseph 221 Barigaza (Bharuch) 174 barley 32, 124, 151 barrels 176 bartering vii, 56–60, 65, 84, 91–2, 163, 356 Basalla, George 272 Basra 177 battery farming 104, 145–6 BBC 295 beads 53, 70, 71, 73, 81, 93, 162 beef 186, 224, 308; see also cattle bees, killer 280 Beijing 17 Beinhocker, Eric 112 Bell, Alexander Graham 38 Bengal famine (1943) 141 benzene 257 Berlin 299 Berlin, Sir Isaiah 288 Bernard of Clairvaux, St 358 Berners-Lee, Sir Tim 38, 273 Berra, Yogi 354 Besant, Annie 208 Bhutan 25–6 Bible 138, 168, 396 bicycles 248–9, 263, 269–70 bin Laden, Osama 110 biofuels 149, 236, 238, 239, 240–43, 246, 300, 339, 343, 344, 346, 393 Bird, Isabella 197–8 birds: effects of pollution on 17, 299; killed by wind turbines 239, 409; nests 51; sexual differences 64; songbirds 55; see also individual species bireme galleys 167 Birmingham 223 birth control see contraception birth rates: declining 204–212; and food supply 192, 208–9; and industrialisation 202; measurement of 205, 403; population control policies 202–4, 208; pre-industrial societies 135, 137; and television 234; and wealth 200–201, 204, 205–6, 209, 211, 212; see also population growth Black Death 181, 195–6, 197, 380 Black Sea 71, 128, 129, 170, 176, 180 blogging 257 Blombos Cave, South Africa 53, 83 blood circulation, discovery of 258 Blunt, John 29 boat-building 167, 168, 177; see also canoes; ship-building Boers 321, 322 Bohemia 222 Bolivia 315, 324 Bolsheviks 324 Borlaug, Norman 142–3, 146 Borneo 339 Bosch, Carl 140, 412 Botswana 15, 316, 320–22, 326 Bottger, Johann Friedrich 184–5 Boudreaux, Don 21, 214 Boulton, Matthew 221, 256, 413–14 bows and arrows 43, 62, 70, 82, 137, 251, 274 Boxgrove hominids 48, 50 Boyer, Stanley 222, 405 Boyle, Robert 256 Bradlaugh, Charles 208 brain size 3–4, 48–9, 51, 55 Bramah, Joseph 221 Branc, Slovakia 136 Brand, Stewart 154, 189, 205 Brando, Marlon 110 brass 223 Brazil 38, 87, 123, 190, 240, 242, 315, 358 bread 38, 124, 140, 158, 224, 286, 392 bridges, suspension 283 Brin, Sergey 221, 405 Britain: affluence 12, 16, 224–5, 236, 296–7; birth rates 195, 200–201, 206, 208, 227; British exceptionalism 200–202, 221–2; climate change policy 330–31; consumer prices 24, 224–5, 227, 228; copyright system 267; enclosure acts 226, 323, 406; energy use 22, 231–2, 232–3, 342–3, 368, 430; ‘glorious revolution’ (1688) 223; income equality 18–19, 218; industrial revolution 201–2, 216–17, 220–32, 255–6, 258–9; life expectancy 15, 17–18; National Food Service 268; National Health Service 111, 261; parliamentary reform 107; per capita income 16, 218, 227, 285, 404–5; productivity 112; property rights 223, 226, 323–4; state benefits 16; tariffs 185–6, 186–7, 223; see also England; Scotland; Wales British Empire 161, 322 bronze 164, 168, 177 Brosnan, Sarah 59 Brown, Lester 147–8, 281–2, 300–301 Brown, Louise 306 Bruges 179 Brunel, Sir Marc 221 Buddhism 2, 172, 357 Buddle, John 412 Buffett, Warren 106, 268 Bulgaria 320 Burkina Faso 154 Burma 66, 67, 209, 335 Bush, George W. 161 Butler, Eamonn 105, 249 Byblos 167 Byzantium 176, 177, 179 cabbages 298 ‘Caesarism’ 289 Cairo 323 Calcutta 190, 315 Calico Act (1722) 226 Califano, Joseph 202–3 California: agriculture 150; Chumash people 62, 92–3; development of credit card 251, 254; Mojave Desert 69; Silicon Valley 221–2, 224, 257, 258, 259, 268 Cambodia 14, 315 camels 135, 176–7 camera pills 270–71 Cameroon 57 Campania 174, 175 Canaanites 166, 396 Canada 141, 169, 202, 238, 304, 305 Canal du Midi 251 cancer 14, 18, 293, 297–9, 302, 308, 329 Cannae, battle of 170 canning 186, 258 canoes 66, 67, 79, 82 capitalism 23–4, 101–4, 110, 115, 133, 214, 258–62, 291–2, 311; see also corporations; markets ‘Captain Swing’ 283 capuchin monkeys 96–7, 375 Caral, Peru 162–3 carbon dioxide emissions 340–47; absorption of 217; and agriculture 130, 337–8; and biofuels 242; costs of 331; and economic growth 315, 332; and fossil fuels 237, 315; and local sourcing of goods 41–2; taxes 346, 356 Cardwell’s Law 411 Caribbean see West Indies Carnegie, Andrew 23 Carney, Thomas 173 carnivorism 51, 60, 62, 68–9, 147, 156, 241, 376 carrots 153, 156 cars: biofuel for 240, 241; costs of 24, 252; efficiency of 252; future production 282, 355; hybrid 245; invention of 189, 270, 271; pollution from 17, 242; sport-utility vehicles 45 The Rational Optimist 424 Carson, Rachel 152, 297–8 Carter, Jimmy 238 Carthage 169, 170, 173 Cartwright, Edmund 221, 263 Castro, Fidel 187 Catalhoyuk 127 catallaxy 56, 355–9 Catholicism 105, 208, 306 cattle 122, 132, 145, 147, 148, 150, 197, 321, 336; see also beef Caucasus 237 cave paintings 2, 68, 73, 76–7 Cavendish, Henry 221 cement 283 central heating 16, 37 cereals 124–5, 125–6, 130–31, 143–4, 146–7, 158, 163; global harvests 121 Champlain, Samuel 138–9 charcoal 131, 216, 229, 230, 346 charitable giving 92, 105, 106, 295, 318–19, 356 Charles V: king of Spain 30–31; Holy Roman Emperor 184 Charles, Prince of Wales 291, 332 Chauvet Cave, France 2, 68, 73, 76–7 Chernobyl 283, 308, 345, 421 Chicago World Fair (1893) 346 chickens 122–3, 145–6, 147, 148, 408 chickpeas 125 Childe, Gordon 162 children: child labour 104, 188, 218, 220, 292; child molestation 104; childcare 2, 62–3; childhood diseases 310; mortality rates 14, 15, 16, 208–9, 284 Chile 187 chimpanzees 2, 3, 4, 6, 29, 59–60, 87, 88, 97 China: agriculture 123, 126, 148, 152, 220; birth rate 15, 200–201; coal supplies 229–30; Cultural Revolution 14, 201; diet 241; economic growth and industrialisation 17, 109, 180–81, 187, 201, 219, 220, 281–2, 300, 322, 324–5, 328, 358; economic and technological regression 180, 181–2, 193, 229–30, 255, 321, 357–8; energy use 245; income equality 19; innovations 181, 251; life expectancy 15; Longshan culture 397; Maoism 16, 187, 296, 311; Ming empire 117, 181–4, 260, 311; per capita income 15, 180; prehistoric 68, 123, 126; serfdom 181–2; Shang dynasty 166; Song dynasty 180–81; trade 172, 174–5, 177, 179, 183–4, 187, 225, 228 chlorine 296 cholera 40, 310 Chomsky, Noam 291 Christianity 172, 357, 358, 396; see also Catholicism; Church of England; monasteries Christmas 134 Chumash people 62, 92–3 Church of England 194 Churchill, Sir Winston 288 Cicero 173 Cilicia 173 Cisco Systems (corporation) 268 Cistercians 215 civil rights movement 108, 109 Clairvaux Abbey 215 Clark, Colin 146, 227 Clark, Gregory 193, 201, 401, 404 Clarke, Arthur C. 354 climate change 328–47, 426–30; costs of mitigation measures 330–32, 333, 338, 342–4; death rates associated with 335–7; and ecological dynamism 250, 329–30, 335, 339; and economic growth 315, 331–3, 341–3, 347; effects on ecosystems 338–41; and food supply 337–8; and fossil fuels 243, 314, 342, 346, 426; historic 194, 195, 329, 334, 426–7; pessimism about 280, 281, 314–15, 328–9; prehistoric 54, 65, 125, 127, 130, 160, 329, 334, 339, 340, 352; scepticism about 111, 329–30, 426; solutions to 8, 315, 345–7 Clinton, Bill 341 Clippinger, John 99 cloth trade 75, 159, 160, 165, 172, 177, 180, 194, 196, 225, 225–9, 232 clothes: Britain 224, 225, 227; early homo sapiens 71, 73; Inuits 64; metal age 122; Tasmanian natives 78 clothing prices 20, 34, 37, 40, 227, 228 ‘Club of Rome’ 302–3 coal: and economic take-off 201, 202, 213, 214, 216–17; and generation of electricity 233, 237, 239, 240, 304, 344; and industrialisation 229–33, 236, 407; prices 230, 232, 237; supplies 302–3 coal mining 132, 230–31, 237, 239, 257, 343 Coalbrookdale 407 Cobb, Kelly 35 Coca-Cola (corporation) 111, 263 coffee 298–9, 392 Cohen, Mark 135 Cold War 299 collective intelligence 5, 38–9, 46, 56, 83, 350–52, 355–6 Collier, Paul 315, 316–17 colonialism 160, 161, 187, 321–2; see also imperialism Colorado 324 Columbus, Christopher 91, 184 combine harvesters 158, 392 combined-cycle turbines 244, 410 commerce see trade Commoner, Barry 402 communism 106, 336 Compaq (corporation) 259 computer games 273, 292 computers 2, 3, 5, 211, 252, 260, 261, 263–4, 268, 282; computing power costs 24; information storage capacities 276; silicon chips 245, 263, 267–8; software 99, 257, 272–3, 304, 356; Y2K bug 280, 290, 341; see also internet Confucius 2, 181 Congo 14–15, 28, 307, 316 Congreve, Sir William 221 Connelly, Matthew 204 conservation, nature 324, 339; see also wilderness land, expansion of conservatism 109 Constantinople 175, 177 consumer spending, average 39–40 containerisation 113, 253, 386 continental drift 274 contraception 208, 210; coerced 203–4 Cook, Captain James 91 cooking 4, 29, 38, 50, 51, 52, 55, 60–61, 64, 163, 337 copper 122, 123, 131–2, 160, 162, 164, 165, 168, 213, 223, 302, 303 copyright 264, 266–7, 326 coral reefs 250, 339–40, 429–30 Cordoba 177 corn laws 185–6 Cornwall 132 corporations 110–116, 355; research and development budgets 260, 262, 269 Cosmides, Leda 57 Costa Rica 338 cotton 37, 108, 149, 151–2, 162, 163, 171, 172, 202, 225–9, 230, 407; calico 225–6, 232; spinning and weaving 184, 214, 217, 219–20, 227–8, 232, 256, 258, 263, 283 Coughlin, Father Charles 109 Craigslist (website) 273, 356 Crapper, Thomas 38 Crathis river 171 creationists 358 creative destruction 114, 356 credit cards 251, 254 credit crunch (2008) 8–10, 28–9, 31, 100, 102, 316, 355, 399, 411 Cree Indians 62 Crete 167, 169 Crichton, Michael 254 Crick, Francis 412 crime: cyber-crime 99–100, 357; falling rates 106, 201; false convictions 19–20; homicide 14, 20, 85, 88, 106, 118, 201; illegal drugs 106, 186; pessimism about 288, 293 Crimea 171 crocodiles, deaths by 40 Crompton, Samuel 227 Crookes, Sir William 140, 141 cruelty 104, 106, 138–9, 146 crusades 358 Cuba 187, 299 ‘curse of resources’ 31, 320 cyber-crime 99–100, 357 Cyprus 132, 148, 167, 168 Cyrus the Great 169 Dalkon Shield (contraceptive device) 203 Dalton, John 221 Damascus 127 Damerham, Wiltshire 194 Danube, River 128, 132 Darby, Abraham 407 Darfur 302, 353 Dark Ages 164, 175–6, 215 Darwin, Charles 77, 81, 91–2, 105, 116, 350, 415 Darwin, Erasmus 256 Darwinism 5 Davy, Sir Humphry 221, 412 Dawkins, Richard 5, 51 DDT (pesticide) 297–8, 299 de Geer, Louis 184 de Soto, Hernando 323, 324, 325 de Waal, Frans 88 Dean, James 110 decimal system 173, 178 deer 32–3, 122 deflation 24 Defoe, Daniel 224 deforestation, predictions of 304–5, 339 Delhi 189 Dell (corporation) 268 Dell, Michael 264 demographic transition 206–212, 316, 328, 402 Denmark 200, 344, 366; National Academy of Sciences 280 Dennett, Dan 350 dentistry 45 depression (psychological) 8, 156 depressions (economic) 3, 31, 32, 186–7, 192, 289; see also economic crashes deserts, expanding 28, 280 Detroit 315, 355 Dhaka 189 diabetes 156, 274, 306 Diamond, Jared 293–4, 380 diamonds 320, 322 Dickens, Charles 220 Diesel, Rudolf 146 Digital Equipment Corporation 260, 282 digital photography 114, 386 Dimawe, battle of (1852) 321 Diocletian, Roman emperor 175, 184 Diodorus 169 diprotodons 69 discount merchandising 112–14 division of labour: Adam Smith on vii, 80; and catallaxy 56; and fragmented government 172; in insects 75–6, 87–8; and population growth 211; by sex 61–5, 136, 376; and specialisation 7, 33, 38, 46, 61, 76–7, 175; among strangers and enemies 87–9; and trust 100; and urbanisation 164 DNA: forensic use 20; gene transfer 153 dogs 43, 56, 61, 84, 125 Doll, Richard 298 Dolphin, HMS 169 dolphins 3, 87 Domesday Book 215 Doriot, Georges 261 ‘dot-communism’ 356 Dover Castle 197 droughts: modern 241, 300, 334; prehistoric 54, 65, 334 drug crime 106, 186 DuPont (corporation) 31 dyes 167, 225, 257, 263 dynamos 217, 233–4, 271–2, 289 dysentery 157, 353 eagles 17, 239, 299, 409 East India Company 225, 226 Easter Island 380 Easterbrook, Greg 294, 300, 370 Easterlin, Richard 26 Easterly, William 318, 411 eBay (corporation) 21, 99, 100, 114, 115 Ebla, Syria 164 Ebola virus 307 economic booms 9, 29, 216 economic crashes 7–8, 9, 193; credit crunch (2008) 8–10, 28–9, 31, 100, 102, 316, 355, 399, 411; see also depressions (economic) ecosystems, dynamism of 250–51, 303, 410 Ecuador 87 Edinburgh Review 285 Edison, Thomas 234, 246, 272, 412 education: Africa 320; Japan 16; measuring value of 117; and population control 209, 210; universal access 106, 235; women and 209, 210 Edwards, Robert 306 Eemian interglacial period 52–3 Egypt: ancient 161, 166, 167, 170, 171, 192, 193, 197, 270, 334; Mamluk 182; modern 142, 154, 192, 301, 323; prehistoric 44, 45, 125, 126; Roman 174, 175, 178 Ehrenreich, Barbara 291 Ehrlich, Anne 203, 301–2 Ehrlich, Paul 143, 190, 203, 207, 301–2, 303 electric motors 271–2, 283 electricity 233–5, 236, 237, 245–6, 337, 343–4; costs 23; dynamos 217, 233–4, 271–2, 289 elephants 51, 54, 69, 303, 321 Eliot, T.S. 289 email 292 emigration 199–200, 202; see also migrations empathy 94–8 empires, trading 160–61; see also imperialism enclosure acts 226, 323, 406 endocrine disruptors 293 Engels, Friedrich 107–8, 136 England: agriculture 194–6, 215; infant mortality 284; law 118; life expectancy 13, 284; medieval population 194–7; per capita income 196; scientific revolution 255–7; trade 75, 89, 104, 106, 118, 169, 194; see also Britain Enron (corporation) 29, 111, 385 Erie, Lake 17 Erie Canal 139, 283 ethanol 240–42, 300 Ethiopia 14, 316, 319; prehistoric 52, 53, 129 eugenics 288, 329 Euphrates river 127, 158, 161, 167, 177 evolution, biological 5, 6, 7, 49–50, 55–6, 75, 271, 350 Ewald, Paul 309 exchange: etiquette and ritual of 133–4; and innovation 71–2, 76, 119, 167–8, 251, 269–74; and pre-industrial economies 133–4; and property rights 324–5; and rule of law 116, 117–18; and sexual division of labour 65; and specialisation 7, 10, 33, 35, 37–8, 46, 56, 58, 75, 90, 132–3, 350–52, 355, 358–9; and trust 98–100, 103, 104; as unique human trait 56–60; and virtue 100–104; see also bartering; markets; trade executions 104 extinctions 17, 43, 64, 68, 69–70, 243, 293, 302, 338–9 Exxon (corporation) 111, 115 eye colour 129 Ezekiel 167, 168 Facebook (website) 262, 268, 356 factories 160, 214, 218, 219–20, 221, 223, 256, 258–9, 284–5 falcons 299 family formation 195, 209–210, 211, 227 famines: modern 141, 143, 154, 199, 203, 302; pessimism about 280, 281, 284, 290, 300–302, 314; pre-industrial 45, 139, 195, 197 Faraday, Michael 271–2 Fargione, Joseph 242 farming: battery 104, 145–6; free-range 146, 308; intensive 143–9; organic 147, 149–52, 393; slash-and-burn 87, 129, 130; subsidies 188, 328; subsistence 87, 138, 175–6, 189, 192, 199–200; see also agriculture; food supply fascism 289 Fauchart, Emmanuelle 264 fax machines 252 Feering, Essex 195 Fehr, Ernst 94–6 female emancipation 107, 108–9, 209 feminism 109 Ferguson, Adam 1 Ferguson, Niall 85 Fermat’s Last Theorem 275 fermenting 130, 241 Ferranti, Sebastian de 234 Fertile Crescent 126, 251 fertilisation, in-vitro 306 fertilisers 32, 129, 135, 139–41, 142, 143, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149–50, 152, 155, 200, 337 Fibonacci 178 figs 125, 129 filariasis 310 Finland 15, 35, 261 fire, invention of 4, 50, 51, 52, 60, 274 First World War 289, 309 fish, sex-change 280, 293 fish farming 148, 155 fishing 62, 63–4, 71, 78–9, 81–2, 125, 127, 129, 136, 159, 162, 163, 327 Fishman, Charles 113 Flanders 179, 181, 194 flight, powered 257, 261, 264, 266 Flinders Island 81, 84 floods 128, 250, 329, 331, 334, 335, 426 Florence 89, 103, 115, 178 flowers, cut 42, 327, 328 flu, pandemic 28, 145–6, 308–310 Flynn, James 19 Fontaine, Hippolyte 233–4 food aid 28, 141, 154, 203 food miles 41–2, 353, 392; see also local sourcing food preservation 139, 145, 258 food prices 20, 22, 23, 34, 39, 40, 42, 240, 241, 300 food processing 29–30, 60–61, 145; see also baking; cooking food retailing 36, 112, 148, 268; see also supermarkets food sharing 56, 59–60, 64 food supply: and biofuels 240–41, 243, 300; and climate change 337–8; and industrialisation 139, 201–2; pessimism about 280, 281, 284, 290, 300–302; and population growth 139, 141, 143–4, 146–7, 192, 206, 208–9, 300–302 Ford, Ford Maddox 188 Ford, Henry 24, 114, 189, 271 Forester, Jay 303 forests, fears of depletion 304–5, 339 fossil fuels: and ecology 237, 240, 304, 315, 342–3, 345–6; fertilisers 143, 150, 155, 237; and industrialisation 214, 216–17, 229–33, 352; and labour saving 236–7; and productivity 244–5; supplies 216–17, 229–30, 237–8, 245, 302–3; see also charcoal; coal; gas, natural; oil; peat Fourier analysis 283 FOXP2 (gene) 55, 375 fragmentation, political 170–73, 180–81, 184, 185 France: capital markets 259; famine 197; infant mortality 16; population growth 206, 208; revolution 324; trade 184, 186, 222 Franco, Francisco 186 Frank, Robert 95–6 Franken, Al 291 Franklin, Benjamin 107, 256 Franks 176 Fray Bentos 186 free choice 27–8, 107–110, 291–2 free-range farming 146, 308 French Revolution 324 Friedel, Robert 224 Friedman, Milton 111 Friend, Sir Richard 257 Friends of the Earth 154, 155 Fry, Art 261 Fuji (corporation) 114, 386 Fujian, China 89, 183 fur trade 169, 180 futurology 354–5 Gadir (Cadiz) 168–9, 170 Gaelic language 129 Galbraith, J.K. 16 Galdikas, Birute 60 Galilee, Sea of 124 Galileo 115 Gandhi, Indira 203, 204 Gandhi, Sanjay 203–4 Ganges, River 147, 172 gas, natural 235, 236, 237, 240, 302, 303, 337 Gates, Bill 106, 264, 268 GDP per capita (world), increases in 11, 349 Genentech (corporation) 259, 405 General Electric Company 261, 264 General Motors (corporation) 115 generosity 86–7, 94–5 genetic research 54, 151, 265, 306–7, 310, 356, 358 genetically modified (GM) crops 28, 32, 148, 151–6, 283, 358 Genghis Khan 182 Genoa 89, 169, 178, 180 genome sequencing 265 geothermal power 246, 344 Germany: Great Depression (1930s) 31; industrialisation 202; infant mortality 16; Nazism 109, 289; population growth 202; predicted deforestation 304, 305; prehistoric 70, 138; trade 179–80, 187; see also West Germany Ghana 187, 189, 316, 326 Gibraltar, Strait of 180 gift giving 87, 92, 133, 134 Gilbert, Daniel 4 Gilgamesh, King 159 Ginsberg, Allen 110 Gintis, Herb 86 Gladstone, William 237 Glaeser, Edward 190 Glasgow 315 glass 166, 174–5, 177, 259 glass fibre 303 Global Humanitarian Forum 337 global warming see climate change globalisation 290, 358 ‘glorious revolution’ (1688) 223 GM (genetically modified) crops 28, 148, 151–6, 283, 358 goats 122, 126, 144, 145, 197, 320 Goethe, Johann von 104 Goklany, Indur 143–4, 341, 426 gold 165, 177, 303 golden eagles 239, 409 golden toads 338 Goldsmith, Edward 291 Google (corporation) 21, 100, 114, 259, 260, 268, 355 Gore, Al 233, 291 Goths 175 Gott, Richard 294 Gramme, Zénobe Théophile 233–4 Grantham, George 401 gravity, discovery of 258 Gray, John 285, 291 Great Barrier Reef 250 Greece: ancient 115, 128, 161, 170–71, 173–4; modern 186 greenhouse gases 152, 155, 242, 329; see also carbon dioxide emissions Greenland: ice cap 125, 130, 313, 334, 339, 426; Inuits 61; Norse 380 Greenpeace 154, 155, 281, 385 Grottes des Pigeons, Morocco 53 Groves, Leslie 412 Growth is Good for the Poor (World Bank study) 317 guano 139–40, 302 Guatemala 209 Gujarat 162, 174 Gujaratis 89 Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden 184 Gutenberg, Johann 184, 253 Guth, Werner 86 habeas corpus 358 Haber, Fritz 140, 412 Hadza people 61, 63, 87 Haiti 14, 301, 315 Halaf people 130 Hall, Charles Martin 24 Halley, Edmond 256 HANPP (human appropriation of net primary productivity) number 144–5 Hanseatic merchants 89, 179–80, 196 Hansen, James 426 hanta virus 307 happiness 25–8, 191 Harappa, Indus valley 161–2 Hardin, Garrett 203 harems 136 Hargreaves, James 227, 256 Harlem, Holland 215–16 Harper’s Weekly 23 Harvey, William 256 hay 214–15, 216, 239, 408–9 Hayek, Friedrich 5, 19, 38, 56, 250, 280, 355 heart disease 18, 156, 295 ‘hedonic treadmill’ 27 height, average human 16, 18 Heller, Michael 265–6 Hellespont 128, 170 Henrich, Joe 77, 377 Henry II, King of England 118 Henry, Joseph 271, 272 Henry, William 221 Heraclitus 251 herbicides 145, 152, 153–4 herding 130–31 Hero of Alexandria 270 Herschel, Sir William 221 Hesiod 292 Hippel, Eric von 273 hippies 26, 110, 175 Hiroshima 283 Hitler, Adolf 16, 184, 296 Hittites 166, 167 HIV/AIDS 8, 14, 307–8, 310, 316, 319, 320, 322, 331, 353 Hiwi people 61 Hobbes, Thomas 96 Hock, Dee 254 Hohle Fels, Germany 70 Holdren, John 203, 207, 311 Holland: agriculture 153; golden age 185, 201, 215–16, 223; horticulture 42; industrialisation 215–16, 226; innovations 264; trade 31, 89, 104, 106, 185, 223, 328 Holy Roman Empire 178, 265–6 Homer 2, 102, 168 Homestead Act (1862) 323 homicide 14, 20, 85, 88, 106, 118, 201 Homo erectus 49, 68, 71, 373 Homo heidelbergensis 49, 50–52, 373 Homo sapiens, emergence of 52–3 Hong Kong 31, 83, 158, 169, 187, 219, 328 Hongwu, Chinese emperor 183 Hood, Leroy 222, 405 Hooke, Robert 256 horses 48, 68, 69, 129, 140, 197, 215, 282, 408–9; shoes and harnesses 176, 215 housing costs 20, 25, 34, 39–40, 234, 368 Hoxha, Enver 187 Hrdy, Sarah 88 Huber, Peter 244, 344 Hueper, Wilhelm 297 Huguenots 184 Huia (birds) 64 human sacrifice 104 Hume, David 96, 103, 104, 170 humour 2 Hunan 177 Hungary 222 Huns 175 hunter-gatherers: consumption and production patterns 29–30, 123; division of labour 61–5, 76, 136; famines 45, 139; limitations of band size 77; modern societies 66–7, 76, 77–8, 80, 87, 135–6, 136–7; nomadism 130; nostalgia for life of 43–5, 135, 137; permanent settlements 128; processing of food 29, 38, 61; technological regress 78–84; trade 72, 77–8, 81, 92–3, 123, 136–7; violence and warfare 27, 44–5, 136, 137 hunting 61–4, 68–70, 125–6, 130, 339 Huron Indians 138–9 hurricanes 329, 335, 337 Hurst, Blake 152 Hutterites 211 Huxley, Aldous 289, 354 hydroelectric power 236, 239, 343, 344, 409 hyenas 43, 50, 54 IBM (corporation) 260, 261, 282 Ibn Khaldun 182 ice ages 52, 127, 329, 335, 340, 388 ice caps 125, 130, 313, 314, 334, 338–9, 426 Iceland 324 Ichaboe island 140 ‘idea-agora’ 262 imitation 4, 5, 6, 50, 77, 80 imperialism 104, 162, 164, 166, 172, 182, 319–20, 357; see also colonialism in-vitro fertilisation 306 income, per capita: and economic freedom 117; equality 18–19, 218–19; increases in 14, 15, 16–17, 218–19, 285, 331–2 India: agriculture 126, 129, 141, 142–3, 147, 151–2, 156, 301; British rule 160; caste system 173; economic growth 187, 358; energy use 245; income equality 19; infant mortality 16; innovations 172–3, 251; Mauryan empire 172–3, 201, 357; mobile phone use 327; population growth 202, 203–4; prehistoric 66, 126, 129; trade 174–5, 175, 179, 186–7, 225, 228, 232; urbanisation 189 Indian Ocean 174, 175 Indonesia 66, 87, 89, 177 Indus river 167 Indus valley civilisation 161–2, 164 industrialisation: and capital investment 258–9; and end of slavery 197, 214; and food production 139, 201–2; and fossil fuels 214, 216–17, 229–33, 352; and innovation 38, 220–24, 227–8; and living standards 217–20, 226–7, 258; pessimistic views of 42, 102–3, 217–18, 284–5; and productivity 227–8, 230–31, 232, 235–6, 244–5; and science 255–8; and trade 224–6; and urbanisation 188, 226–7 infant mortality 14, 15, 16, 208–9, 284 inflation 24, 30, 169, 289 influenza see flu, pandemic Ingleheart, Ronald 27 innovation: and capital investment 258–62, 269; and exchange 71–2, 76, 119, 167–8, 251, 269–74; and government spending programmes 267–9; increasing returns of 248–55, 274–7, 346, 354, 358–9; and industrialisation 38, 220–24, 227–8; and intellectual property 262–7, 269; limitlessness 374–7; and population growth 252; and productivity 227–8; and science 255–8, 412; and specialisation 56, 71–2, 73–4, 76–7, 119, 251; and trade 168, 171 insect-resistant crops 154–5 insecticides 151–2 insects 75–6, 87–8 insulin 156, 274 Intel (corporation) 263, 268 intellectual property 262–7; see also copyright; patents intensive farming 143–9 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 330, 331, 332, 333–4, 338, 342, 347, 425, 426, 427, 428 internal combustion engine 140, 146, 244 International Planned Parenthood Foundation 203 internet: access to 253, 268; blogging 257; and charitable giving 318–19, 356; cyber-crime 99–100, 357; development of 263, 268, 270, 356; email 292; free exchange 105, 272–3, 356; packet switching 263; problem-solving applications 261–2; search engines 245, 256, 267; shopping 37, 99, 107, 261; social networking websites 262, 268, 356; speed of 252, 253; trust among users 99–100, 356; World Wide Web 273, 356 Inuits 44, 61, 64, 126 IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) 330, 331, 332, 333–4, 338, 342, 347, 349, 425, 426, 427, 428 IQ levels 19 Iran 162 Iraq 31, 158, 161 Ireland 24, 129, 199, 227 iron 166, 167, 169, 181, 184, 223, 229, 230, 302, 407 irradiated food 150–51 irrigation 136, 147–8, 159, 161, 163, 198, 242, 281 Isaac, Glyn 64 Isaiah 102, 168 Islam 176, 357, 358 Israel 53, 69, 124, 148 Israelites 168 Italy: birth rate 208; city states 178–9, 181, 196; fascism 289; Greek settlements 170–71, 173–4; infant mortality 15; innovations 196, 251; mercantilism 89, 103, 178–9, 180, 196; prehistoric 69 ivory 70, 71, 73, 167 Jacob, François 7 Jacobs, Jane 128 Jamaica 149 James II, King 223 Japan: agriculture 197–8; birth rates 212; dictatorship 109; economic development 103, 322, 332; economic and technological regression 193, 197–9, 202; education 16; happiness 27; industrialisation 219; life expectancy 17, 31; trade 31, 183, 184, 187, 197 Jarawa tribe 67 Java 187 jealousy 2, 351 Jebel Sahaba cemeteries, Egypt 44, 45 Jefferson, Thomas 247, 249, 269 Jenner, Edward 221 Jensen, Robert 327 Jericho 127, 138 Jevons, Stanley 213, 237, 245 Jews 89, 108, 177–8, 184 Jigme Singye Wangchuck, King of Bhutan 25–6 Jobs, Steve 221, 264, 405 John, King of England 118 Johnson, Lyndon 202–3 Jones, Rhys 79 Jordan 148, 167 Jordan river 127 Joyce, James 289 justice 19–20, 116, 320, 358 Kalahari desert 44, 61, 76 Kalkadoon aborigines 91 Kanesh, Anatolia 165 Kangaroo Island 81 kangaroos 62, 63, 69–70, 84, 127 Kant, Immanuel 96 Kaplan, Robert 293 Kay, John 184, 227 Kazakhstan 206 Kealey, Terence 172, 255, 411 Kelly, Kevin 356 Kelvin, William Thomson, 1st Baron 412 Kenya 42, 87, 155, 209, 316, 326, 336, 353 Kerala 327 Kerouac, Jack 110 Khoisan people 54, 61, 62, 67, 116, 321 Kim Il Sung 187 King, Gregory 218 Kingdon, Jonathan 67 Kinneret, Lake 124 Klasies River 83 Klein, Naomi 291 Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (venture capitalists) 259 knowledge, increasing returns of 248–50, 274–7 Kodak (corporation) 114, 386 Kohler, Hans-Peter 212 Korea 184, 197, 300; see also North Korea; South Korea Kuhn, Steven 64, 69 kula (exchange system) 134 !

Empire of Guns by Priya Satia

banking crisis, British Empire, business intelligence, Corn Laws, cotton gin, deindustrialization, delayed gratification, European colonialism, Fellow of the Royal Society, flying shuttle, hiring and firing, independent contractor, interchangeable parts, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, James Watt: steam engine, joint-stock company, Khyber Pass, Lewis Mumford, Menlo Park, military-industrial complex, Panopticon Jeremy Bentham, rent-seeking, Scramble for Africa, Silicon Valley, spinning jenny, technological determinism, the scientific method, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, transatlantic slave trade, zero-sum game

Birmingham submitted five bills from 1773 to 1782 through the influence of industrial contractors. Their leadership gave the town a powerful lobby; indeed, it had had a powerful lobby even in 1689, with Newdigate. Galton and Lloyd were key forces behind the 1813 revival of the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce, which took on the Corn Laws and the East India Company monopoly and pushed for the electoral reforms that finally gave Birmingham parliamentary representation. The assertiveness of Birmingham’s merchants and industrialists was founded on their sustained success under state patronage. War-induced prosperity drove Birmingham’s rising political influence into the nineteenth century.

…

A month later, troops shot a boy in the leg while suppressing a grain riot in Nottingham. In this period, the idea of a “military” world with its own distinctive rules, values, and experiences, apart from the “civilian” realm, was just emerging. A violation of a private home was a violation of the kingdom. Frederick John Robinson (later Viscount Goderich) sponsored the protectionist Corn Law, which artificially raised wheat prices in 1815. A private soldier defending his home against rioters protesting the new law shot an innocent woman. His successful defense was that, by law, a man’s house was “his castle of defence” and that he thus stood in the same situation as the soldiers called upon to protect life, property, and houses during the Gordon Riots.

…

His quick provision of medical help to the victim and assurance that he had acted only after being assaulted fetched him a verdict of manslaughter. In Greater London between 1800 and 1810, there were four killings unrelated to property and duels. The subsequent five years brought eight such cases (including the notorious shooting of a woman in front of the home of the Corn Law sponsor and the assassination of the prime minister, on which more below). Gun-related deaths constituted 12 percent of killing indictments in that half decade, a higher proportion than ever. The massive wars that had begun in 1793 were changing the way guns were used in civilian violence, too. An entire generation had been made familiar with and capable of impersonal gun violence unrelated to property.

Capitalism: Money, Morals and Markets by John Plender

activist fund / activist shareholder / activist investor, Alan Greenspan, Andrei Shleifer, asset-backed security, bank run, Berlin Wall, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Black Monday: stock market crash in 1987, Black Swan, bond market vigilante , bonus culture, Bretton Woods, business climate, business cycle, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, central bank independence, collapse of Lehman Brothers, collective bargaining, computer age, Corn Laws, Cornelius Vanderbilt, corporate governance, creative destruction, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, deindustrialization, Deng Xiaoping, discovery of the americas, diversification, Eugene Fama: efficient market hypothesis, eurozone crisis, failed state, Fall of the Berlin Wall, fiat currency, financial engineering, financial innovation, financial intermediation, Fractional reserve banking, full employment, Glass-Steagall Act, God and Mammon, Golden arches theory, Gordon Gekko, greed is good, Hyman Minsky, income inequality, industrial research laboratory, inflation targeting, information asymmetry, invention of the wheel, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, James Carville said: "I would like to be reincarnated as the bond market. You can intimidate everybody.", James Watt: steam engine, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Meriwether, joint-stock company, Joseph Schumpeter, labour market flexibility, liberal capitalism, light touch regulation, London Interbank Offered Rate, London Whale, Long Term Capital Management, manufacturing employment, Mark Zuckerberg, market bubble, market fundamentalism, mass immigration, means of production, Menlo Park, money market fund, moral hazard, moveable type in China, Myron Scholes, Nick Leeson, Northern Rock, Occupy movement, offshore financial centre, paradox of thrift, Paul Samuelson, plutocrats, price stability, principal–agent problem, profit motive, proprietary trading, quantitative easing, railway mania, regulatory arbitrage, Richard Thaler, rising living standards, risk-adjusted returns, Robert Gordon, Robert Shiller, Ronald Reagan, savings glut, shareholder value, short selling, Silicon Valley, South Sea Bubble, spice trade, Steve Jobs, technology bubble, The Chicago School, The Great Moderation, the map is not the territory, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thorstein Veblen, time value of money, too big to fail, tulip mania, Upton Sinclair, Veblen good, We are the 99%, Wolfgang Streeck, zero-sum game

Yet the underlying idea is still very much of its time in the conclusion Montesquieu draws from it relating to the workings of human passions and interests: ‘And it is fortunate for men to be in a situation in which, though their passions may prompt them to be wicked [méchants], they have nevertheless an interest in not being so.’ The high tide of such liberal internationalism came in the mid-nineteenth century with the textile manufacturer and politician Richard Cobden, who, with John Bright, led the free trade campaign for the repeal of the Corn Laws, the system of tariffs that protected English landowners from foreign grain imports. Cobden was a pacifist and anti-imperialist. In his most idealistic and visionary speech on the case for free trade, he made it clear that securing peace through international trade was far more important to him than any economic consideration, although many of his supporters in the business community were probably more interested in the capacity of free trade to cheapen labour: I have been accused of looking too much to material interests.

…

In Tennyson’s poem of unrequited love, ‘Locksley Hall’, the narrator has an extraordinary prophetic vision of aerial warfare which is then succeeded by a peace in which an enlightened global parliament rules: For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see, Saw the vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be; Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails, Pilots of the purple twilight dropping down with costly bales; Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rain’d a ghastly dew From the nations’ airy navies grappling in the central blue; Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm, With standards of the peoples plunging thro’ the thunder-storm; Till the war-drum throbb’d no longer, and the battle-flags were furl’d In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world. There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe, And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law.105 The immediate consequence of Cobden’s victory in the campaign against the Corn Laws was an acceleration in British trade and economic growth. For Britain, at least, the rest of the century was relatively peaceful domestically. By the start of the twentieth century, meantime, Cobden’s idealism had been developed by the British journalist and politician Norman Angell into a more general theory about the futility of war in conditions of economic interdependence.

Unfinished Empire: The Global Expansion of Britain by John Darwin

Alfred Russel Wallace, British Empire, classic study, colonial rule, Corn Laws, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, European colonialism, financial independence, friendly fire, full employment, imperial preference, Khartoum Gordon, Khyber Pass, Kowloon Walled City, land tenure, mass immigration, Nelson Mandela, open economy, plutocrats, principal–agent problem, quantitative easing, reserve currency, Right to Buy, Scientific racism, South China Sea, special economic zone, spice trade, Suez canal 1869, Suez crisis 1956, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, too big to fail, trade route, transcontinental railway, union organizing

Industrial methods – especially the use of steam power for the spinning of yarn and the weaving of cloth – might have given British manufacturers a huge cost advantage, but in the depressed conditions of the 1830s and 1840s it also seemed likely to saturate their markets and reduce them to bankruptcy. Cutting their costs and finding new buyers were more urgent than ever. Even Robert Peel, the Conservative prime minister of 1841–6, who had defended the corn laws in the 1841 election, acknowledged the need to ‘re-balance’ the interests of farm and factory.49 But it was the catastrophe of famine in Ireland in 1845 that destroyed the old guard, broke the back of protection, swept the corn laws away and opened the road to the almost complete abolition of commercial restrictions in the 1850s. That this coincided (fortuitously) with the great expansion of world trade was the proof to most British opinion that free trade was the secret of British prosperity.

…

A much greater danger to Britain’s stability in the postwar depression was the high price of food, causing mass discontent, reducing consumption and therefore employment, and throwing large numbers on the overstrained system of ‘poor relief’. Leading figures in government accepted much of the logic of free trade but faced a solid phalanx of protectionism.47 Free traders denounced the so-called ‘corn laws’ (preventing the import of wheat until the price rose to a high level) as an abuse of power by the landed aristocracy (the politically dominant class) that stood to gain most. Worse still, restricting the import of cheap food was seen as a double imposition on the fast-growing manufacturing interest: it prevented manufacturers from reducing their costs by lowering wages in line with food prices, and discouraged potential foreign customers, who might sell grain in return, from buying British goods.

The Mystery of Charles Dickens by A. N. Wilson

British Empire, Columbine, Corn Laws, Etonian, Fellow of the Royal Society, George Santayana, Honoré de Balzac, James Watt: steam engine, Jarndyce and Jarndyce, Jarndyce and Jarndyce, Ralph Waldo Emerson, sexual politics, spinning jenny, Thomas Malthus

But how realistic was it to believe that the social ills of society could be cured by: that best portion of a good man’s life, His little, nameless, unremembered acts Of kindness and of love.40 Wordsworth’s Member of Parliament, John Curwen, said in 1826, ‘I once thought Great Britain could produce [enough] corn for itself, but I now think otherwise.’41 The corn and other foodstuffs that were now, in post-Napoleonic times, being imported to Britain would, without the imposition of tariffs, have been cheaper than those produced by British farmers. The government was caught in the dilemma: reduce, or abolish, the tariffs, and let the poor eat – and thereby threaten the farmers and landowners with a potentially disastrous reduction in income. This was the debate that would culminate in the abolition of the Corn Laws in the mid-1840s. Humphry House, writing in the high and palmy days of the foundation of the welfare state and the discovery of the advantages of a social democratic political system, is scornful of Betty Higden. He finds it ‘hard to see any genuine tragedy’ in the figure of a destitute old woman refusing help, for fear that she will be institutionalized.

…

, 314 All the Year Round, 99, 126, 145, 153, 158, 212, 214, 215, 219, 229, 285 American Civil War (1861–5), 214, 223 American Notes (Dickens), 164 American Revolution (1765–83), 262 ‘Among School Children’ (Yeats), 206 Ampthill Square, Camden Town, 12, 21, 317 Andersen, Hans Christian, 38, 134 Anderson, Wesley, 197 Angel in the House, The (Patmore), 136 Anglesey, Marquess of, see Paget, Henry Anglo-Saxon Primer (Sweet), 20 animal magnetism, 253, 255, 260–70 Anne of Cleves, 136 Aristotle, 28 Arnold, Thomas, 188 Artists’ Benevolent Fund, 36 Atalanta, 9 Athenaeum, The, 74 atmospherics, 282–4 Auden, Wystan Hugh, 225, 249 Austen, Jane, 6, 272, 307, 308 Austin, Letitia, 26, 70, 78, 297 Australia, 27, 40, 149, 151, 181, 182, 249 autism, 94–5 Autobiographical Fragment (1849), 60, 91, 95, 121, 155 Baltimore, Maryland, 222 de Balzac, Honoré, 43, 81, 87, 140–41, 202, 257 Banbury Road, Oxford, 20 Barnaby Rudge (Dickens), 58, 84, 297, 312, 313 Barrow, Charles, 76 Barrow, Mary, 63, 69 Barrow, Thomas Culliford, 63 Battle of Life, The (Dickens), 158 Battle of Trafalgar (1805), 61 Baudelaire, Charles, 141 Bayer Pharmaceuticals, 244, 246 Bayswater, London, 317 Beadnell, George, 106 Beadnell, Maria, see Winter, Maria Beard, Frank, 99, 238, 286, 297 Beard, Thomas, 99 Beatles, The, 300 ‘Begging-Letter Writer, The’ (Dickens), 154 Belfast, Ireland, 210, 310 ‘Bénédiction’ (Baudelaire), 141 Benham, William, 313–14, 315, 316 Bentham, Jeremy, 77, 81, 147, 172, 179, 188 Berg Collection, New York Public Library, 199, 216 Bernard, William Bayle, 207 Bethnal Green, London, 24 Betjeman, John, 227, 309 Bettelheim, Bruno, 94–5 Biggles series (Johns), 302 Birmingham, West Midlands, 203, 204, 209 Blake, William, 118 Bleak House (Dickens), 21, 39, 43, 62, 67, 90, 94, 114, 146, 200, 215, 280, 282 Bleak House, Broadstairs, 46, 125 Bloomsbury, London, 25, 40, 102 Boer War (1899–1902), 300 Boleyn, Anne, 136 Bonchurch, Isle of Wight, 297 Boots at the Holly-Tree Inn (Dickens), 197 Boston, Massachusetts mesmerism in, 266 Parkman–Webster murder case (1849), 250–53, 279 public reading tours, 123, 220–21, 224–6, 229, 250 Boswell, James, 121 Boulton, Matthew, 64 Bowen, Elizabeth, 46–7, 48, 303 Bradford, Yorkshire, 205 Bright, John, 188 British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), 304 British Empire, 120 British Museum, London, 25, 103, 167, 295 Broadstairs, Kent, 46, 125, 145, 297, 314 Brontë sisters, 6, 204 Brooklyn, New York, 222 Brothers Grimm, 29 Brougham, Henry, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux, 154 Browne, Hablot Knight, 118, 119 Browne, John Collis, 246 Browning, Robert, 155 Bruce, Thomas, 7th Earl of Elgin, 295 Bubbles (Millais), 292 Buffalo, New York, 222, 225 Bulgakov, Mikhail, 308 Bulwer-Lytton, Robert, 1st Earl of Lytton, 104, 147 Burdett-Coutts, Angela, 122, 131, 146, 147–53, 156 Burdett, Francis, 147 burlesque, 5, 27, 30, 33, 35 Burnett, Frances ‘Fanny’, 62, 70, 78, 93, 101 Buss, Robert William, 45–6, 118 Byron, George Gordon, 234, 319 Camden Town, Middlesex, 70, 77, 228 Ampthill Square, 12, 21 Bayham Street, 96, 228 Drummond Street, 206 Gloucester Crescent, 100, 102–6 School for Girls, 45 Wellington House Academy, 155, 206, 228 Canning, George, 63 Canterbury Tales (Chaucer), 7 Canterbury, Kent, 7, 247, 272, 274 capital punishment, 175, 176–7 Carey, John, 299, 305 Carlyle, Thomas, 37, 81, 121, 155, 162, 178–81, 183, 234, 293 Caroline of Brunswick, Queen consort of the United Kingdom, 139 Carrow, Goldsmith Day, 215 Catholicism, 23, 164, 166, 311 Chadwick, Edwin, 188 Chalk, Kent, 119–20 Chamberlain, Joseph, 190, 209 Chandler, Raymond, 308 Chaplin, Charlie, 29, 238 Chapman and Hall, 45, 116–18, 120 Chapman, Edward, 116, 120 Chappell of Bond Street, 212, 226 Charing Cross, London, 102, 227, 296 Charles Dickens and the House of Fallen Women (Hartley), 150–51, 155, 156–7 Charles Dickens As I Knew Him (Dolby), 226 Charles Street, London, 62 Chatham, Kent, 35, 55, 64, 69–70, 77, 112, 126, 216, 271, 273, 284 Chaucer, Geoffrey, 7, 135 Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, 237 Chester, Cheshire, 238 Chesterton, George Laval, 151 Chesterton, Gilbert Keith, 298, 311 Childs, George William, 243 Chimes, The (Dickens), 94, 158, 234 China, 220 chlorodyne, 246 cholera, 165 Christ in the House of His Parents (Millais), 159, 291 Christianity, 48, 146, 147, 160, 162, 164–70, 191, 265, 311 Christmas, 24, 146, 157–61, 174, 186–7 games at Gad’s Hill, 53–4, 60, 73, 74, 99, 206 pantomimes, 27, 29, 35 Christmas Carol, A (Dickens), 59, 104, 156, 157, 158, 161, 173, 174, 180, 187, 191–2 public readings, 182, 204–5, 232, 235 Cinderella, 29 Clarke, Mary Cowden, 293 Cleveland Street, London, 62 Workhouse, 39, 64, 66, 68, 188 Clive, Catherine ‘Kitty’, 268 Cobden, Richard, 188 Cold Bath Fields, Middlesex, 151 Cole, Henry, 161 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 247 Collins, Charles, 101, 105 death (1870), 297 Collins, Katey, see Perugini, Catherine Collins, William Wilkie, 7, 9, 10, 15–16, 38, 70, 145, 250, 280 Frozen Deep, The, 7, 9, 10, 32, 38, 39, 201, 206, 207, 248, 297, 316 Moonstone, The, 253, 283–4 New Magdalen, The, 314 Woman in White, The, 137 Collyer, Robert Hanham, 266 Comédie humaine, La (Balzac), 257 Comte de Gabalis (Villars), 260 Connolly, John, 104 Convent Thoughts (Collins), 101 Conversations with Goethe (Eckermann), 121 Cook, Edward Dutton, 103 Cook, Lynda, 103 Cooper, Anthony, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury, 165 Corn Laws, 186 Cornelius, Anne, 130 corporal punishment, 300, 305 Cousine Bette (Balzac), 257 Coutts, Thomas, 147 Covent Garden, London, 25, 68, 102 Cox, Arthur, 273 Cranmer, Thomas, 136 Crewe Hall, Cheshire, 62 Crewe, John, 63 Cricket on the Hearth, The (Dickens), 158, 204, 209, 232 Crimean War (1853–6), 209 Crockford’s Clerical Directory, 317 Cruikshank, George, 37, 61, 119 Cuba, 220, 221 Curious Dance Round a Curious Tree, A (Dickens), 28 Curwen, John, 186 Cuvier, Georges, 262 Daily News, 115, 149 Darwin, Charles, 172 David Copperfield (Dickens), 10, 21, 42, 46, 79, 106, 116, 146, 195 as autobiographical, 27, 29, 39, 42, 71, 79, 195, 248, 277 Doctor Strong’s, 247, 272 Em’ly, 149–50, 151, 257 evangelicalism in, 164 pantomime and, 29–30 parents, influence of, 71, 91–2 Preface (1867), 46 public readings, 235 sex in, 257 Swinburne on, 195 voice in, 200 de la Rue family, 268–70 Dean Street, Soho, 37 Death of Chatterton, The (Wallis), 140 death penalty, 175, 176–7 Derby, Lord, see Smith-Stanley, Edward Devonshire Terrace, Regent’s Park, 25, 125 Dickens and Christmas (Hawksley), 159 Dickens and Daughter (Storey), 17 Dickens and the Workhouse (Richardson), 39, 64 Dickens in Search of Himself (Watkins), 299–300, 305 Dickens Museum, Doughty Street, 210 Dickens World, The (House), 67 Dickens, Alfred (b. 1814), 62, 78 Dickens, Alfred (b. 1822), 26, 70, 78 Dickens, Augustus, 26, 70, 78, 111, 140 Dickens, Catherine ‘Kate’ (wife, born Hogarth), 10, 92, 95, 99–141, 220, 271 Birmingham Christmas reading (1853), 205 British Museum letters donation (1879), 103 cruelty towards, 129–30 death of Charles (1870), 103, 104, 286 Forster and, 104, 123, 130 Italy trip (1844), 268, 269–70 mental illness accusation, 103–4, 105 Mesmerism and, 260 as mother figure, 31, 130 Naples trip (1845), 128 public reading tours and, 201, 202, 205, 219–20 separation from Charles (1858), 11, 42, 100, 131–41 Violated Letter (1858), 132–3 Warren’s Blacking, knowledge of, 72, 95, 121 wedding to Charles (1836), 119 Dickens, Charles ‘Charley’ (b. 1837), 103, 120, 148, 233, 286, 296 Dickens, Dora, 25, 125 Dickens, Edward, 125 Dickens, Elizabeth, 26, 30–32, 62, 69, 76, 82, 88–96, 101 Dickens, Frances ‘Fanny’, see Burnett, Frances Dickens, Frederick, 70, 78, 112, 121, 140 Dickens, Harriet, 70, 78 Dickens, Henry ‘Harry’, 53, 54, 105, 296, 305, 316 Dickens, John, 24–7, 30, 35, 40, 58, 61–4, 69, 74–7, 92–3, 105, 111 Dickens, Katey, see Perugini, Catherine Dickens, Letitia, see Austin, Letitia Dickens, Mary ‘Mamie’,21–2, 38, 105, 122, 286, 296 Dickens, William (b. 1716), 63 Dickens, William (b. 1783), 62 Dickens’s Dream (Buss), 45–6 Dickensian, The, 273 Dilke, Charles Wentworth, 74–6, 78, 79, 84 ‘Dinner at Poplar Walk, A’ (Dickens), 116 Disraeli, Benjamin, 147 divided self, 5, 10, 41–2, 58–9, 155, 232, 252–4, 279, 286, 291 divorce, 135–9 Dixon’s, Hull, 230 Doctors’ Commons, London, 111–12, 119 Dodd, John, 62 Dodd, Ken, 196 Dolby, George, 198, 212–13, 219–22, 224–6, 229, 232, 235–7 Dombey and Son (Dickens), 45, 100, 146, 200–201 Dostoevsky, Fyodor Mikhailovich, 6, 84, 281 Doughty Street, Holborn, 36, 45, 120, 210, 296 de Douhault, Mme, 137 Doyle, Arthur Conan, 272 Drummond Street, 206 Drury Lane Theatre, Covent Garden, 37, 237 Dublin, Ireland, 23, 310 Dunsterforce (1917–18), 22, 316 Edinburgh, Scotland, 111, 114 Edward VII, King of the United Kingdom, 207 Egg, Augustus, 37 Elgin, Lord, see Bruce, Thomas Eliot, George, 6, 16, 43, 140, 155, 204, 208, 232, 239, 277, 307, 308 Elliot, Frances, 217–18 Elliotson, John, 261, 263–7 Emerson, James, 250 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 220 Enlightenment, 261 epilepsy, 263 Eton College, Berkshire, 148, 296 Euston Station, London, 227–8, 229 Eva Trout (Bowen), 46–7, 303 evangelicalism, 164–5, 166, 167, 168 Evans, Frederick, 129 Evening Chronicle, 114, 167 ‘Evening with Charles Dickens, An’, 317 Every Man in His Humour (Jonson), 37, 206 Eyre, Edward John, 182, 312 Fabian Society, 162 Facts of Mesmerism, The (Townshend), 265 False Self, 95–6, 100 Falstaff Inn, Gad’s Hill, 11, 12 Farewell Tour, 232 Fielding, Henry, 231 Fields, Anne, 229, 243 Fields, James Thomas, 220, 223–4, 229, 243 Firbank, Ronald, 308 First World War (1914–18), 162, 238, 316 Fitzclarences, 139 Fitzherbert, Maria, 139 Flaubert, Gustave, 202 Florence, Italy, 219 Fontane, Theodor, 202 Forster, John, 35, 79 and Autobiographical Fragment (1849), 155–6 death of Charles (1870), 295, 296, 298 and Elizabeth Dickens, 89 and Kate Dickens, 104, 123, 130 Every Man in His Humour performance (1845), 37 Life of Charles Dickens, The, 20, 74, 121, 234 Mystery of Edwin Drood and, 275, 276, 277 and public readings, 201, 207, 209 on Seven Dials, 231 and Warren’s Blacking, 74–5, 78, 79, 82 Will of Charles Dickens, publication of, 20 Fort House, Broadstairs, 46, 125 Fountain Hotel, Canterbury, 247 France, 16–17, 18, 76, 106, 108 Revolution (1789–99), 261, 262, 313 Franco-Prussian War (1870–71), 48 Franklin, John, 7 Free Trade Hall, Manchester, 7, 8, 32, 38 Freud, Sigmund, 32 Froude, James Anthony, 121 Frozen Deep, The (Collins), 7, 9, 10, 32, 38, 39, 201, 206, 207, 248, 297, 316 Fry, Elizabeth, 179 Frye, Northrop, 163–4 Furnival’s Inn, London, 111, 120 Gad’s Hill, Kent, 5, 11, 12, 40, 41, 58, 60, 99, 129–30, 132, 195 Christmas games at, 53–4, 60, 73, 74, 99 death of Dickens (1870), 7, 11–16, 40, 48, 49, 73, 101–3, 255, 276, 286 Dickens’s Dream depiction (1875), 45–6 Georgina’s, household management, 11, 105, 125, 134 library, 160–61 Nancy murder enactments, 150, 195, 198, 207, 232–3 Swiss chalet, 102, 256, 276, 282 Garrick Club, London, 132, 237 Garrick, David, 268 Gaslight, 131 General Gordon’s Last Stand (Joy), 300 General Theatrical Fund, 25 Genoa, Italy, 268, 269, 293 George IV, King of the United Kingdom, 78, 80, 139 ‘George Silverman’s Explanation’ (Dickens), 94 Gerrard Street, London, 74, 75 Gilbert, William Schwenck, 312 Gladstone, William Ewart, 188, 205, 247 Gloucester Crescent, Camden Town, 100, 102–6 Glums, The, 304 von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang, 121 gonorrhoea, 145–6, 150, 286 Gordon Riots (1780), 313 Gordon-Lennox, Charles, 5th Duke of Richmond, 156 Grant, Ulysses, 223 Gray’s Inn, London, 36 ‘Great Baby, The’ (Dickens), 166, 167–70 Great Exhibition (1851), 38, 161, 165 Great Expectations (Dickens), 41, 56–7, 141, 191, 195, 248–9, 283 as autobiographical, 195, 248–9, 277 Elizabeth Dickens and, 90–91 Great Expectations (cont.)

The Verdict: Did Labour Change Britain? by Polly Toynbee, David Walker

Alan Greenspan, An Inconvenient Truth, banking crisis, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, blood diamond, Bob Geldof, Boris Johnson, call centre, central bank independence, congestion charging, Corn Laws, Credit Default Swap, Crossrail, decarbonisation, deglobalization, deindustrialization, Etonian, failed state, first-past-the-post, Frank Gehry, gender pay gap, Gini coefficient, high net worth, hiring and firing, illegal immigration, income inequality, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), knowledge economy, labour market flexibility, market bubble, mass immigration, military-industrial complex, millennium bug, moral panic, North Sea oil, Northern Rock, offshore financial centre, pension reform, plutocrats, Ponzi scheme, profit maximization, purchasing power parity, Right to Buy, shareholder value, Skype, smart meter, social distancing, stem cell, The Spirit Level, too big to fail, University of East Anglia, working-age population, Y2K

He says the picture was in fact one of growing activism and rebelliousness by backbenchers. MPs got several full-dress debates on Iraq; Blair could have lost the votes. In March 2003, 139 Labour MPs did vote against the war, which Cowley said was the largest rebellion seen under any party on any issue since the repeal of the Corn Laws under Sir Robert Peel. Big commitments on schools or on Trident only passed thanks to Tory support. His research found the class of 2005 Labour MPs the most rebellious of any since the war, but in truth, few rebellions threatened government business. Labour were also conservative about how to pay for politics.

…

., 1, 2, 3, 4 business, 1 company governance, 1 competition policy, 1 see also manufacturing Business Links, 1, 2 Cable, Vince, 1 Cadbury, 1 Caine, Judy, 1 Callaghan, James, 1 Cameron, David, 1, 2, 3, 4 Campaign for Real Ale, 1 Campbell, Alastair, 1, 2 Campbell, Naomi, 1 Canada, 1 cancer research, 1 cannabis, 1, 2 Cannock Chase Hospital, 1 Capel Manor College, 1 Carbon Trust, 1 Cardiff, 1, 2 Millennium Stadium, 1 see also Welsh assembly Care Quality Commission, 1, 2, 3 carers, 1 Carousel children’s centre, 1 Casey, Louise, 1, 2 casinos, 1 Castle, Barbara, 1 cataracts, 1, 2 Cator Park School, 1 CCTV, 1, 2, 3 celebrity culture, 1 Central Office of Information, 1 Ceuta, 1 Charity Commission, 1 Charleroi, 1 Chase Farm Hospital, 1, 2, 3 Cheltenham, 1 Cheney, Dick, 1 Chicago, 1 Chilcot inquiry, 1, 2, 3, 4 Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission, 1 child poverty, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 Child Support Agency, 1 child trafficking, 1 Child Trust Funds, 1, 2 childcare, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 children, 1 in care, 1 and crime, 1, 2 and pre-school education, 1 and reading, 1, 2 and safety, 1 and targets, 1 children’s centres, 1, 2, 3 Chile, 1 China, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and foreign policy, 1, 2, 3, 4 Chinese cockle pickers, 1 Christian Voice, 1 Chumbawamba, 1 Church of England, 1 Churchill, Winston, 1 cigarette smoking, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 see also smoking ban citizenship curriculum, 1 City of London, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 City of London police, 1 civil partnerships, 1 civil service, 1 Clapham Common, 1 Clapham Park estate, 1, 2 Clarke, Charles, 1 Clarke, Ken, 1, 2 Clarke, Michael, 1 Clarkson, Jeremy, 1, 2 ‘clean technologies’, 1 Cleveland Way, 1 climate change, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and transport and energy policies, 1 Climbié, Victoria, 1 Clinton, Bill, 1, 2, 3 Clitheroe, 1 cloning, 1 coal, 1 coalition government, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Cockermouth, 1 Cohen, Sir Ronnie, 1 Cole, Vanessa, 1 Collins, Colonel Tim, 1 Comer, Beryl, 1, 2, 3, 4 Common Agricultural Policy, 1, 2 community sentences, 1 Confederation of British Industry (CBI), 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 conflict diamonds, 1 Congo, 1 Connelly, Peter (Baby P), 1 Connexions, 1, 2 Contactpoint database, 1 Cook, Robin, 1, 2 Cool Britannia, 1, 2 Cooper, Robert, 1 Cooper, Yvette, 1 Copenhagen summit, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 Corby, 1, 2 Corn Laws, repeal of, 1 Cornwall, 1, 2 Coronation Street, 1 coroners, 1 Corus, 1 Countryside Alliance, 1, 2 County Durham, 1 Coventry, 1, 2, 3 Cowley, Philip, 1 Cox, Brian, 1 Crawford, Texas, 1 creative industries, 1, 2 credit card debt, 1 Crewe and Nantwich by-election, 1 Crick, Bernard, 1 cricket, 1 Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships, 1 crime, 1 car crime, 1 cyber-crime, 1 and demography, 1, 2 and drugs, 1 gun crime, 1, 2 juvenile crime, 1, 2, 3 knife crime, 1, 2 organized crime, 1, 2, 3 street crime, 1 Criminal Records Bureau, 1 Cruddas, Jon, 1 Cullen, Janet, 1, 2, 3, 4 Cumner-Price, George, 1 cycling, 1, 2, 3 Cyprus, 1, 2 Daily Mail, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Daily Telegraph, 1 Darfur, 1 Darling, Alistair, 1, 2, 3 Darwen, 1, 2 Darzi, Lord (Ara), 1 Data Protection Act, 1, 2 Davies, Norman, 1 Davies, Ron, 1 Davis, David, 1 Dearlove, Sir Richard, 1 defence policy, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Delhi, 1 dementia, 1 demonstrations, policing of, 1 Demos, 1 Denham, John, 1 Denison, Steve, 1 Denmark, 1, 2 dentistry, 1 depression, 1 Derby, 1 devolution, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 Dewar, Donald, 1, 2 diabetes, 1 Diana, Princess of Wales, 1, 2, 3 Dilnot, Andrew, 1 disabilities, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 disarmament, 1 divorce rate, 1 DNA database, 1 Dobson, Frank, 1, 2 doctors consultants, 1 GPs, 1, 2, 3 night and weekend cover, 1 pay, 1, 2, 3 working hours, 1 domestic violence, 1, 2, 3, 4 Doncaster, 1, 2, 3 Dongworth, Averil, 1 Dorling, Professor Danny, 1, 2, 3 Drayson, Paul, 1 drones, 1 drug dealers, 1, 2 drugs, 1, 2, 3 Dublin, 1 Duffy, Bobby, 1 Dundee, 1 Dunn, John, 1 Dunwoody, Gwyneth, 1 EastEnders, 1 Ecclestone, Bernie, 1 ‘eco towns’, 1 ecstasy, 1 Edinburgh, 1, 2, 3 see also Scottish parliament Edlington, 1 education, 1 further education and training, 1, 2, 3, 4 higher education, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 nursery education, 1 productivity in, 1 pre-school education, 1 and selection, 1, 2 and social class, 1, 2 spending on, 1, 2 and targets, 1, 2, 3 Welsh Assembly and, 1 see also schools education action zones, 1 Education Maintenance Allowance, 1, 2, 3 e-government, 1, 2 Egypt, 1 electoral reform, 1, 2, 3 electricity generation, 1, 2 Elgar, Edward, 1 Elgin marbles, 1 Elizabeth, Queen, the Queen Mother, 1 Elizabeth II, Queen, 1, 2, 3 employee buy-outs, 1 employment, 1 flexible, and migration, 1 part-time, 1, 2 state and ‘parastate’, 1, 2 women and, 1, 2 working hours, 1, 2 energy policies, 1 English for Speakers of Other Languages, 1 English Heritage, 1 Enron, 1 Environment Agency, 1, 2 equalities legislation, 1, 2, 3 Equality and Human Rights Commission, 1, 2, 3 Ericsson, 1 ethnic minorities, 1 euro, 1, 2 Eurofighter, 1 European Court of Human Rights, 1 European Union, 1, 2 European Union Emission Trading Scheme, 1 Eurostar, 1 Exeter, 1 Fairtrade products, 1 Falconer, Charlie, 1 Falklands War, 1 Family Intervention Projects (FIPs), 1 Farlow, Andrew, 1 farmers, 1, 2 fashion, 1 Feinstein, Professor Leon, 1, 2 Financial Services Authority, 1 financial services, 1, 2, 3 Financial Times, 1 Finland, 1 fire and rescue service, 1 fiscal stimulus, 1 floods, 1, 2, 3, 4 Florence, 1 flu, 1, 2 swine flu, 1, 2 Folkestone, 1 food and drink, 1, 2 foot-and-mouth disease, 1, 2 football, 1, 2, 3 Football Association, 1 forced marriages, 1 foreign policy, 1, 2, 3 France, 1, 2, 3, 4 economy and business, 1, 2 and education, 1, 2 and health, 1, 2, 3 Frankfurt am Main, 1 Franklin, Tom, 1 Frears, Stephen, 1 free speech, 1, 2 freedom of information, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 Freud, Lord, 1 Full Monty, The, 1 Future Jobs Fund, 1 G20 summit, 1, 2, 3 Gainsborough, 1 Galbraith, J.K., 1 Gallagher, Liam, 1 Gallagher, Noel, 1 gambling, 1 gangmasters, 1, 2 gas, 1 Gates, Bill, 1 Gateshead, 1 Gaza, 1 GCHQ, 1 GCSEs, 1, 2, 3, 4 Gehry, Frank, 1 Geldof, Bob, 1 gender reassignment, 1 General Teaching Council, 1 genetically modified crops, 1 Germany, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 economy and business, 1, 2, 3, 4 and education, 1, 2 and health, 1, 2 Ghana, 1 Ghandi’s curry house, 1 Ghent, 1 Gladstone, William Ewart, 1, 2 Glaister, Professor Stephen, 1 Glasgow, 1, 2, 3, 4 Gleneagles summit, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 globalization, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and crime, 1 and foreign policy, 1, 2, 3 and inequality, 1 and migration, 1, 2 Gloucester, 1 Goldacre, Ben, 1 Good Friday agreement, 1 Goodwin, Sir Fred, 1 Goody, Jade, 1 Gormley, Antony, 1 Gould, Philip, 1 grandparents, and childcare, 1 Gray, Simon, 1 Great Yarmouth, 1 Greater London Authority, 1, 2 Greater London Council, 1 green spaces, 1 Greenberg, Stan, 1 Greengrass, Paul, 1 Greenspan, Alan, 1, 2 Greenwich, 1 Gregg, Paul, 1 Guardian, 1, 2, 3 Guizot, François, 1 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, 1 Gummer, John, 1 Gurkhas, 1 Guthrie of Craigiebank, Lord, 1 Guy’s and St Thomas’s Hospital, 1 habeas corpus, suspension of, 1 Hacienda Club, 1 Hackney, 1 Hale, Baroness Brenda, 1 Hallé Orchestra, 1 Ham, Professor Chris, 1 Hamilton, Lewis, 1 Hammersmith Hospital, 1 Hammond, Richard, 1 Hardie, Keir, 1 Hardy, Thea, 1 Haringey, 1, 2 Harman, Harriet, 1 Harris of Peckham, Lord, 1 Harrison, PC Dawn, 1, 2 Harrow School, 1 Hartlepool, 1, 2 Hastings, 1, 2 Hatfield rail crash, 1 Hatt family, 1, 2, 3, 4 health, 1 and private sector, 1, 2 and social class, 1 spending on, 1, 2 Health Action Zones, 1 Health and Safety Executive, 1 Heathcote, Paul, 1 Heathrow airport, 1, 2, 3, 4 Hellawell, Keith, 1 Hennessy, Professor Peter, 1 Henry, Donna Charmaine, 1, 2, 3 heroin, 1 Hewitt, Patricia, 1, 2 Higgs, Sir Derek, 1 Hills, Professor John, 1, 2, 3 Hirst, Damien, 1 HMRC, 1, 2, 3 Hogg, John, 1, 2, 3 Hoggart, Richard, 1 Holly, Graham, 1 homelessness, 1, 2 Homerton Hospital, 1 homosexuality, 1, 2, 3 ‘honour’ killings, 1 Hoon, Geoff, 1 hospital-acquired infections, 1 hospitals and clinics, 1, 2, 3, 4 A&E units, 1, 2 closures, 1, 2, 3 foundation trusts, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and PFI, 1 House of Commons reforms, 1, 2 House of Lords reforms, 1, 2, 3, 4 housing market, 1, 2, 3 housing policies, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Howe, Elspeth, 1 Hoxton, 1 Huddersfield, 1 Hudson, Joseph, 1 Hull, 1, 2, 3 Human Rights Act, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 Humber Bridge, 1 hunting ban, 1 Hussein, Saddam, 1, 2, 3, 4 Hutton, John, 1 Hutton, Will, 1, 2 identity cards, 1, 2 If (Kipling), 1 Imperial War Museum North, 1 income inequalities, 1, 2, 3 gender pay gap, 1, 2 and high earners, 1 and social class, 1 Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), 1 Independent Safeguarding Authority, 1 independent-sector treatment centres (ISTCs), 1 Index of Multiple Deprivation, 1 India, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 individual learning accounts, 1 inflation, 1 and housing market, 1, 2 International Criminal Court, 1 International Monetary Fund (IMF), 1, 2, 3 internet, 1, 2, 3 and crime, 1 and cyber-bullying, 1 file sharing, 1 gambling, 1 and sex crimes, 1 Iran, 1, 2, 3 Iraq, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 arms supplies, 1 Chilcot inquiry, 1, 2, 3, 4 and Territorial Army, 1 and WMD, 1 Ireland, 1, 2, 3 Irish famine, 1 Irvine of Lairg, Lord, 1, 2 Ishaq, Khyra, 1 Islamabad, 1 Isle of Man, 1 Isle of Wight, 1, 2 Israel, 1 Italy, 1, 2, 3 and football, 1 Ivory Coast, 1 Japan, 1, 2, 3, 4 Jenkins, Roy, 1, 2 Jerry Springer: The Opera, 1 Jobcentre Plus, 1, 2 John Lewis Partnership, 1, 2 Johnson, Alan, 1, 2, 3, 4 Johnson, Boris, 1, 2 Judge, Lord (Igor), 1 Judge, Professor Ken, 1 Julius, DeAnne, 1 jury trials, 1, 2 Kabul, 1 Kapoor, Anish, 1, 2 Karachi, 1 Karadžic, Radovan, 1 Kashmir, 1 Kaufman, Gerald, 1 Keegan, William, 1 Keep Britain Tidy, 1 Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, 1 Kensit, Patsy, 1 Keynes, John Maynard, 1 Keys, Kenton, 1 Kidderminster Hospital, 1 King, Sir David, 1, 2 King, Mervyn, 1 King Edward VI School, 1 King’s College Hospital, 1 Kingsnorth power station, 1 Kirklees, 1 Knight, Jim, 1 knighthoods, 1 knowledge economy, 1 Kosovo, 1, 2, 3, 4 Kynaston, David, 1 Kyoto summit and protocols, 1, 2, 3 Labour Party membership, 1 Lacey, David, 1 Ladbroke Grove rail crash, 1 Lamb, General Sir Graeme, 1 Lambert, Richard, 1 landmines, 1 Lansley, Andrew, 1 lapdancing, 1 Las Vegas, 1 Lawrence, Stephen, 1 Lawson, Mark, 1 Layard, Professor Richard, 1 Le Grand, Professor Julian, 1 Lea, Ruth, 1 Lea Valley High School, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 Leahy, Sir Terry, 1, 2 learndirect, 1 Learning and Skills Council, 1 learning difficulties, 1, 2 learning mentors, 1 Leeds, 1, 2, 3, 4 legal reforms, 1 Leigh, Mike, 1 Lenon, Barnaby, 1 Lewes, 1 Lewisham, 1 Liberty, 1 licensing laws, 1, 2 life expectancy, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Life on Mars, 1 Lincoln, 1 Lindsell, Tracy, 1, 2 Lindsey oil refinery, 1 Lisbon Treaty, 1 Liverpool, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 Liverpool FC, 1 living standards, 1, 2 living wage campaign, 1, 2 Livingstone, Ken, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Livni, Tzipi, 1 Loaded magazine, 1 local government, 1, 2, 3 and elected mayors, 1 Lockerbie bomber, 1 London, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 bombings, 1, 2 congestion charge, 1, 2 detention of foreign leaders, 1 G20 protests, 1 Iraq war protests, 1, 2 mayoral election, 1, 2 and transport policy, 1, 2, 3 London Array wind farm, 1 Longannet, 1 Longfield, Anne, 1 Lord-Marchionne, Sacha, 1 Lorenzetti, Ambrogio, 1 lorry protests, 1, 2 Lowry Museum, 1 Lumley, Joanna, 1 Luton, 1, 2, 3, 4 Lyons, Sir Michael, 1 Macfadden, Julia, 1 Machin, Professor Stephen, 1, 2 Maclean, David, 1 Macmillan, Harold, 1 Macmillan, James, 1 McNulty, Tony, 1 Macpherson, Sir Nick, 1 Macpherson, Sir William, 1 McQueen, Alexander, 1 Madrid, 1, 2, 3 Major, John, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 Malaya, 1 Malloch Brown, Mark, 1 Manchester, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 club scene, 1, 2 and crime, 1, 2 Gorton, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and local government, 1 and transport policy, 1, 2, 3 Manchester Academy, 1 Manchester United FC, 1, 2 Manchester University, 1 Mandelson, Peter, 1, 2 Manpower Services Commission, 1 manufacturing, 1, 2, 3 Margate, 1 ‘market for talent’ myth, 1 marriage rate, 1 Martin, Michael, 1 maternity and paternity leave, 1, 2 Mayfield, Charlie, 1 Medical Research Council, 1 mental health, 1, 2, 3, 4 mephedrone, 1 Metcalf, Professor David, 1 Metropolitan Police, 1, 2, 3 Mexico, 1, 2 MG Rover, 1 Michael, Alun, 1 Middlesbrough College, 1, 2 migration, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 Milburn, Alan, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Miliband, David, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 Miliband, Ed, 1, 2, 3 Millennium Cohort Study, 1, 2 Millennium Dome, 1, 2, 3 Miloševic, Slobodan, 1 Milton Keynes, 1 minimum wage, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 Mitchell, Senator George, 1 modern art, 1 Mohamed, Binyam, 1 Monbiot, George, 1 Moray, 1 Morecambe, 1, 2 Morecambe Bay cockle pickers, 1 Morgan, Piers, 1 Morgan, Rhodri, 1 mortgage interest relief, 1 Mosley, Max, 1 motor racing, 1 Mowlam, Mo, 1 Mozambique, 1 MPs’ expenses, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 MRSA, 1 Mugabe, Robert, 1 Muijen, Matt, 1 Mulgan, Geoff, 1 Mullin, Chris, 1 Murdoch, Rupert, 1, 2, 3 Murphy, Richard, 1 museums and galleries, 1, 2, 3 music licensing, 1 Muslims, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 mutualism, 1 Myners, Paul, 1 nanotechnology, 1, 2, 3 National Air Traffic Control System, 1 National Care Service, 1 national curriculum, 1 national debt, 1 National Forest, 1 National Health Service (NHS) cancer plan, 1 drugs teams, 1 and employment, 1, 2 internal market, 1 IT system, 1 league tables, 1 managers, 1, 2 NHS direct, 1 primary care, 1 productivity, 1, 2 and public satisfaction, 1 staff numbers and pay, 1 and targets, 1, 2, 3 waiting times, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 National Heart Forum, 1 National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), 1, 2 National Insurance, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 National Lottery, 1, 2, 3 National Offender Management Service, 1 National Savings, 1 National Theatre, 1 Natural England, 1, 2 Nazio, Tiziana, 1 Neighbourhood Watch, 1 Netherlands, 1, 2 neurosurgery, 1 New Deal, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 New Deal for Communities, 1, 2 New Forest, 1 Newcastle upon Tyne, 1, 2 Newham, 1, 2 newspapers, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Nigeria, 1 Nightingale, Florence, 1 non-doms, 1 North Korea, 1 North Middlesex Hospital, 1 North Sea oil and gas, 1 Northern Ireland, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 Northern Rock, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Norway, 1 Nottingham, 1, 2 NSPCC, 1 nuclear power, 1 Number Ten Delivery Unit, 1 nurses, 1, 2, 3, 4 Nutt, Professor David, 1 NVQs, 1 O2 arena, 1 Oakthorpe primary school, 1, 2 Oates, Tim, 1 Obama, Barack, 1, 2 obesity, 1, 2 Octagon consortium, 1 Office for National Statistics, 1, 2 Office of Security and Counter Terrorism, 1 Ofsted, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Ofwat, 1 Oldham, 1, 2, 3, 4 O’Leary, Michael, 1 Oliver, Jamie, 1, 2 Olympic Games, 1, 2, 3 Open University, 1 O’Reilly, Damien, 1, 2 orthopaedics, 1 Orwell, George, 1, 2 outsourcing, 1, 2, 3, 4 overseas aid, 1, 2 Oxford University, 1 paedophiles, 1, 2, 3 Page, Ben, 1, 2 Pakistan, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 Palestine, 1, 2 parenting, 1 absent parents, 1 lone parents, 1, 2 teenage parents, 1 Paris, 1, 2 Park Lane, 1 Parkinson, Professor Michael, 1 particle physics, 1 party funding, 1, 2, 3 passport fraud, 1 Passport Office, 1 Patch, Harry, 1 Payne, Sarah, 1, 2 Peach, Blair, 1 Pearce, Nick, 1 Peckham, 1, 2 Aylesbury estate, 1 Peel, Sir Robert, 1 pensioner poverty, 1, 2 pensions, 1, 2 occupational pensions, 1, 2 pension funds, 1, 2 private pensions, 1 public-sector pensions, 1 state pension, 1, 2 Persian Gulf, 1 personal, social and health education, 1 Peterborough, 1 Peugeot, 1 Philips, Helen, 1 Phillips, Lord (Nicholas), 1, 2 Phillips, Trevor, 1 Pilkington, Fiona, 1 Pimlico, 1 Pinochet, Augusto, 1 Plymouth, 1, 2 Poland, 1, 2 police, 1 and demonstrations, 1 numbers, 1, 2, 3 in schools, 1, 2, 3 pornography, 1 Portsmouth FC, 1, 2 Portugal, 1 post offices, 1 Postlethwaite, Pete, 1 poverty, 1, 2, 3 see also child poverty; pensioner poverty Premier League, 1 Prescott, John, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 press officers, 1 Preston, 1 Prevent strategy, 1 Primary Care Trusts (PCTs), 1, 2 prisons, 1, 2 Private Finance Initiative (PFI), 1, 2 probation, 1, 2 property ownership, 1 prostitution, 1, 2, 3 Public Accounts Committee, 1 public sector reform, 1, 2 public service agreements, 1 public spending, 1, 2, 3 and the arts, 1 and science, 1 Pugh, Martin, 1 Pullman, Philip, 1 QinetiQ, 1 Quality and Outcomes Framework, 1 quangos, 1, 2 Queen, The, 1 Quentin, Lieutenant Pete, 1, 2 race relations legislation, 1 racism, 1, 2 RAF, 1, 2, 3 RAF Brize Norton, 1 railways, 1 Rand, Ayn, 1 Rawmarsh School, 1 Raynsford, Nick, 1 Reckitt Benckiser, 1 recycling, 1 Redcar, 1 regional assemblies, 1, 2 regional development agencies (RDAs), 1, 2, 3 regional policy, 1 Reid, John, 1 Reid, Richard, 1 religion, 1, 2 retirement age, 1, 2 right to roam, 1 Rimington, Stella, 1 Rio Earth summit, 1 road transport, 1 Rochdale, 1, 2 Roche, Barbara, 1 Rogers, Richard, 1 Romania, 1, 2 Rome, 1 Rooney, Wayne, 1 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 1 Rosetta Stone, 1 Rosyth, 1 Rotherham, 1, 2, 3 Royal Opera House, 1 Royal Shakespeare Company, 1 Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, 1 Rugby, 1 rugby union, 1 Rumsfeld, Donald, 1 rural affairs, 1, 2 Rushdie, Salman, 1 Russia, 1, 2 Rwanda, 1 Ryanair, 1, 2 Sainsbury, Lord David, 1 St Austell, 1 St Bartholomew’s Hospital, 1, 2 St Pancras International station, 1 Salford, 1, 2, 3, 4 Sanchez, Tia, 1 Sandwell, 1 Sarkozy, Nicolas, 1, 2 Savill, Superintendent Paul, 1 Saville, Lord, 1 savings ratio, 1 Scandinavia, 1, 2, 3 Scholar, Sir Michael, 1 school meals, 1, 2 school uniforms, 1 school-leaving age, 1 schools academies, 1, 2, 3, 4 building, 1 class sizes, 1 comprehensive schools, 1, 2 faith schools, 1, 2, 3, 4 grammar schools, 1, 2, 3 and inequality, 1 nursery schools, 1 and PFI, 1, 2, 3 police in, 1, 2, 3 primary schools, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 private schools, 1, 2 secondary schools, 1, 2, 3 in special measures, 1 special schools, 1 specialist schools, 1 and sport, 1 science, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Scotland, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and children, 1 devolution, 1 electricity generation, 1 and health, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Scottish parliament, 1, 2 Section 1, 2 security services, 1 MI5, 1, 2, 3 Sedley, Stephen, 1 segregation, 1 self-employment, 1 Sellafield, 1 Serious Organized Crime Agency, 1 sex crimes, 1 Sex Discrimination Act, 1 Shankly, Bill, 1 Sharkey, Feargal, 1 Shaw, Liz, 1 Sheen, Michael, 1 Sheffield, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 Sheringham, 1 Shetty, Shilpa, 1 Shipman, Harold, 1 shopping, 1 Short, Clare, 1 Siemens, 1 Siena, 1 Sierra Leone, 1, 2 Skeet, Mavis, 1 skills councils, 1 slavery, 1 Slough, 1 Smith, Adam, 1 Smith, Chris, 1 Smith, Jacqui, 1, 2 Smith, John, 1, 2 Smithers, Professor Alan, 1, 2 smoking ban, 1, 2 Snowden, Philip, 1 social care, 1, 2, 3 Social Chapter opt-out, 1 social exclusion, 1, 2 Social Fund, 1 social mobility, 1, 2 social sciences, 1 social workers, 1 Soham murders, 1, 2, 3, 4 Solihull, 1, 2 Somalia, 1, 2 Souter, Brian, 1 South Africa, 1 South Downs, 1 Spain, 1, 2, 3 special advisers, 1 speed cameras, 1 Speenhamland, 1 Spelman, Caroline, 1 Spence, Laura, 1 sport, 1, 2 see also football; Olympic Games Sri Lanka, 1, 2 Stafford Hospital, 1 Staffordshire University, 1 Standard Assessment Tests (Sats), 1, 2, 3 Standards Board for England, 1 statins, 1, 2, 3 stem cell research, 1 STEM subjects, 1 Stephenson, Sir Paul, 1 Stern, Sir Nicholas, 1, 2 Stevenson, Lord (Dennis), 1 Stevenson, Wilf, 1 Steyn, Lord, 1 Stiglitz, Joseph, 1 Stockport, 1 Stonehenge, 1 Stoppard, Tom, 1 Straw, Jack, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 student fees, 1 Stuff Happens, 1 Sudan, 1, 2 Sugar, Alan, 1 suicide bombing, 1 suicides, 1 Sun, 1, 2 Sunday Times, 1, 2 Sunderland, 1, 2 supermarkets, 1, 2 Supreme Court, 1, 2 Sure Start, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 surveillance, 1, 2 Sutherland, Lord (Stewart), 1 Swansea, 1 Sweden, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Swindon, 1 Taliban, 1, 2 Tallinn, 1 Tanzania, 1 Tate Modern, 1 Taunton, 1 tax avoidance, 1, 2, 3 tax credits, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 council tax credit, 1 pension credit, 1, 2, 3 R&D credits, 1 taxation, 1, 2 10p tax rate, 1 capital gains tax, 1, 2 corporation tax, 1, 2, 3, 4 council tax, 1, 2 fuel duty, 1, 2, 3 green taxes, 1, 2 and income inequalities, 1 income tax, 1, 2, 3, 4 inheritance tax, 1, 2 poll tax, 1 stamp duty, 1, 2, 3 vehicle excise duty, 1 windfall tax, 1, 2, 3 see also National Insurance; VAT Taylor, Damilola, 1 Taylor, Robert, 1 teachers, 1, 2, 3 head teachers, 1, 2 salaries, 1, 2 teaching assistants, 1, 2 teenage pregnancy, 1, 2, 3 Teesside University, 1 television and crime, 1 and gambling, 1 talent shows, 1 television licence, 1, 2, 3 Territorial Army, 1 terrorism, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 Terry, John, 1 Tesco, 1, 2, 3, 4 Tewkesbury, 1 Thames Gateway, 1 Thameswey, 1 Thatcher, Margaret, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 Thatcherism, 1, 2, 3 theatre, 1 Thornhill, Dorothy, 1 Thorp, John, 1 Tibet, 1 Tilbury, 1 Times, The, 1 Times Educational Supplement, 1, 2 Timmins, Nick, 1 Titanic, 1 Tomlinson, Mike, 1 Topman, Simon, 1, 2 torture, 1, 2 trade unions, 1, 2, 3 Trades Union Congress (TUC), 1, 2, 3 tramways, 1 transport policies, 1, 2 Trident missiles, 1, 2, 3 Triesman, Lord, 1 Turkey, 1, 2 Turnbull, Lord (Andrew), 1 Turner, Lord (Adair), 1, 2, 3 Tweedy, Colin, 1 Tyneside Metro, 1 Uganda, 1 UK Film Council, 1 UK Sport, 1 UK Statistics Authority, 1 unemployment, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 United Nations, 1, 2, 3 United States of America, 1, 2 Anglo-American relationship, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and child poverty, 1 and clean technologies, 1 economy and business, 1, 2, 3 and education, 1, 2, 3 and healthcare, 1, 2 and income inequalities, 1 and internet gambling, 1 and minimum wage, 1 universities, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and migration, 1 and terrorism, 1 tuition fees, 1 University College London Hospitals, 1 University for Industry, 1 University of East Anglia, 1 University of Lincoln, 1 Urban Splash, 1, 2 Vanity Fair, 1 VAT, 1, 2, 3 Vauxhall, 1 Venables, Jon, 1 Vestas wind turbines, 1 Victoria and Albert Museum, 1 Waitrose, 1 Waldfogel, Jane, 1 Wales, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and children, 1 devolution, 1 Walker, Sir David, 1 walking, 1, 2 Walsall, 1 Wanless, Sir Derek, 1 Wanstead, 1 Warm Front scheme, 1 Warner, Lord Norman, 1 Warsaw, 1 Warwick accord, 1 water utilities, 1 Watford, 1 welfare benefits child benefit, 1, 2 Employment Support Allowance, 1 and fraud, 1, 2, 3, 4 housing benefit, 1 incapacity benefit, 1, 2 Income Support, 1 Jobseeker’s Allowance, 1, 2, 3 and work, 1, 2 Welsh assembly, 1, 2 Wembley Stadium, 1 Westfield shopping mall, 1 Wetherspoons, 1 White, Marco Pierre, 1 Whittington Hospital, 1 Wiles, Paul, 1 Wilkinson, Richard, and Kate Pickett, 1 Williams, Professor Karel, 1 Williams, Raymond, 1 Williams, Rowan, 1 Wilson, Harold, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 Wilson, Sir Richard, 1 wind turbines, 1, 2 Winslet, Kate, 1 winter fuel payments, 1 Wire, The, 1 Woking, 1, 2 Wolverhampton, 1 Woolf, Lord, 1 Wootton Bassett, 1, 2 working-class culture, 1 working hours, 1, 2 World Bank, 1 Wrexham, 1 Wright Robinson School, 1, 2, 3 xenophobia, 1 Y2K millennium bug, 1 Yarlswood detention centre, 1 Yeovil, 1 Yiewsley, 1 York, 1, 2, 3, 4 Young Person’s Guarantee, 1 Youth Justice Board, 1 Zimbabwe, 1, 2 About the Author Polly Toynbee is the Guardian’s social and political commentator.

Boom and Bust: A Global History of Financial Bubbles by William Quinn, John D. Turner

accounting loophole / creative accounting, Alan Greenspan, algorithmic trading, AOL-Time Warner, bank run, banking crisis, barriers to entry, Bear Stearns, behavioural economics, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, bitcoin, blockchain, book value, Bretton Woods, business cycle, buy and hold, capital controls, Celtic Tiger, collapse of Lehman Brothers, Corn Laws, corporate governance, creative destruction, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, cryptocurrency, debt deflation, deglobalization, Deng Xiaoping, different worldview, discounted cash flows, Donald Trump, equity risk premium, Ethereum, ethereum blockchain, eurozone crisis, fake news, financial deregulation, financial intermediation, Flash crash, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, George Akerlof, government statistician, Greenspan put, high-speed rail, information asymmetry, initial coin offering, intangible asset, Irish property bubble, Isaac Newton, Japanese asset price bubble, joint-stock company, Joseph Schumpeter, junk bonds, land bank, light touch regulation, low interest rates, margin call, market bubble, market fundamentalism, Martin Wolf, money: store of value / unit of account / medium of exchange, moral hazard, mortgage debt, negative equity, Network effects, new economy, Northern Rock, oil shock, Ponzi scheme, quantitative easing, quantitative trading / quantitative finance, railway mania, Right to Buy, Robert Shiller, Shenzhen special economic zone , short selling, short squeeze, Silicon Valley, smart contracts, South Sea Bubble, special economic zone, subprime mortgage crisis, technology bubble, the built environment, total factor productivity, transaction costs, tulip mania, urban planning

Second, there was a very poor harvest in England and Scotland, and a disastrous one in Ireland, where the potato crop failed due to blight. By the middle of October, the severity of this situation had become clear.36 In December 1845, it sparked a political crisis when the Prime Minister, Robert Peel, temporarily resigned his office because his cabinet did not support his desire to repeal the Corn Laws (which placed tariffs and restrictions on grain imports). Third, the outflow of gold due to problems with the harvest prompted the Bank of England to increase its interest rate from 2.5 to 3 per cent on 16 October and then to 3.5 per cent on 6 November.37 Some commentators have suggested that the decline in railway share prices was attributable to these rises in the Bank of England rate – the Bank was in essence pricking the bubble.38 However, The Economist’s analysis at the time is probably closer to the truth – the rate rise ‘only determined the great 65 BOOM AND BUST majority of the holders of shares to do then what they contemplated doing sooner or later, to sell most of the shares they held’.39 Fourth, the sharp fall in railway share prices may have been precipitated by the large calls on capital made by the railways which Parliament had just authorised in July and August 1845.

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See foreign investment central banks. See Bank of England; Federal Reserve, the; Bank of Japan China Securities Regulatory Commission, 196, 200, 202, 209 Chinese Ministry of Finance, 203 Cisco, 157 CNBC, 158 CNNfn, 158 collateralised debt obligations (CDOs), 176 Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, 187 Corn Laws, repeal of, 65 cornering the market as a constraint on short selling, 8 in relation to the British Bicycle Mania, 109–10 in relation to the bubbles of 1720, 32 in relation to the first emerging market bubble, 51 in relation to the Great Railway Mania, 70–1 credit default swaps, 179 credit-rating agencies, 176, 189 cyclically adjusted price-to-earnings ratio (CAPE), 156–7 Cycling Magazine, 104–5 deflation in relation to the Great Depression, 131–2 in relation to the Mississippi Bubble, 35 Defoe, Daniel, 26 democratisation of investment in relation to the Great Railway Mania, 69 in the United.States, 115–17 derivatives in relation to the Dot-Com Bubble, 169 Disraeli, Benjamin, 47, 51, 53 dot-com bubbles outside the United States, 156, 157, 160, 165, 166 Dow Jones Industrial Average, 215 in relation to the 1920s, 120–5 Dunlop Company, The, 100–102, 106 Economist, The in relation to the British Bicycle Mania, 103 in relation to the Dot-Com Bubble, 159 in relation to the Great Railway Mania, 58, 64, 65, 72 eigyo tokkin funds, 143–4 Eldon, Lord, 45–6 European Union sovereign bailouts, 180–1 export-led growth in post-war Japan, 135–6 role in the Subprime Bubble, 182 Fama, Eugene, 4, 11 Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, 178, 187, 189 Federal Reserve, the in relation to the 1920s, 116, 119, 121, 124, 128 in relation to the Dot-Com Bubble, 162 in relation to the Great Depression, 131 in relation to the Subprime Bubble, 178–9, 180, 182, 187 female investors in relation to the British Bicycle Mania, 107–8 in relation to the Great Railway Mania, 70 in relation to the South Sea Bubble, 36 financial crisis connection to bubbles, 2–3, 6 of 1825, 48, 54–6 of 1847, 74–5 of the 1890s in Australia, 95 of the 1930s in the United States.

Free to Choose: A Personal Statement by Milton Friedman, Rose D. Friedman

affirmative action, agricultural Revolution, air freight, back-to-the-land, bank run, banking crisis, business cycle, Corn Laws, foreign exchange controls, Fractional reserve banking, full employment, German hyperinflation, invisible hand, means of production, minimum wage unemployment, oil shale / tar sands, oil shock, price stability, Ralph Nader, RAND corporation, rent control, road to serfdom, Sam Peltzman, school vouchers, Simon Kuznets, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, union organizing, Unsafe at Any Speed, Upton Sinclair, urban renewal, War on Poverty, working poor, Works Progress Administration

One example, Japan in the first thirty years after the Meiji Restoration in 1867, we leave for Chapter 2. Two other examples are Great Britain and the United States. Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations was one of the early blows in the battle to end government restrictions on industry and trade. The final victory in that battle came seventy years later, in 1846, with the repeal of the so-called Corn Laws—laws that imposed tariffs and other restrictions on the importation of wheat and other grains, referred to collectively as "corn." That ushered in three-quarters of a century of complete free trade lasting until the outbreak of World War I and completed a transition that had begun decades earlier to a highly limited government, one that left every resident of Britain, in Adam Smith's words quoted earlier, "perfectly free to pursue his own interest his own way, and to bring both his industry and capital into competition with those of any other man, or order of men."

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Ever since Adam Smith there has been virtual unanimity among economists, whatever their ideological position on other issues, that international free trade is in the best interest of the trading countries and of the world. Yet tariffs have been the rule. The only major exceptions are nearly a century of free trade in Great Britain after the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846, thirty years of free trade in Japan after the Meiji Restoration, and free trade in Hong Kong today. The United States had tariffs throughout the nineteenth century and they were raised still higher in the twentieth century, especially by the Smoot-Hawley tariff bill of 1930, which some scholars regard as partly responsible for the severity of the subsequent depression.

Britain's Europe: A Thousand Years of Conflict and Cooperation by Brendan Simms

anti-communist, Berlin Wall, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Boris Johnson, Bretton Woods, BRICs, British Empire, business cycle, capital controls, Corn Laws, credit crunch, eurozone crisis, Fall of the Berlin Wall, first-past-the-post, guns versus butter model, imperial preference, Jeremy Corbyn, land reform, Monroe Doctrine, moral panic, oil shock, open economy, plutocrats, race to the bottom, Ronald Reagan, sceptred isle, South Sea Bubble, Suez canal 1869, Suez crisis 1956, trade route, éminence grise

Not only did he play down the tsarist threat but Cobden also believed that an activist foreign policy necessitated a backward domestic policy complete with a large standing army, spiralling national debt, colonies and Corn Laws designed to entrench aristocratic supremacy in state, society and the armed forces. It was the nineteenth-century equivalent of Jonathan Swift’s critique of the British fiscal-military state during the closing years of the War of the Spanish Succession. For Cobden, the repeal of the Corn Laws and the promotion of international free trade were instruments to secure liberalism at home and thus peace abroad – and vice versa.29 This was an early example of what has become known as ‘interdependence’, a belief tenaciously held by many British liberals up to 1914 and again after the end of the Cold War.

Piracy : The Intellectual Property Wars from Gutenberg to Gates by Adrian Johns

active measures, Alan Greenspan, banking crisis, Berlin Wall, British Empire, Buckminster Fuller, business intelligence, Charles Babbage, commoditize, Computer Lib, Corn Laws, demand response, distributed generation, Douglas Engelbart, Douglas Engelbart, Edmond Halley, Ernest Rutherford, Fellow of the Royal Society, full employment, Hacker Ethic, Howard Rheingold, industrial research laboratory, informal economy, invention of the printing press, Isaac Newton, James Watt: steam engine, John Harrison: Longitude, Lewis Mumford, Marshall McLuhan, Mont Pelerin Society, new economy, New Journalism, Norbert Wiener, pirate software, radical decentralization, Republic of Letters, Richard Stallman, road to serfdom, Ronald Coase, software patent, South Sea Bubble, Steven Levy, Stewart Brand, tacit knowledge, Ted Nelson, The Home Computer Revolution, the scientific method, traveling salesman, vertical integration, Whole Earth Catalog

As remarkable as the creation of a real patent system, however, was the simultaneous advent of real and sustained calls for patents to be abolished altogether. Among the first of those prepared to voice this possibility was the MP John Lewis Ricardo, nephew of David Ricardo, the great political economist, and himself a convinced opponent of the Corn Laws. The younger Ricardo was the chairman of one of the early telegraph companies – telegraphy being by far the most advanced and exciting commercial science of the day. He had found himself forced to buy up patents to forestall litigation, and was therefore inclined by his own experience to see them as monopolistic obstacles to laissezfaire.

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He pointed out – as many would repeat in the next generation – that patents had not been required to stimulate the invention of printing, gunpowder, or paper. Only “trivial” improvements tended to be patented, he claimed. In the end, Ricardo denied outright that patents accelerated invention. He maintained instead that they were an unnecessary impediment – the equivalent, in effect, to the navigation acts or the Corn Laws themselves. Ricardo’s was at first a lonely view. But soon it attracted more support. In fact, it was the process of vetting the new law in 1851–52 that sparked the emergence of a movement dedicated to the cause of abolition. This movement would last a generation and of find backing from all sectors of society.

…

But he was also one of the most controversial – for there was another side to his story of wizardry, entrepreneurship, and perseverance, as the ensuing debates would reveal all too clearly. But Armstrong, Grove, and MacFie were only the leaders of a movement that had representatives in every class, region, and profession. Laissezfaire ultras, many of them veterans from Cobden’s anti–Corn Law campaign, were one constituency; Ricardo was one of these, and another J. E. Thorold Rogers, professor of political economy at Oxford and of economic science and statistics at King’s College, London. Such figures created a political economy of antipatenting. And powerful allies arose in the legal, manufacturing, engineering, and scientific fields too.

The Wake-Up Call: Why the Pandemic Has Exposed the Weakness of the West, and How to Fix It by John Micklethwait, Adrian Wooldridge

Admiral Zheng, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, air traffic controllers' union, Alan Greenspan, basic income, battle of ideas, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, bike sharing, Black Lives Matter, Boris Johnson, carbon tax, carried interest, cashless society, central bank independence, contact tracing, contact tracing app, Corn Laws, coronavirus, COVID-19, creative destruction, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, defund the police, Deng Xiaoping, Dominic Cummings, Donald Trump, Etonian, failed state, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Future Shock, George Floyd, global pandemic, Internet of things, invisible hand, it's over 9,000, James Carville said: "I would like to be reincarnated as the bond market. You can intimidate everybody.", Jeremy Corbyn, Jones Act, knowledge economy, laissez-faire capitalism, Les Trente Glorieuses, lockdown, McMansion, military-industrial complex, night-watchman state, offshore financial centre, oil shock, Panopticon Jeremy Bentham, Parkinson's law, pensions crisis, QR code, rent control, Rishi Sunak, road to serfdom, Ronald Reagan, school vouchers, Shoshana Zuboff, Silicon Valley, smart cities, social distancing, Steve Bannon, surveillance capitalism, TED Talk, trade route, Tyler Cowen, universal basic income, Washington Consensus

These ideas found political champions in a country where rural hierarchy was being swept away by industry, science, and the cult of efficiency. In the half century after Waterloo, a succession of liberal-minded governments dismantled most of the components of the Old Corruption—from the East India Company to the Corn Laws to rotten boroughs.19 Nobody personified this more than Gladstone. The erstwhile Tory broke with his party over free trade, apologized for his father (describing slavery as “by far the foulest crime that taints the history of mankind in any Christian or pagan country”), and turned into one of the more radical social reformers ever to hold office.20 Queen Victoria described him as a “half-mad firebrand.”

Karl Marx: Greatness and Illusion by Gareth Stedman Jones

anti-communist, battle of ideas, Berlin Wall, British Empire, Charles Babbage, classic study, colonial rule, Corn Laws, deindustrialization, Fall of the Berlin Wall, feminist movement, fixed income, invention of the sewing machine, joint-stock company, land reform, land tenure, means of production, New Journalism, New Urbanism, night-watchman state, On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, trade liberalization, unemployed young men, wage slave

Therefore, the crucial issue for Poland was ‘the victory of the English proletarians over the English bourgeoisie … Poland must be liberated not in Poland but in England.’103 This reduction of the political to the social was, he thought, happening everywhere. Something similar had occurred in England, where ‘in all questions from the Reform Bill until the abolition of the Corn Laws’, political parties fought about nothing except ‘changes in property rights’, while in Belgium the struggle of liberalism with Catholicism was ‘a struggle of industrial capital with large landed property’.104 Engels expressed the point more crudely. He could not ‘forbear an ironical smile’ when he observed ‘the terrible earnestness, the pathetic enthusiasm with which the bourgeois strive to achieve their aims’.

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Thus the anxiety of the upper classes in Europe is embittered by the conviction that their very victories over revolution have been but instrumental in providing the material conditions in 1857 for the ideal tendencies of 1848.149 For the Tribune, all this was grist to the mill. The politics of Dana and of Horace Greeley, the proprietor of the Tribune, were protectionist. Free trade, championed by England – especially after the Repeal of the Corn Laws – was, they argued, the means by which England dominated world commerce, and through its enforcement of the gold standard acted as the world’s banker. The economic basis of the Tribune’s protectionism was most clearly articulated by the American economist Henry Carey, who like his father, a successful Philadelphia publisher, had developed Alexander Hamilton’s argument for the protection of infant industries in the face of British commercial superiority.

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On 9 September 1853, he highlighted the fallacies of Peel’s 1844 Bank Charter Act, maintaining that the Act would aggravate the severity of the approaching crisis.159 In 1855, he argued that the crisis in trade and industry had ‘shut up the mouths of those shallow Free Traders who for years had gone on preaching that since the Repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846, glutted markets were impossible’. Furthermore, ‘the glut’ had been made more acute by the attempt to dump goods in newly developing extra-European markets: ‘India and China, glutted though they were, continued to be used as outlets – as also California and Australia. When the English manufacturers could no longer sell their goods at home, or would not do so rather than depress prices, they resorted to the absurd expedient of consigning them abroad, especially to India, China, Australia and California.’160 In 1857, after the suspension of the Bank Charter Act as a result of its failure to alleviate the commercial crisis, he once again observed, ‘we were told that British Free Trade would change all this, but if nothing else is proved it is at least clear that the Free-Trade doctors are nothing but quacks.’161 In a lead article in August 1858, he repeated his attack upon the monetarist approach.

The London Compendium by Ed Glinert

1960s counterculture, anti-communist, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Black Monday: stock market crash in 1987, Bob Geldof, British Empire, Brixton riot, Charles Babbage, Corn Laws, Dava Sobel, double entry bookkeeping, Edward Jenner, Edward Lloyd's coffeehouse, Exxon Valdez, gentrification, hiring and firing, invention of the telegraph, Isaac Newton, John Harrison: Longitude, John Snow's cholera map, Khartoum Gordon, Kickstarter, Mahatma Gandhi, mass immigration, Nick Leeson, Panopticon Jeremy Bentham, price stability, Ronald Reagan, Sloane Ranger, South China Sea, South Sea Bubble, spice trade, Suez crisis 1956, the market place, trade route, union organizing, V2 rocket

No. 6, east side During the nineteenth century the property was the official home of the Lord Chancellor, its best-known incumbent of the period being Lord Eldon, who held the office from 1804 to 1815 and was characterized acerbically by the poet Shelley in the lines ‘next came Fraud, and he had on / Like Eldon, an ermined gown’ in his vitriolic 1819 work, ‘The Mask of Anarchy’. Eldon, as Attorney-General, had antagonized opponents by suspending Habeas Corpus between 1794 and 1801, prosecuting members of the radical London Corresponding Society, and helping pass the Corn Laws, which protected landowners from cheap imports of grain and ensured an artificially high price for bread. In 1815 he bore the brunt of the anti-Corn Law protests when a mob besieged his house for three weeks. When at one point a rioter broke into the property and came face to face with Eldon the latter thundered: ‘If you don’t mind what you are about you will be hanged,’ which led the man to reply: ‘Perhaps so, but I think it looks now as if you will be hanged first.’

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Clerkenwell Green Last Sunday evening I spent on Clerkenwell Green – a great assembly place for radical meetings – George Gissing, letter to his sister (1887) Clerkenwell’s village green, its appearance more like that of a continental piazza than a London square, was the medieval setting for the parish clerks’ mystery plays and was where rebels from the North camped out during the 1381 Peasants’ Revolt before destroying the nearby priory of St John. In the nineteenth century the Green became a popular setting for political demonstrations, and was where William Cobbett, author of Rural Rides (1830), spoke against the Corn Laws in February 1826. During the Chartist agitation of 1842 the prime minister, Robert Peel, banned public meetings from taking place here, but the Green later came to be used for rallies again: in 1867 to protest against the proposed hanging of three Fenians; in 1871 in support of the Paris Commune; and, most famously of all, on 13 November 1887, when Annie Besant and William Morris addressed a large crowd in favour of the right to assembly and marched to Trafalgar Square where a riot that became known as Bloody Sunday took place.

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Carlton Club (1835-1940), No. 94 The Conservatives’ main social and political club, which was formed at 2 Carlton House Terrace after the party’s poor showing at the 1832 general election, moved here three years later. Despite the energy members expended in creating a strong party organization based around the three tenets of the long-serving Tory prime minister Lord Liverpool – defence of the Crown, Church and Constitution – the party was torn apart in 1846 when Tory PM Robert Peel repealed the Corn Laws, a move opposed by the majority of members. In the 1870s the Carlton was replaced as the most powerful bastion of Conservatism by the party’s Central Office, and in 1886 the windows of the Pall Mall building were smashed by demonstrators following a march by the London United Workmen’s Committee in demand of jobs.

Rule Britannia: Brexit and the End of Empire by Danny Dorling, Sally Tomlinson

3D printing, Ada Lovelace, Alfred Russel Wallace, anti-communist, anti-globalists, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Boris Johnson, Brexit referendum, British Empire, Bullingdon Club, Cambridge Analytica, centre right, colonial rule, Corn Laws, correlation does not imply causation, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, deindustrialization, disinformation, Dominic Cummings, Donald Trump, Edward Snowden, electricity market, en.wikipedia.org, epigenetics, Etonian, falling living standards, Flynn Effect, gentrification, housing crisis, illegal immigration, imperial preference, income inequality, inflation targeting, invisible hand, Jeremy Corbyn, knowledge economy, market fundamentalism, mass immigration, megacity, New Urbanism, Nick Leeson, North Sea oil, offshore financial centre, out of africa, Right to Buy, Ronald Reagan, Silicon Valley, South China Sea, sovereign wealth fund, spinning jenny, Steven Pinker, Suez canal 1869, Suez crisis 1956, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, University of East Anglia, Wayback Machine, We are the 99%, wealth creators

Brexiteers claim that when we leave the EU, free trade will increase, making Britain rich again. They put their faith in the market, free of state intervention, to improve Britain’s economic prospects. They tend to see Britain’s increased prosperity in the latter part of the nineteenth century as the result of the 1846 repeal of the Corn Laws, ushering in more free trade, rather than acknowledging the effects of the growth of empire abroad and the introduction of public health Acts at home. They generally favour as little state intervention as possible – other than measures to contain inflation, as inflation eats away some of the accumulated wealth of the rich.

…

By July 2018, the fighting was beginning to get very nasty. The Conservative Party was on the verge of tearing itself apart. So, who said there isn’t hope? As (leading Eurosceptic Tory) Jacob Rees-Mogg has repeatedly threatened, the chances of a Tory split have not been this good since 1846, with the repeal of the Corn Laws. After that event, the Tories did not secure a majority in Parliament for twenty-eight years. When they did make it back into power, they were much transformed and under the leadership of Disraeli. Back then, their party survived, but no political party survives for ever. TABLE 9.1: SHARE OF THE VOTE TO PARTIES TO THE RIGHT OF MAINSTREAM CONSERVATIVES, UK IN ALL EUROPEAN ELECTIONS 1979–2014 1979: 0.0 per cent 1984: 0.0 per cent 1989: 0.1 per cent 1994: 1.1 per cent 1999: 7.5 per cent 2004: 20.4 per cent 2009: 37.6 per cent 2014: 51.9 per cent Half of Conservative votes are assigned to the right of European Conservatives in 2009 because their position at that point was ambiguous.

How Markets Fail: The Logic of Economic Calamities by John Cassidy

Abraham Wald, Alan Greenspan, Albert Einstein, An Inconvenient Truth, Andrei Shleifer, anti-communist, AOL-Time Warner, asset allocation, asset-backed security, availability heuristic, bank run, banking crisis, Bear Stearns, behavioural economics, Benoit Mandelbrot, Berlin Wall, Bernie Madoff, Black Monday: stock market crash in 1987, Black-Scholes formula, Blythe Masters, book value, Bretton Woods, British Empire, business cycle, capital asset pricing model, carbon tax, Carl Icahn, centralized clearinghouse, collateralized debt obligation, Columbine, conceptual framework, Corn Laws, corporate raider, correlation coefficient, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, credit default swaps / collateralized debt obligations, crony capitalism, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, debt deflation, different worldview, diversification, Elliott wave, Eugene Fama: efficient market hypothesis, financial deregulation, financial engineering, financial innovation, Financial Instability Hypothesis, financial intermediation, full employment, Garrett Hardin, George Akerlof, Glass-Steagall Act, global supply chain, Gunnar Myrdal, Haight Ashbury, hiring and firing, Hyman Minsky, income per capita, incomplete markets, index fund, information asymmetry, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invisible hand, John Nash: game theory, John von Neumann, Joseph Schumpeter, junk bonds, Kenneth Arrow, Kickstarter, laissez-faire capitalism, Landlord’s Game, liquidity trap, London Interbank Offered Rate, Long Term Capital Management, Louis Bachelier, low interest rates, mandelbrot fractal, margin call, market bubble, market clearing, mental accounting, Mikhail Gorbachev, military-industrial complex, Minsky moment, money market fund, Mont Pelerin Society, moral hazard, mortgage debt, Myron Scholes, Naomi Klein, negative equity, Network effects, Nick Leeson, Nixon triggered the end of the Bretton Woods system, Northern Rock, paradox of thrift, Pareto efficiency, Paul Samuelson, Phillips curve, Ponzi scheme, precautionary principle, price discrimination, price stability, principal–agent problem, profit maximization, proprietary trading, quantitative trading / quantitative finance, race to the bottom, Ralph Nader, RAND corporation, random walk, Renaissance Technologies, rent control, Richard Thaler, risk tolerance, risk-adjusted returns, road to serfdom, Robert Shiller, Robert Solow, Ronald Coase, Ronald Reagan, Savings and loan crisis, shareholder value, short selling, Silicon Valley, South Sea Bubble, sovereign wealth fund, statistical model, subprime mortgage crisis, tail risk, Tax Reform Act of 1986, technology bubble, The Chicago School, The Great Moderation, The Market for Lemons, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, too big to fail, Tragedy of the Commons, transaction costs, Two Sigma, unorthodox policies, value at risk, Vanguard fund, Vilfredo Pareto, wealth creators, zero-sum game

Under the principle of “less eligibility,” the explicit aim of the 1834 law was to stigmatize idleness and force the out-of-work to accept any position available, regardless of the wages it paid. After subjecting the landless laborers and urban poor to the harsh disciplines of the market, the Victorian free market reformers administered similar shock treatment to farmers. In 1846, following an epic political battle, the Corn Laws, which, through a system of tariffs, protected British grain growers from foreign competition, were abolished, opening up the British market to cheaper foodstuffs produced in the American Midwest. The classical economists justified their recommendations on economic grounds, but there was also a strong moral element to their teachings.

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bailouts authorized by deregulation efforts in health care reform in Joint Economic Committee and savings and loan industry collapse tax legislation in Congressional Budget Office Conservative Party, British Constitution of Liberty, The (Hayek) Consumer Financial Protection Agency Consumer Product Safety Commission Contimortgage Corporation Continental Illinois Bank conventional wisdom Corcoran Group Corn Laws Corrigan, E. Gerald Countrywide Financial Corporation Cournot, Antoine Augustin Court of Appeals, U.S., D.C. Circuit Cowles, Alfred Cowles Commission Craigslist Cramer, Jim credit bubble credit default swaps (CDSs) CreditMetrics Credit Suisse First Boston Dadd, Mark Dallow, Richard Dartmouth College Davidson, Paul Debreu, Gérard Declaration of Independence Defense Department, U.S.

The New Enclosure: The Appropriation of Public Land in Neoliberal Britain by Brett Christophers

Alan Greenspan, book value, Boris Johnson, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, Corn Laws, credit crunch, cross-subsidies, Diane Coyle, estate planning, Garrett Hardin, gentrification, ghettoisation, Hernando de Soto, housing crisis, income inequality, invisible hand, Jeremy Corbyn, land bank, land reform, land tenure, land value tax, late capitalism, market clearing, Martin Wolf, New Journalism, New Urbanism, off grid, offshore financial centre, performance metric, Philip Mirowski, price mechanism, price stability, profit motive, radical decentralization, Right to Buy, Skype, sovereign wealth fund, special economic zone, the built environment, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thorstein Veblen, Tragedy of the Commons, Tyler Cowen, urban sprawl, wealth creators

A groundswell of agitation for agrarian land reform had accumulated, notably, in the 1840s. This agitation was spearheaded by the Chartist movement and one of its leaders, Feargus O’Connor, whose (failed) Land Plan envisioned the provision of smallholdings for the working classes.1 In the same period, land reform was also promoted by the more establishment-friendly Anti-Corn Law League, and especially one of its founders, Richard Cobden.2 But this agitation, too, ultimately dissipated in the face of staunch government resistance. These agitating currents in the 1840s had been very much England-centric. When the land question forcefully resurfaced in political debate in the 1870s, however, it was a much more broadly based phenomenon spanning the length and breadth of Britain.3 To be sure, it had different flavours in different regions: in Wales, for instance, opposition to landowners was closely tied to opposition to the Anglican Church; in Scotland the land question was centred on the travails of the crofting communities; and in England it was inseparable from the Liberal Party’s efforts to win the vote of the agricultural labouring population.4 But in all parts of the country, the revelations of the Return of Owners, lingering bitterness at the history of enclosure, and a deep depression in the rural economy combined, in the 1870s, to light the fuse of political conflict around landownership.

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Index Aberthaw, 335 absorption rate, 172 accounting, 199–203 Adams, John, 27 Adams, Martin, 35–6, 47, 48 Adam Smith Institute (ASI), 123, 137–8, 139 Adonis, Andrew, 160–1, 162, 236 affordable housing, 228, 273, 282–3, 312–4, 319, 337, 338–9, 343, 346–7 Albanwise, 299 allemansrätten, 29 Amos, Gideon, 229–30 Annington Homes, 154, 252, 271, 273–6, 311–2 Anti-Corn Law League, 86 Architects for Social Housing, 325 Arnaboldi, Michela, 180 Arnold, Martin, 1, 2 Arrighi, Giovanni, 17 Arthur, Simon, 152 asset management, 142–3, 180, 184, 206–7 asset rents, 140, 178–80 Astley, Edward, 104 Attlee, Clement, 97 Audit Commission, 180, 202–3, 257–8 austerity policy, 119–20, 147–9, 206, 213, 244, 256, 341–3 Australia, 51 Aviva, 298 Baldry, Tony, 204–5 Ball, Michael, 287–8 Barnes, Yolande, 163 Barnsley, 270 Barratt Developments, 169 Bawden, Anna, 212 Beachy Head, 242 Beevor, Stuart, 295 Bentley, Daniel, 98, 171–2 Benyon, Bill, 203, 203n1 Benyon, Richard, 203n1 Beresford, Paul, 177 Berkeley Group, 123, 169, 218, 236–7 Berkshire, 203 Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP), 167 Bill Sargent Trust, 277–9 Birmingham, 100 Blackman-Woods, Roberta, 151n2, 189–90 Blair, Tony, 74, 192, 251–2 Block, Fred, 70 Blomley, Nick, 14 BNP Paribas, 298 Boles, Nick, 158–9 Bootle, 165–6 Bowie, Duncan, 158–9 Box, Peter, 170 Boyson, Rhodes, 257 Bracknell, 99 Bradford, 204 Brazil, 5 British Coal, 18 British Gas, 133, 328, 329 British Land Company, 298 British Museum, 199 British Rail, 18, 210, 226, 248 landholdings, 97, 105, 187, 247, 261 British Railways Board (BRB), 229 landholdings, 100 British Transport Commission (BTC), 105 British Virgin Islands (BVI), 195 Broadgate, 314 Broadwater Farm estate, 325 Brookfield Asset Management, 298 Brown, Wendy, 15–6 Brownfield land, 160–2, 165, 197, 199 Broxtowe borough council, 324–5 Buccleuch Estates Ltd., 191 budgets, squeezing, 205–6 Build Now, Pay Later scheme, 236, 265, 282 Cabinet Office, 122, 122n1, 135, 137, 174, 182, 264, 268–9 Cable, Vince, 340 Cahill, Kevin, 25, 31, 74, 84, 90, 116, 173, 189, 247–8, 297 Callcutt, John, 303 Camden, 204, 347 Cameron, David, 137, 159, 192–4, 254, 303, 326, 327, 333 Canada, 5 Canary Wharf, 314, 317–8 Canary Wharf Group Investment Holdings, 298 Canterbury City Council, 266, 271 Capital (Marx), 62, 67–8 capital charging, 178–80, 184–5 capital gains, 48–55, 61–2, 64 Capital in the Twenty-First Century (Piketty), 53–4 capitalism and land, 11–13, 26, 34–5, 38– 72, 75, 83, 113–4, 283 contradictions of, 59–60, 62–3, 283 rentier form of, 305–11 role of the state in, 39–40, 64–5, 71 Cardiff, 265–6 Carlino, Nicholas, 268 Carlisle, John, 221 Catalano, Alejandrina, 52, 112–3, 116–7, 117n2, 297, 328–9, 339, 341 Cayman Islands, 195 Central Bedfordshire Council, 219 central government. see also Whitehall landholdings, 87, 115, 117, 134, 198, 209, 251–4, 259–63 Centre for Environmental Studies, 328–9 Centre for Policy Studies (CPS), 179 Chakrabortty, Aditya, 38, 124 Chamberlain, Joseph, 86 Chamberlain Walker Economics, 302n2, 3 Chartist movement, 86 Chelsea Barracks, 253 Churchill, Winston, 48–9, 60–1 City Hall, 199 City of London, 192, 332 city villages, 236, 313 City Villages, 160, 161, 162–3 civil estate, 134–6, 178, 182, 226–7, 253, 260 Civil Estate Property Benchmarking Service, 184 Civitas, 171 Clark, Gordon, 89, 90, 94 Clifford, Ben, 146, 319 coalition government, UK (2010–15), 122, 168, 228, 326 Cobden, Richard, 86 Cogan, Jacob, 27 collectivization, 53n2 Collings, Jesse, 86 Collinson, Patrick, 308 Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE), 201–2 commodity, land as a, 33–4, 60, 66–72, 311–2, 324, 327. see also ‘fictitious commodities’ Common Good lands, 260 common land, 9, 10–3, 30, 80–3, 116–7, 139, 323, 344 Commons Act (1876), 81, 82 Commons Preservation Society, 81 The Communist Manifesto (Engels and Marx), 46–7 Communities and Local Government Committee, 214n3, 238, 272, 293n4 community benefits, of land disposal, 228, 230, 232, 276–9 Community Care Act, 254 Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act (2015), 239 Community Land Act (1975), 107, 112, 113 Community Land Bill, 107 community land trust (CLT), 346–7 Community Right to Reclaim Land, 151, 228, 237, 238, 239 competition, 15–16, 18n2, 59, 61, 120–1 compulsion, of land disposal, 215–23 compulsory purchase, of land, 40–1, 95, 98–9, 110–1, 314, 320–1 The Condition of the Working Class in England (Engels), 67–8 Conservative Party (UK), 111, 119 donorship, 125 landlord MPs, 122 land privatization, 122, 176, 207, 213, 253, 268 views on landownership, 27, 93, 108, 173, 328 Cooper, Olivia, 88 Corby Borough Council, 266–7n5 Corbyn, Jeremy, 195–6, 337–8 Cornwall, 78 Couchman, James, 136 council estates ‘regeneration’ of, 160–3, 176n1, 236–7, 313, 325, 331 council housing, 240, 272, 314, 320–1, 339. see also Right to Buy policy birth of, 94–5 financing, 145–6, 212–3 land acquisition for, 94–6, 99–100 privatization, 1–2, 7–8, 144–6, 255, 267–8 repurchase by councils, 270–1 waiting lists, 271 Council Tax, 170, 196n2 ‘counter-movement’ (Polanyi), 324, 327, 328 Coventry, 100 Cowen, Tyler, 2–3 Cox, Andrew, 110, 165, 173 Coyle, Diane, 173 Cragoe, Matthew, 88–9 Crawley, 99 Crewe, Tom, 147, 148, 255, 258 Crichel Down affair/rules, 225, 227 Cromwell, Thomas, 79 Crosland, Anthony, 111 Crown Estate, 9–10, 10n1, 88, 116– 7, 259n1, 298 Crown Estate (Scotland), 10n1, 346 Crown land, 88 Cumbria County Council, 12n1 Currie, Edwina, 152 Dalton, Hugh, 110–1, 113 Dalyell, Tam, 217 Davies, Ceri, 18n2, 177–8, 179–80. see also Davies report (1983) Davies, Will, 15 Davies report (1983), 186, 210, 211, 254, 332. see also Davies, Ceri DB Schenker, 273 deBuys, William, 331 Defence Infrastructure Organisation, 165, 215 defence land. see Ministry of Defence, landholdings Defence Lands Committee, 105 deficit reduction, 119, 131, 152, 154, 213 Deloitte Real Estate, 218, 219, 332 Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG), 198n1, 208, 221–2, 235, 280–2, 284, 285n4, 340n3 Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) landholdings, 209, 259–60, 281 Department for Transport, 273 Department of Health, 221, 254, 280, 281, 333. see also National Health Service Department of the Environment, 187 de-risked sites, 235–6, 285 de Soto, Hernando Mystery of Capital, 34–5 Development Land Tax (1976), 112–3 Dissolution of the Monasteries, 79, 81 Dobson, Frank, 224, 225 Dobson, Julian, 277–9 Domesday Book, 73–4, 77, 199 Dorset, 105–6 ‘double movement’ (Polanyi), 68–9 Downing (property developer), 239 Dunkley, Emma, 1, 2 Eastbourne, 242 Eastbourne Review, 243–4 economic growth, land privatization and, 129, 157–8, 165–7, 264–5, 307–10 Edinburgh, 239 Education Funding Agency (EFA), 232n2, 319 Edwards, Chris, 2 efficiency land allocation, 4, 42–3, 59, 62–5, 286–96 land use, 11–12, 126–7, 136–43, 153, 177–85, 274 Elazar, Dahlia, 26, 27 Elephant Park, 314 employment, land privatization and, 129, 157, 165–7 enclosure movement, 11–4, 30–1, 79–85 Enfield, 320 Engels, Friedrich, 242 The Communist Manifesto, 46–7 The Condition of the Working Class in England, 67–8 enterprise privatizations, 1–3, 6–7, 120–1, 247–8, 299, 328 ‘factor of production,’ 29, 120 Fair, J.

St Pancras Station by Simon Bradley

Corn Laws, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Elisha Otis, Fellow of the Royal Society, food miles, Frank Gehry, Great Leap Forward, means of production, railway mania, value engineering

Firms in rail-served [ 148 ] St Pancras.indb 148 13/9/07 12:12:16 towns, such as Butler and Tanner’s in Frome or Clay’s in Bungay, then began to undercut the London print works, and the modern, de-centred book-printing industry took shape. Food and drink offer further examples. The average British diet in 1900 was very different from what it had been in 1800. Water transport had a lot to do with this: root crops carried along the canal network in the early decades; torrents of cheap overseas grain after Corn Law repeal in the 1840s; frozen meat in refrigerated ships from the New World and Australia towards the century’s end. But the origins of the industrial-age diet, at once more varied and more standardised than what came before, lie just as squarely with the railways. The companies themselves did not set out to change the status quo in the kitchen, for heavy goods, minerals and passengers all offered a bigger and surer return.

The World's First Railway System: Enterprise, Competition, and Regulation on the Railway Network in Victorian Britain by Mark Casson

banking crisis, barriers to entry, Beeching cuts, British Empire, business cycle, classic study, combinatorial explosion, Corn Laws, corporate social responsibility, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, Garrett Hardin, gentrification, high-speed rail, independent contractor, intermodal, iterative process, joint-stock company, joint-stock limited liability company, Kickstarter, knowledge economy, linear programming, low interest rates, megaproject, Network effects, New Urbanism, performance metric, price elasticity of demand, railway mania, rent-seeking, strikebreaker, the market place, Tragedy of the Commons, transaction costs, vertical integration

Indeed, some military historians turn the argument around, and maintain that military procurement, by setting challenging targets for entrepreneurs, stimulated investment and innovation in precision-made factory products. Furthermore, Free Trade was not official government policy until the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846, and the Prime Minister, Robert Peel, who pushed through this reform, split his political party in the process. Although Richard Cobden, John Bright and other members of the ‘Manchester School’ had been vociferous lobbyists for Free Trade, it was neither their free market ideology nor the prospective benefit to industry that finally swayed Peel and his followers, but the benefits to the workers themselves.

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Although an expensive connecting line between the two systems was built at Great Yarmouth, there remained three separate stations there—Southtown, Beach, and Vauxhall (the only survivor). East Anglia also beneWted from local initiatives. Although agricultural prosperity in Britain declined after the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846, and the onset of the ‘Great Depression’ in 1873, Norfolk and SuVolk, having better soil fertility and proximity to London, fared better than most regions. They were able to ‘trade up’ to higher value-added products such as vegetables. Local initiatives for connecting nearby market towns to one another allowed Sudbury, Bury, Thetford, Dereham, Wymondham, and SwaVham to become small hubs.

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R. 367 Clitheroe as secondary natural hub 83 Tab 3.4 Clyde River 199 Clyde Valley 156 coal industry 1, 50 exports 5 see also regional coalfields coal traffic 53, 182–3, 270 coalfield railways 127, 167 Coalville 187 Coatbridge 157 Cobden, Richard 37 Cockermouth 219 Colchester 69, 107, 108 Coldstream 158, 159 Colebrook 198 Colonial Office, British 48 Combe Down Tunnel 144 commerce, industry and railways 308 Index Commercial Railway Scheme, London 152, 154 Commission on the Merits of the Broad and Narrow Gauge 228 Tab 6.2 company law 42–3 competing local feeders 204–7 competition adverse effects of 221 adversarial 316–19 concept applied to railways 258–60 Duopolistic on networks 492–4 and duplication of routes 94 and excess capacity 477–97 excessive 16–19 and fare reduction 261–2 individual/multiple linkages 266, 267 inter-town 323–4 and invasions by competing companies 268–9, 273 and invasions in joint venture schemes (large) 166–73 and invasions in joint venture schemes (small) 173–8 network effects 262–4 principle of 221 and territorial strategy 286–7 wastage/inefficiency 162, 166 compulsory purchase of land 30, 223, 288 concavity principle 72, 82 connectivity and networks 2–3 Connel Ferry 161 construction costs 16–17 consultant engineers see civil engineers; mechanical engineers contour principle 72 contractors 301–2 Conway River 136 cooperation between companies 324–6 core and peripheral areas, UK 85 Fig 3.8 Corn Laws, Repeal (1846) 37, 110 Cornwall 152 Cornwall Railway 141 corporate social responsibility 311–13 corridor trains 311 Cosham 147, 190 Cotswold Hills 110, 111, 114, 149 counterfactual map of the railway network East Midlands 90 Fig 3.10 North of England 92 Fig 3.12 South East England 90 Fig 3.10 Wales 91 Fig 3.11 West of England 91 Fig 3.11 counterfactual railway network 4–29, 58–104 bypass principle 80–2, 89 and cities 306 concavity principle 82 continuous linear trunk network with coastal constraints 74 Fig 3.2 503 continuous linear trunk network with no coastal constraints 73 Fig 3.1 contour principle 87, 88 Fig 3.9 core and periphery principle 82–6, 84 Tab 3.5, 85 Fig 3.8 coverage of cities, town and villages 62–3 cross-country linkages on the symmetric network 100 Fig 3.19 cross-country routes 274 cut-off principle 80, 81 Fig 3.7, 89 cut-off principle with traffic weighting 81 Fig 3.7 Darlington core hub 89 Derby core hub 89 frequency of service 65–6 Gloucester as corner hub 82 heuristic principles of 10–12, 71–2 hubs 439–71, 440–9 Tab A5.1 hubs, configuration of 89, 94–103 hubs, size and distribution 95 Fig 3.13 Huddersfield core hub 89 influence of valleys and mountains 88 Fig 3.9 iterative process 64 Kirkby Lonsdale core hub 89 Leicester core hub 89 Lincolnshire region cross-country routes 119 London as corner hub 82 London terminals 155 loop principle 86–7 Melrose core hub 89, 158–9 mileage 437 Tab A4.4 Newcastle as corner hub 82 North-South linkages 148 North-South spine with ribs 75 Fig 3.3 objections to 12–14 optimality of the system 91–3 performance compared to actual system 64–5, 65 Tab 3.2 performance metrics 63–6 quality of network 392 Tab A4.1 and rational principles 322 Reading core hub 89 role of network 392, 393 Tab A4.2 route description 392–438, 393–436 Tab A4.3 and Severn Tunnel 112–14 Shoreham as corner hub 82 Southampton as corner hub 82 space-filling principle 87–9 Steiner solution 76 Fig 3.4 Steiner solution with traffic weighting 78 Fig 3.5 Stoke-on-Trent as corner hub 89 timetable 8, 89–90, 472–6, 474–6 Tab A6.1 timetable compared with actual 315–16 504 Index counterfactual railway network (cont.) traffic flows 66–71 traffic-weighting principle 77, 78 Fig 3.5 trial solution, first 89–91, 90 Fig 3.10, 91 Fig 3.11, 92 Fig 3.12 triangle principle 77–80, 79 Fig 3.6, 89, 96 triangle principle without traffic weighting 79 Fig 3.6 Trowbridge core hub 89 Warrington as corner hub 82 Wetherby core hub 122 country towns avoided by railway schemes 307–9 Coventry 68, 118, 135 Coventry Canal 117 Crafts, Nicholas F.

The Rise and Fall of the British Nation: A Twentieth-Century History by David Edgerton

active measures, Arthur Marwick, Berlin Wall, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, blue-collar work, British Empire, business cycle, call centre, centre right, collective bargaining, colonial exploitation, company town, Corn Laws, corporate governance, deglobalization, deindustrialization, dematerialisation, deskilling, Donald Davies, double helix, Dr. Strangelove, endogenous growth, Etonian, European colonialism, feminist movement, first-past-the-post, full employment, gentrification, imperial preference, James Dyson, knowledge economy, labour mobility, land reform, land value tax, low interest rates, manufacturing employment, means of production, Mikhail Gorbachev, military-industrial complex, Neil Kinnock, new economy, non-tariff barriers, North Sea oil, offshore financial centre, old-boy network, packet switching, Philip Mirowski, Piper Alpha, plutocrats, post-Fordism, post-industrial society, post-truth, post-war consensus, public intellectual, rising living standards, road to serfdom, Ronald Reagan, scientific management, Suez canal 1869, Suez crisis 1956, technological determinism, The inhabitant of London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed, the various products of the whole earth, trade liberalization, union organizing, very high income, wages for housework, wealth creators, Winter of Discontent, women in the workforce, working poor

For example, there were many new mills and granaries built in the 1930s in Cardiff, Newcastle and Avonmouth.35 Wheat was the most important corn (the old term for cereals) consumed in the United Kingdom; most was imported. Although the Corn Laws were long repealed, allowing free entry of cereals, it was only in recent decades that the growth of production in the Americas and Australasia, and its cheap transport by steamer, had made foreign corn dominant. Cheap bread for the British worker was a central theme of politics – a key to the Liberal landslide of 1906, a dramatic reaffirmation of free trade. But what Tories could not do, German U-Boats could. In 1917 a new corn law was passed – the Corn Production Act, guaranteeing minimum prices for wheat and oats, and a minimum wage for farm workers, to encourage domestic production.

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Scientific farming must be promoted.’36 The Labour Party also wanted to expand agriculture and nationalize the land but was against protection: ‘The land is the people’s and must be developed so as to afford a high standard of life to a growing rural population not by subsidies or tariffs, but by scientific methods, and the freeing of the soil from landlordism and reaction.’37 The new corn law of 1917 was extended in 1920. But in 1921 the Corn Production Acts (Repeal) Bill was passed, ‘the great betrayal’, as it was called, which meant agriculture was fully back in the world market, once more among the great ‘unsheltered’ trades. Less land was ploughed, and it became a space where dairy cattle were fed with imported fodder.

Meghnad Desai Marxian economic theory by Unknown

book value, business cycle, commoditize, Corn Laws, full employment, land bank, land reform, means of production, Meghnad Desai, p-value, price mechanism, profit motive, technological determinism

A struggle between the feudal and capitalist elements is a major feature of 18th and 19th century history of many European countries and hnile the outcome in most countries which are called developed today was in favour of the capitalists, it took different forms. The agitation regarding the abolition of Corn Laws and in favour of Free Trade was the classical platform of the struggle between feudal landlords and industrial capital in England (and like all such classical events is partly mythological). In other countries, the feudal landlords transformed themselves into industrial capitalists often with state aid (as in Japan after the Meiji Restoration) and even in England the feudal elements are not entirely absent from the capitalist class to this day.

An Empire of Wealth: Rise of American Economy Power 1607-2000 by John Steele Gordon

accounting loophole / creative accounting, Alan Greenspan, bank run, banking crisis, Bretton Woods, British Empire, business cycle, buttonwood tree, California gold rush, Charles Babbage, clean water, collective bargaining, Corn Laws, Cornelius Vanderbilt, corporate governance, cotton gin, cuban missile crisis, disintermediation, double entry bookkeeping, failed state, Fairchild Semiconductor, financial independence, flying shuttle, Ford Model T, Frederick Winslow Taylor, full employment, Glass-Steagall Act, global village, Ida Tarbell, imperial preference, industrial research laboratory, informal economy, interchangeable parts, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, it's over 9,000, Jacquard loom, James Hargreaves, James Watt: steam engine, joint-stock company, joint-stock limited liability company, junk bonds, lone genius, Louis Pasteur, low interest rates, margin call, Marshall McLuhan, means of production, megaproject, Menlo Park, Mikhail Gorbachev, Money creation, money market fund, money: store of value / unit of account / medium of exchange, moral hazard, new economy, New Urbanism, postindustrial economy, price mechanism, Ralph Waldo Emerson, RAND corporation, rent control, rent-seeking, reserve currency, rolodex, Ronald Reagan, Savings and loan crisis, spinning jenny, Suez canal 1869, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, three-masted sailing ship, trade route, transaction costs, transcontinental railway, undersea cable, vertical integration, Yom Kippur War

By the time he was twenty-two, he had a working prototype of a mechanical harvester, powered by a wheel, called a driving wheel or bull wheel, that turned in contact with the ground as the machine moved behind the horse. Farmers were, to put it mildly, skeptical at first. McCormick didn’t sell a single machine for ten years, and in 1842 he sold only seven. But when Great Britain, after the failure of the British harvest in 1845, repealed the “Corn Laws” that protected British farmers from international competition, the demand for American wheat grew quickly. McCormick seized the opportunity. He built a factory in Chicago, then a city less than twenty years old, and began to mass-produce harvesters. In five years he sold five thousand. By 1860 Cyrus McCormick was a very rich man, reporting in that year’s census that he had personal assets of $278,000, and real estate valued at $1.75 million.

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, 219, 220, 225, 226 Grattan, Thomas Golley, 164 Great Britain, xiii, 8, 40, 83, 94, 95, 133, 153–54, 221, 281, 311, 321, 323, 376, 403, 407 after American Revolution, 63–64 banking industry and, 42–43, 332–33 colonialization style of, 10–12 concept of liberty in, xiv-xvi Corn Laws of, 175 cotton trade and, 88–90 Glorious Revolution of, 52–53 gold standard and, 183–84 national debt of, 53–54 Navigation Acts of, 41–42 Oregon Territory ceded by, 179 slavery abolished in, 52 and taxation of American colonies, 54–56 tobacco trade and, 15–17 in War of 1812, 117–18, 120 in World War I, 289–90, 293–94 in World War II, 349–52, 362 Great Depression, xviii, 317–31, 343, 370, 378, 381 bank failures in, 321–23, 324, 328 banking panic in, 330–31 Bonus Army and, 327 congressional legislation in, 325–27, 332–36 federal deficit in, 324–25, 328 gold standard and, 323–24, 334 1932 election and, 328–29 Smoot-Hawley Act and, 320–22 unemployment in, 322, 324, 328, 336 Great London Exposition of 1851, 175–76 Great Society, 382 Greeley, Horace, 182, 208, 231 Greenback Labor Party, 266 greenbacks, 196–97, 224, 226, 265, 266–67 Greenspan, Alan, 184 Gresham’s law, 47, 195–96, 267, 385 Hadley, Arthur T., 148–49 Hamilton, Alexander, xviii, 71, 92, 96, 99, 105, 115, 272, 337, 398 central bank proposal of, 76–81 named Treasury secretary, 71–72 national debt program of, 73–75 Hammond, James Henry, 89 Hargreaves, James, 88 Harper’s Weekly, 211 Harris, Benjamin, 158 Harrison, Benjamin, 198, 238, 239 Harrison, George, 319 head rights system, 16 Head Start, 382 Hearst, William Randolph, 260, 349 Heller, Walter, 380 Henrietta Maria, queen of England, 21 Henry, Joseph, 155 Henry, Patrick, 173 Higher Education Act, 383 Hill, James J., 278 History of the Standard Oil Company (Tarbell), 256 Hollerith, Herman, 406–7 Home Loan Bank Act, 325–26 Home Owners Loan Corporation, 335 Home Owners Refinancing Act, 335 Homestead Strike, 253 Hone, Philip, 130, 151–52, 165 Hooker, Thomas, 1 Hoover, Herbert, 207, 283, 332, 344, 391 FDR contrasted with, 338–39 Great Depression and, 317, 319–22, 325–28 House of Burgesses, Virginia, 17, 18 House of Representatives, U.S., 77, 117, 127, 275, 325, 333, 342, 353, 395 Commerce Committee of, 156 gold standard and, 265 Sixteenth Amendment in, 276 Ways and Means Committee of, 395 Howe, Elias, 176 Hudson, Henry, 4 Hudson River Railroad, 212 Hull, Cordell, 275 Hull, William, 118 Humphrey, George, 380 Huxley, Aldous, 297 IBM, 302, 407, 410 ICBMs, 403 ice trade, 176–79 Illinois, 122, 141, 235 immigration, 401 Civil War and, 201 ethnic diversity and, 244 labor relations and, 250 slums and, 243–44 income tax, 272–77, 388 on capital gains, 394 in Civil War, 194–95, 272–73, 274 in Constitution, 274, 276 on corporations, 276–77 Kemp-Roth proposals and, 390–91 progressive, 390 reform of, 394–96 in World War I, 292–93 in World War II, 358–59 indentured servants, 11–12, 16, 18–19, 50 India, 7, 40, 54, 83, 85, 416 Indiana, 122, 141 Indians, 4–6, 8, 11, 13, 15, 16–17, 22, 25, 54 indigo trade, 26, 82–83 Industrial Revolution, 26, 32, 49, 82, 88, 92, 102, 141, 149–50, 152, 162, 241, 243, 246, 409 Industrial Workers of the World (Wobblies), 250 inflation, 43–44, 47, 113, 267, 357, 379, 381, 390–91, 396, 405 in American Revolution, 60–61 Civil War and, 196 gold standard and, 265–66 in 1970s, 383–86 in postwar economy, 370–71 after World War I, 295–96 Insull, Samuel, 304–6 Intel, 408 International Monetary Fund, 378 International Typographical Union, 249–50 Internet, xiv, 12, 410–13 Interstate Commerce Commission, 238, 392 Iran hostage crisis, 391 iron industry, 32–36, 184, 246 see also steel industry isolationism, 349, 353, 362 Italy, 9, 311, 353 Jackson, Andrew, xviii, 92, 122–31, 151, 278, 281, 337, 389 national debt and, 125–26 nullification crisis and, 97 pet banks and, 129–30 Jackson, Charles Thomas, 155 Jackson, Howell, 274 James I, king of England, 10, 15, 17 James II, king of England, 38, 52–53 Jamestown colony, 8, 12–17 Japan, 204, 278, 311, 352, 353, 361, 363, 416, 417 Jefferson, Thomas, 52, 121, 122–23, 171, 173, 223, 326, 389, 398 and adoption of dollar, 68–69 assumption debate and, 74–75 central bank opposed by, 116 decimal dollar system and, 69–70 Embargo Act and, 94–95 Erie Canal opposed by, 106 national bank opposed by, 77–78, 80–81 Jenks, Joseph, 35 Johnson, Andrew, 215, 221 Johnson, Anthony, 19 Johnson, Hiram, 349 Johnson, Lyndon B., 382, 390 joint-stock company, 9–10 Jones, William, 126 Jones, W.

Capitalism in America: A History by Adrian Wooldridge, Alan Greenspan

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", "World Economic Forum" Davos, 2013 Report for America's Infrastructure - American Society of Civil Engineers - 19 March 2013, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, agricultural Revolution, air freight, Airbnb, airline deregulation, Alan Greenspan, American Society of Civil Engineers: Report Card, Asian financial crisis, bank run, barriers to entry, Bear Stearns, Berlin Wall, Blitzscaling, Bonfire of the Vanities, book value, Bretton Woods, British Empire, business climate, business cycle, business process, California gold rush, Charles Lindbergh, cloud computing, collateralized debt obligation, collective bargaining, Corn Laws, Cornelius Vanderbilt, corporate governance, corporate raider, cotton gin, creative destruction, credit crunch, debt deflation, Deng Xiaoping, disruptive innovation, Donald Trump, driverless car, edge city, Elon Musk, equal pay for equal work, Everybody Ought to Be Rich, Fairchild Semiconductor, Fall of the Berlin Wall, fiat currency, financial deregulation, financial engineering, financial innovation, fixed income, Ford Model T, full employment, general purpose technology, George Gilder, germ theory of disease, Glass-Steagall Act, global supply chain, Great Leap Forward, guns versus butter model, hiring and firing, Ida Tarbell, income per capita, indoor plumbing, informal economy, interchangeable parts, invention of the telegraph, invention of the telephone, Isaac Newton, Jeff Bezos, jimmy wales, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, Joseph Schumpeter, junk bonds, Kenneth Rogoff, Kitchen Debate, knowledge economy, knowledge worker, labor-force participation, land bank, Lewis Mumford, Louis Pasteur, low interest rates, low skilled workers, manufacturing employment, market bubble, Mason jar, mass immigration, McDonald's hot coffee lawsuit, means of production, Menlo Park, Mexican peso crisis / tequila crisis, Michael Milken, military-industrial complex, minimum wage unemployment, mortgage debt, Myron Scholes, Network effects, new economy, New Urbanism, Northern Rock, oil rush, oil shale / tar sands, oil shock, Peter Thiel, Phillips curve, plutocrats, pneumatic tube, popular capitalism, post-industrial society, postindustrial economy, price stability, Productivity paradox, public intellectual, purchasing power parity, Ralph Nader, Ralph Waldo Emerson, RAND corporation, refrigerator car, reserve currency, rising living standards, road to serfdom, Robert Gordon, Robert Solow, Ronald Reagan, Sand Hill Road, savings glut, scientific management, secular stagnation, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, Simon Kuznets, Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits, South Sea Bubble, sovereign wealth fund, stem cell, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, strikebreaker, supply-chain management, The Great Moderation, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, Thorstein Veblen, too big to fail, total factor productivity, trade route, transcontinental railway, tulip mania, Tyler Cowen, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, union organizing, Unsafe at Any Speed, Upton Sinclair, urban sprawl, Vannevar Bush, vertical integration, War on Poverty, washing machines reduced drudgery, Washington Consensus, white flight, wikimedia commons, William Shockley: the traitorous eight, women in the workforce, Works Progress Administration, Yom Kippur War, young professional

Furious about tariffs on their watches, for example, the Swiss imposed tariffs on American typewriters, cars, and radios. Germany declared a policy of national self-sufficiency (with the implicit threat that a self-sufficient Germany would also be an expansionist Germany). Even Britain, which had championed free trade since the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846, embraced protectionism in February 1932, by raising tariffs and providing special preferences for the empire and a few favored trading partners. The volume of global business shrunk from some $36 billion of traffic in 1929 to about $12 billion by 1932.17 The Depression’s tendency to feed on itself was reinforced by what Irving Fisher called “debt deflation.”

…

., 7–8, 25–26, 30–31, 32, 35, 40, 187 consumer debt, 216–17, 366 consumer electronics, 316–17 consumer research, 290–91 consumer society (consumerism), 92, 126, 295–96 containerization, 292–93 Continental Congress, 30, 38–39 continental currency, 38–39, 39 Coolidge, Calvin, 188, 189–92, 194, 330 Corn Laws, 232 corporate imperialism, 294–97 corporate restructurings, 335–36 corporate taxes, 329, 416 corporations, 133–34, 135–42, 156 advent of widespread ownership, 206–9 evolution of, 146–49 Great Merger Movement, 142–45 cotton, 73–79, 76, 86–89 Cotton, Calvin, 164 cotton gin, 15, 46, 74, 75 Coughlin, Charles, 204, 246 Council of Economic Advisers, 275, 302–3 Countrywide Financial, 378 cowboys, 113, 116 Cowen, Tyler, 4 Cox, Michael, 431 Crain, Nicole and Mark, 413 creative destruction, 12, 14–21, 209, 324, 389, 390 downside of, 21–23 to mass prosperity, 426–32 political resistance and, 24–26 problems with, 420–26 Crédit Mobilier, 167 credit rating agencies, 383–84 Criscuolo, Chiara, 397 Crissinger, Daniel, 235 Croly, Herbert, 178 Cross of Gold speech, 150–52 culture of growth, 43–57 Custer, George, 110 Dalrymple, Oliver, 115 DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), 349–50 Darrow, Clarence, 196, 256 Darwin, Charles, 163–64 data and methodology, 451–55 Data General, 353 David, Paul, 13, 35, 202, 403 Davis, Francis, 212 day traders, 340 Deaton, Angus, 399 DeBartolo, Edward J., 292 Debs, Eugene V., 154, 184, 186 debt.

More: The 10,000-Year Rise of the World Economy by Philip Coggan

accounting loophole / creative accounting, Ada Lovelace, agricultural Revolution, Airbnb, airline deregulation, Alan Greenspan, Andrei Shleifer, anti-communist, Apollo 11, assortative mating, autonomous vehicles, bank run, banking crisis, banks create money, basic income, Bear Stearns, Berlin Wall, Black Monday: stock market crash in 1987, Bletchley Park, Bob Noyce, Boeing 747, bond market vigilante , Branko Milanovic, Bretton Woods, Brexit referendum, British Empire, business cycle, call centre, capital controls, carbon footprint, carbon tax, Carl Icahn, Carmen Reinhart, Celtic Tiger, central bank independence, Charles Babbage, Charles Lindbergh, clean water, collective bargaining, Columbian Exchange, Columbine, Corn Laws, cotton gin, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, crony capitalism, cross-border payments, currency peg, currency risk, debt deflation, DeepMind, Deng Xiaoping, discovery of the americas, Donald Trump, driverless car, Easter island, Erik Brynjolfsson, European colonialism, eurozone crisis, Fairchild Semiconductor, falling living standards, financial engineering, financial innovation, financial intermediation, floating exchange rates, flying shuttle, Ford Model T, Fractional reserve banking, Frederick Winslow Taylor, full employment, general purpose technology, germ theory of disease, German hyperinflation, gig economy, Gini coefficient, Glass-Steagall Act, global supply chain, global value chain, Gordon Gekko, Great Leap Forward, greed is good, Greenspan put, guns versus butter model, Haber-Bosch Process, Hans Rosling, Hernando de Soto, hydraulic fracturing, hydroponic farming, Ignaz Semmelweis: hand washing, income inequality, income per capita, independent contractor, indoor plumbing, industrial robot, inflation targeting, Isaac Newton, James Watt: steam engine, job automation, John Snow's cholera map, joint-stock company, joint-stock limited liability company, Jon Ronson, Kenneth Arrow, Kula ring, labour market flexibility, land reform, land tenure, Lao Tzu, large denomination, Les Trente Glorieuses, liquidity trap, Long Term Capital Management, Louis Blériot, low cost airline, low interest rates, low skilled workers, lump of labour, M-Pesa, Malcom McLean invented shipping containers, manufacturing employment, Marc Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg, Martin Wolf, McJob, means of production, Mikhail Gorbachev, mittelstand, Modern Monetary Theory, moral hazard, Murano, Venice glass, Myron Scholes, Nelson Mandela, Network effects, Northern Rock, oil shale / tar sands, oil shock, Paul Samuelson, Paul Volcker talking about ATMs, Phillips curve, popular capitalism, popular electronics, price stability, principal–agent problem, profit maximization, purchasing power parity, quantitative easing, railway mania, Ralph Nader, regulatory arbitrage, road to serfdom, Robert Gordon, Robert Shiller, Robert Solow, Ronald Coase, Ronald Reagan, savings glut, scientific management, Scramble for Africa, Second Machine Age, secular stagnation, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, South China Sea, South Sea Bubble, special drawing rights, spice trade, spinning jenny, Steven Pinker, Suez canal 1869, TaskRabbit, techlash, Thales and the olive presses, Thales of Miletus, The Great Moderation, The inhabitant of London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed, the various products of the whole earth, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, The Wisdom of Crowds, Thomas Malthus, Thorstein Veblen, trade route, Tragedy of the Commons, transaction costs, transatlantic slave trade, transcontinental railway, Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, universal basic income, Unsafe at Any Speed, Upton Sinclair, V2 rocket, Veblen good, War on Poverty, Washington Consensus, Watson beat the top human players on Jeopardy!, women in the workforce, world market for maybe five computers, Yom Kippur War, you are the product, zero-sum game

Indeed, The Economist owes its foundation in 1843 to a campaign against tariffs. The Corn Laws were introduced in Britain in 1815 to protect British agriculture from foreign competition; corn could not be imported until the price reached £4 for a quarter (equivalent to 4801b or 217kg). This was popular among the landed aristocrats who supported the Tory Party, which was renamed the Conservatives in 1834. But those who believed in free trade, along the lines of Adam Smith, opposed the tariffs. They received support from industrialists who understood that expensive food required them to pay higher wages. The abolition of the Corn Laws in 1846 caused a split in the Conservative Party and cemented the hold of free-traders on British policy.

The Technology Trap: Capital, Labor, and Power in the Age of Automation by Carl Benedikt Frey

3D printing, AlphaGo, Alvin Toffler, autonomous vehicles, basic income, Bernie Sanders, Branko Milanovic, British Empire, business cycle, business process, call centre, Cambridge Analytica, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, Charles Babbage, Clayton Christensen, collective bargaining, computer age, computer vision, Corn Laws, Cornelius Vanderbilt, creative destruction, data science, David Graeber, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, deep learning, DeepMind, deindustrialization, demographic transition, desegregation, deskilling, Donald Trump, driverless car, easy for humans, difficult for computers, Edward Glaeser, Elon Musk, Erik Brynjolfsson, everywhere but in the productivity statistics, factory automation, Fairchild Semiconductor, falling living standards, first square of the chessboard / second half of the chessboard, Ford Model T, Ford paid five dollars a day, Frank Levy and Richard Murnane: The New Division of Labor, full employment, future of work, game design, general purpose technology, Gini coefficient, Great Leap Forward, Hans Moravec, high-speed rail, Hyperloop, income inequality, income per capita, independent contractor, industrial cluster, industrial robot, intangible asset, interchangeable parts, Internet of things, invention of agriculture, invention of movable type, invention of the steam engine, invention of the wheel, Isaac Newton, James Hargreaves, James Watt: steam engine, Jeremy Corbyn, job automation, job satisfaction, job-hopping, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, Joseph Schumpeter, Kickstarter, Kiva Systems, knowledge economy, knowledge worker, labor-force participation, labour mobility, Lewis Mumford, Loebner Prize, low skilled workers, machine translation, Malcom McLean invented shipping containers, manufacturing employment, mass immigration, means of production, Menlo Park, minimum wage unemployment, natural language processing, new economy, New Urbanism, Nick Bostrom, Norbert Wiener, nowcasting, oil shock, On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures, OpenAI, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, Pareto efficiency, pattern recognition, pink-collar, Productivity paradox, profit maximization, Renaissance Technologies, rent-seeking, rising living standards, Robert Gordon, Robert Solow, robot derives from the Czech word robota Czech, meaning slave, safety bicycle, Second Machine Age, secular stagnation, self-driving car, seminal paper, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, social intelligence, sparse data, speech recognition, spinning jenny, Stephen Hawking, tacit knowledge, The Future of Employment, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, total factor productivity, trade route, Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, Turing test, union organizing, universal basic income, warehouse automation, washing machines reduced drudgery, wealth creators, women in the workforce, working poor, zero-sum game

The Great Reform Act of 1832 was the first of a series of reforms on Britain’s long road to universal suffrage. It is justly regarded as “a major turning point in English history,” as it helped trigger democratization and key economic reforms like the implementation of the personal income tax in 1842 and the repeal of the Corn Laws four years later.6 Because Parliamentary reform had become a party-political question, supported by Whigs and Radicals (who would go on to form the Liberal Party) and opposed by most Tories, a Whig majority in the House of Commons was necessary for the Great Reform Act to make it through Parliament.

…

., 357 Bythell, Duncan, 121 California Civil Code of 1872, 359 Čapek, Karel, 74 capitalism: perceived threat to, 210; beginnings of, 70; criticism of, 342; impact of clocks on evolution of, 47; rise of, 218; Jeffersonian ideal under, 212; normal state of, 210 capitalist achievement, 294 Capitoline Hill, 40 Captain Swing riots, 130, 285 caravel construction, 50–51 Cardwell, Donald, 47, 59, 97 Carlyle, Thomas, 117 Carnegie, Andrew, 208 Cartwright, Edmund, 105, 127 Case, Anne, 255–56 Cave, Edward, 102 Celestine III, Pope, 44 cement masonry, discovery of, 37 Chadwick, Edwin, 114–15 Charles I of England, King, 54–55, 82, 86 Chartism, 137 cheap labor, slower mechanization and, 75 Cherlin, Andrew, 276, 279 Chetty, Raj, 253, 361 child labor, 103, 123, 134; as opportunity cost to education, 214; robots of Industrial Revolution, 8–9 chimney aristocracy, 89 China: admission to World Trade Organization, 281, 286; ascent of, 289; delayed industrialization in, 88; trade war with, 331 Christensen, Clayton, 354 Chrysler Building, 182 civil rights: lagging, 20; legislation, 280 Civil War (American), 75 Civil War (English), 81 Clark, Gregory, 29, 48, 60 classical civilizations, 37 clientelism, 271 Clinton, Hillary, 285 clocks, 47 Coalbrookdale Iron Company, 108 cognitive divide, 238–43 Colbert, Jean-Baptiste, 84 collective action problem, 19–20 collective bargaining, 192 college-educated citizens: activities of, 352; detachment of, 256; among Great Divergence, 258, 358; hours per day worked, 338; perceived untrustworthiness of, 278; promotion of, 350; qualified as middle class, 239 Colt, Samuel, 149–50 Columbus, Christopher, 51, 67 Communist Manifesto, 7, 63, 70, 119 competition: among nation-states, 19, 57, 89; cascading, 289 computer-aided design software, 13 computer-controlled machines, jobs eliminated by, 228 computer publishing, 247 computers: age of, 228–38; analysts in, 235; automation anxiety concerning, 183; jobs created in, 16; ranks of the affluent in, 224; revolution, 249; those who thrived in, 16; trend beginning with, 258 connectivity, 362–63 consumer products: cheapening of, 294; new, Americans’ growing appetite for, 203 containerization, 171–72 Corbyn, Jeremy, 281 Corn Laws, 267 corporate giants, 208 corporate paternalism, 200 corporate profits, 132, 244 cotton cloth guild, 88 cotton industry, 100 cotton production, mechanization of, 7 Cowie, Jefferson, 200 craft guilds, 55–57, 87 Crafts, Nicholas, 107, 329 crime, joblessness and, 253 Crimean War, 150 Crompton, Samuel, 94, 102 Crouzet, François, 70 Crystal Palace Exhibition of 1851, 147, 149 cultural phenomenon, working class as, 278 culture of growth, 77 Dactyl, 313 Da Gama, Vasco, 51, 67 Dahl, Robert, 273, 352 Daimler, Gottlieb, 166 Darby, Abraham, 108 Dark Ages, light in, 41–51 data, as the new oil, 304 David, Paul, 153, 326 Davis, James J., 175 “deaths of despair,” 256 Deaton, Angus, 8, 255 Declaration of Rights of 1689 (Bill of Rights), 79 Decree Tractor Company, 215 Deep Blue, 303 deep learning, 304 Deep Mind, 301 Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), 307 Defoe, Daniel, 68–69, 71, 84 democracy: legitimacy of, undermining of, 274; liberal, components of, 267; middle class and, 265–69; rise of, 265 Descartes, René, 94 Detroit, Michigan, 151, 257, 359 Devine, Warren, Jr., 153 Diamond, Jared, 64 Dickens, Charles, 117 digital communication, 360 digital industries, clustering of, 260 Diocletian, Roman Emperor, 65 disappearance of jobs, 250–52 “disciplined self” identity, 279 Disraeli, Benjamin, 112, 268 Dittmar, Jeremiah, 48 Domesday Book of 1086, 44 domestic system of production, 61, 71; downfall of, 8 Douglas, Paul H., 178–79 Drebbel, Cornelis, 52 drones, 342 Drucker, Peter F., 227 drudgery, end of, 193–98 Dust Bowl (1930s), 193, 204 Dutch Revolt, 81 Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), 357 earnings gap, 230 economic incentive, lack of, 40 economic inequality, 22, 274, 277 economic parasites, 79 economic segregation, 356 economies of scale, factories taking advantage of, 110 Eden, Frederick, 116, 344 Edison, Thomas, 2, 52, 148, 189 education and technology, race between, 216 Eilmer of Malmesbury, 78 Eisenhower, Dwight, 307 electricity, early days of, 151 electrification, rural, 157 Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator (ENIAC), 230 elevator: arrival of, 14; automatic, 182 Elevator Industry Association, 182 elevator operators, vanishing of, 181, 227 Elizabeth I of England, Queen, 10, 54, 105 Empire State Building, 182 enabling technologies, 13, 227, 228 Engels, Friedrich, 70, 112, 249, 364 Engels’ pause, 131–37, 219; ending of, 287; polarization and, 266; return of, 243–48, 331; time of, 337 English craft guilds, fading power of, 87 entrepreneurial risk, 77 Facebook, 285 factory system, 8, 97, 126; annus mirabilis of 1769, 97; artisans, 98; child labor, 103, 104; coke smelting, 109; control over factory workforce, 104; cotton industry, 100; domestic industry, output growth in, 98; earlier modes of production, 97–98; economies of scale, factories taking advantage of, 110; electrification, 190, 195; Industrial Revolution, 97, 100–101; international trade, rise of, 99; inventions, 102; iron, railroads, and steam, 105–11; mechanical clock as enabling technology for, 47; railroad, arrival of, 108; rise of machines, 99–105; silk industry, beginnings of, 99; social savings of steam engine, 107; steam engine, economic virtuosity of, 107; working class, 98 Fairchild Semiconductor, 359 Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, 200 farming: disappearance of jobs, 197, 203; mechanization of, 324; revolution, 168–69 feudal oligarchies, replacement of, 58 feudal order: political participation in, 265; rise of, 41, 62 Field, Alexander, 163, 170 Finley, Moses, 36 First Opium War, 88 Fisher, Alva J., 27 Fisher, Irving, 210 Ford, Henry, 141, 148, 167, 195, 365 Ford assembly lines, 18, 365 Ford Motor Company, 148, 199, 240 France, industrial development in, 84 Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor, 85 French Revolution, 90 Friedman, Milton, 355 Friedman, Thomas, 257 Fukuyama, Francis, 141, 264–65, 273, 343 Furman, Jason, 322 Galileo, 39, 52, 54, 94 Galor, Oded, 133 Gans, Joshua, 308 Garden of Eden, 191 Gaskell, Elizabeth, 117 Gaskell, Peter, 117–119, 135, 229, 249 Gates, Bill, 10 Gates paradox, 10, 11, 21 General Electric, 155, 157, 215, 289 General Motors assembly lines, 18 geography of new jobs, 256–63 George Washington Bridge, 167 Giffen, Robert, 132–33 gig mill, 10, 76, 86, 128 Gilded Age, 208 Gille, Bertrand, 39–40 Gini coefficient, 209, 245 Gladstone, William Ewart, 133 Glaeser, Edward, 257, 261, 263 globalization: automation, and populism, 277–85; backlash against, 365; clamping down on, 290; costs of, 366; facilitator of, 282; first wave of, 171; losers to, 21, 26; vanishing jobs and, 11 Glorious Revolution of 1688–89, 79, 82–83, 86 Golden Gate, 167 golden postwar years, 239 Goldfarb, Avi, 308 Goldin, Claudia, 213, 349 Goldin, Ian, 357 Gompers, Samuel, 279 Goodyear Tire, 199 Google, 305 Google Translate, 304 Goolsbee, Austan, 340 Gordon, Robert, 198, 202, 220, 272, 342 government regulations, 49, 137 Great Depression, 13, 143, 170, 211, 272 Great Divergence, 24; absence of economic revolution, 95; beginnings of industrialization, 94; factory system, evolution of (see factory system); Industrial Revolution (see Industrial Revolution); per capita income growth, 94; rise of the machines, 93; textile industry, Industrial Revolution begun in, 95 Great Escape, 8 “great exception” in American political history, 200 Great Migration, 205 Great Recession, 244, 284, 339, 343 Green, William, 174 Greif, Avner, 88, 92, 344 growth, culture of, 77 Gutenberg, Johannes, 47 Habsburg Empire, 85 Hammer, Michael, 326 Hansen, Alvin, 179, 342 Hargreaves, James, 102–3 Harlem, 1 Harper, Kyle, 37 Hawking, Stephen, 36 hazardous jobs, end of, 195, 198 health conditions, during Industrial Revolution, 114–15 Heaton, Herbert, 37 Heckman, James, 351 Heilbroner, Robert, 335 Hellenism, technological creativity of, 39 Henderson, Rebecca, 305, 331 Hero of Alexandria, 39 high school graduates, employment opportunities for, 237 high school movement (1910–40), 214 Himmelfarb, Gertrude, 268 Hindenburg disaster, 110 hinterland, cheap labor and housing of, 261 history deniers, 23 Hitler, Adolf, 12 Hobbes, Thomas, 8, 46 Hobsbawm, Eric, 7 Hoover, Herbert, 211 horseless age, 164 horse technology, 43, 163 Hounshell, David, 148, 150 household revolution, 155–56 housing, zoning and, 361–62 housing bubble, 282 human capital accumulation, indicators of, 133–34 Humphries, Jane, 103, 121 Hurst, Erik, 338 Huskisson, William, 109–10 Hyperloop, 363 IBM, 231 Ibsen, Henrik, 17 Ice Age, 64, 76 identity politics, 278 “idiocy of rural life,” 62–64 income(s): disparities of, 61; reshuffling of, 287 income tax (Britain), introduction of, 133 incubators, nursery cities serving as, 261 industrial bourgeoisie, 267 industrial capitalism, rise of, 218 industrial centers, rise of, 115 industrial espionage, 6 industrialization, first episode of, 16 industrial organization, fundamental principle of, 229 Industrial Revolution, 68, 70; alcoholism, 123; in Britain, 329; Britain’s edge during, 19; British income tax, introduction of, 133; capital share of income, 131–32; child labor, 123, 134; children as robots of, 8–9; classic years of, 113; closing decades of, 138, 266; conditions of England question, 116–25; consumer revolution preceding, 68; cotton yarn manufacturing at dawn of, 100–101; divergence between output and wages, 131; domestic system, description of, 118; economic consequences of, 17; Engels’ pause, 131–37; engine of, 73; Englishmen left off worse by, 364; factories existing before, 94; gig mills, 128; golden age of industry, 118; government regulation, 137; hand-loom weaver, as tragic hero of Industrial Revolution, 121; health conditions, 114–15; human capital accumulation, indicators of, 133–34; labor income share captured, 114; industrial centers, rise of, 115; jobs created by, 16; key drivers of, 342; labor unions, bargaining power of, 137; Lancashire riots, 125, 127; leading figures of, 70; literacy rates, 134; Luddites, 125–31; machinery question, concerns over, 116; machinery riots, 127, 130; macroeconomic impact of, 94; material living conditions, decline of, 114, 120–21; mobility of workers, 122; obsolescence of worker skills, 124; origins of, 6, 80–91; political situation of workers, 129; reason for beginnings in Britain, 75; recipients of the gains of, 113; standard of living issue, 121; steam power, impact of on aggregate growth, 136; symbolic beginning of, 97; tax revenue, 133; technical change during closing decades, 139; technological progress, attitudes toward, 112; trajectory of inequality in Britain during, 217; true beginnings of, 100; unemployment, 113, 117, 125; victims of, 9; Victorian Age, machinery critics of, 119; wave of gadgets, 330; working poor, 113 inequality: age of, beginnings of, 62; Neolithic rise in, 63 inflation, 294 information technology, first revolution in, 47 inner-city ghettos, problems in, 258 innovation, 257; nurseries for, 261 innovation gap, 352 in-person service jobs, 235 inspiration without perspiration, 51–59 installment credit, 159, 167 institutional divergence (colonial Europe), 81 Intel, 359 interchangeable parts: concept of, 149; pioneering of, 74 International Labour Organization (ILO), 181 International Monetary Fund (IMF), 245 international trade, rise of, 67, 69, 99 Internet of things, 22 internet traffic: spread of, 328; worldwide, 303 inventions: agriculture, 54, 62; assembly line, 141, 365; barometer, 52, 59; bicycle, 165; camel saddle, 77; carding machine, 102; of classical times, 39; coke smelting, 108; electric starter, 166; iron, 36; light bulb, 2; mariner’s compass, 50; movable-type printing press, 47; nailed horseshoe, 43; navigable submarine, 52; personal computer (PC), 231; power loom, 105; spinning jenny, 102; steam digester, 55; steam engine, 52, 76; stirrup, 43; stocking-frame knitting machine, 54, 76; submarine, 73; telescope, 59; transistor, 231; typewriter, 161–62; washing machine, 27; water frame, 102; waterwheel, 38; wheel, 35 Iron Age, 35 iron laws of economics, 206 James I of England, King, 52 Japan, ascent of, 289 JD. com, 313 Jeffersonian individualism, 200 Jenkinson, Robert, 2nd Earl of Liverpool, 130, 289 Jerome, Harry, 13, 154, 198, 328 job demand, creation of, 262 Johnson, Lyndon, 184 Joyce, James, 16 Kaldor, Nicholas, 5, 205 Kasparov, Garry, 301 Katz, Lawrence, 135, 213, 245, 349 Kay-Shuttleworth, James, 117, 229 Kennedy, John F., 183 Kettering, Charles, 166 Keynes, John Maynard, 332, 334 King, Gregory, 68 knowledge work, 235, 259 Komlos, John, 115 Korea, ascent of, 289 Korean War, 180 Krugman, Paul, 12 Kuznets, Simon, 5, 206–7 Kuznets curve, 207, 212 labor, division of, 228 labor multiplier, 347 Labor Party, rise of, 268 labor productivity, gap between worker compensation and, 244 labor unions, 212; bargaining power of, 201, 277; legalization in Britain, 190 laissez-faire regime, 25, 267 lamplighters, 1–2 Lancashire riots of 1779, 90 landed aristocracy, 83 Landes, David, 9, 112, 118, 134, 343 Land-Grant College Act of 1862, 364 Latin Church, oppression of science by, 79 laundress, vanishing of, 27, 160 Lee, William, 10, 54 Lefebvre des Noëttes, Richard, 43 Leonardo da Vinci, 38, 51, 73 Leontief, Wassily, 20, 338, 343 Levy, Frank, 237, 302, 323 liberal democracy, components of, 267 Lindert, Peter, 61, 68, 114, 207, 211, 269, 271 literacy, demand for, 76 Liverpool-Manchester Railway, 109 lobbying, corporate spending on, 275 Locke, John, 83 Lombe, John, 52, 99–100 Lombe, Thomas, 6, 100 London Steam Carriage, 109 longshoremen, vanishing of, 172 Louis XIV of France, King, 84 Luddites, 9, 18, 125–31, 341; imprisoned, 20; new, 286–92; riots, 89, 92; uprisings, 265 machinery question, 116, 174–88; adjustment problems, 177; automation, employment effects of, 180; computers, automation anxiety concerning, 183; elevator operators, 181–82; musicians, displaced, 177–78 machinery riots, 9, 265, 289; absence of (America), 190; Britain, 90 Maddison, Angus, 66 Magellan, Ferdinand, 51, 67 majority-rule voting system, 270 Malthus, Thomas Robert, 4, 64, 73, 316, 345 Malthusian logic, 345 Malthusian trap, escape of, 65 Manhattan Project, 74 Manpower Training and Development Act (MDTA), 353 Mantoux, Paul, 97, 101, 126 Manufacture des Gobelins, 84 Manufacture Royale de Glaces de Miroirs, 84 manufacturing: blue-collar jobs, disappearance of, 251, 254; American system of manufacturing, pioneers of, 149; factory electrification, 151–55; interchangeable parts, concept of, 149 Margo, Robert, 135, 145 markets, integration of, 86 Marx, Karl, 26, 47, 98, 239, 364 Massey, Douglas, 256 Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), 354 mass production, 147–73; American system of manufacturing, pioneers of, 149; containerization, 171–72; direct drive, 153; factory electrification, 151–55; horseless age, 164; household revolution, 156; industries, 18; installment credit, 159, 167; interchangeable parts, concept of, 149; Model T, 167; unit drive, 153 Maurice of Nassau, Prince of Orange, 59 Maybach, Wilhelm, 166 McAfee, Andrew, 303, 339 McCloskey, Deirdre, 70 McCormick, Cyrus, 149, 168 McLean, Malcom, 171 mechanics, Galileo’s theory of, 53 mechanization, age of automation vs. age of, 227 median voter theories, 270 medieval Christianity, 78 mercantilism, flawed doctrine of, 83 Mesopotamia, 35 metals, discovery and exploitation of, 35 Michigan Antitrust Reform Act of 1985, 359 Microsoft, 306 Middle Ages: agricultural technology in, 42; feudal order of, 57; onset of, 41; technical advances of, 50; traditional crafts of, 68 middle class, descent of, 223–25; artificial intelligence, 228; automation, adverse consequences of, 240; cognitive divide, 238–43; computer-controlled machines, jobs eliminated by, 228; computers, 228–38; corporate profits, 244; division of labor between human and machine, 228; earnings gap, 230; Engels’ pause, return of, 243–48; golden postwar years, 239; Great Recession, 244; high school graduates, employment opportunities for, 237; industrial organization, fundamental principle of, 229; in-person service jobs, 235; knowledge workers, 235; labor productivity, gap between worker compensation and, 244; mechanization, age of automation vs. age of, 227; multipurpose robots, 242; rule-based logic, 228; Second Industrial Revolution, elimination of jobs created for machine operators during, 228; “symbolic analysts,” 235 middle class, triumph of, 218–222; agriculture, mechanization of, 189; automotive industry, 202; baby boom, 221; blue-collar Americans, unprecedented wages of, 220; child labor, as opportunity cost to education, 214; collective bargaining, 192; corporate giants, 208; corporate paternalism, 200; education and technology, race between, 216; end of drudgery, 193–98; Engels’ pause, 219; factory electrification, 190, 195; farming jobs, decline of, 197, 203; Great Depression, 211; “great exception” in American political history, 200; Great Migration, 205; hazardous jobs, end of, 195, 198; high school movement (1910–40), 214; Jeffersonian individualism, 200; Kuznets curve, 207, 212; labor unions, 201, 212; leveling of American wages, 211; machinery riots, absence of, 190; middle class, emergence of, 192, 292; national minimum wage, introduction of, 211; new consumer goods, Americans’ growing appetite for, 203; New Deal, 200, 212; public schooling, 214; Second Industrial Revolution, 209, 217; skill-biased technological change, 213; tractor use, expansion of, 196; urban-rural wage gap, 209; Wall Street, depression suffered by, 211; welfare capitalism, 198, 200; welfare state, rise of, 221; white-collar employment, 197, 218 Middle East, 77 Milanovic, Branko, 217, 245 mining, 194, 197 Minoan civilization, 34 mobile robotics, 342 mobility, demands for, 348 mobility vouchers, 360 Model T, 167 modern medicine, rise of, 22 Mokyr, Joel, 19, 52, 76–77, 79 Moore’s Law, 107, 301, 304 Moravec’s paradox, 236 Moretti, Enrico, 258, 262–63, 360 Morgan, J.

The Aristocracy of Talent: How Meritocracy Made the Modern World by Adrian Wooldridge

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Ada Lovelace, affirmative action, Alan Greenspan, Albert Einstein, assortative mating, barriers to entry, Bernie Sanders, Black Lives Matter, Bletchley Park, borderless world, Boris Johnson, Brexit referendum, business intelligence, central bank independence, circulation of elites, Clayton Christensen, cognitive bias, Corn Laws, coronavirus, corporate governance, correlation coefficient, COVID-19, creative destruction, critical race theory, David Brooks, Dominic Cummings, Donald Trump, Double Irish / Dutch Sandwich, Etonian, European colonialism, fake news, feminist movement, George Floyd, George Gilder, Gini coefficient, glass ceiling, helicopter parent, Home mortgage interest deduction, income inequality, intangible asset, invention of gunpowder, invention of the printing press, Isaac Newton, Jeff Bezos, Jeremy Corbyn, Jim Simons, joint-stock company, Joseph Schumpeter, knowledge economy, knowledge worker, land tenure, London Interbank Offered Rate, Long Term Capital Management, Louis Pasteur, Mahatma Gandhi, Mark Zuckerberg, means of production, meritocracy, meta-analysis, microaggression, mortgage tax deduction, Myron Scholes, offshore financial centre, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, Panopticon Jeremy Bentham, Peter Thiel, plutocrats, post-industrial society, post-oil, pre–internet, public intellectual, publish or perish, Ralph Waldo Emerson, RAND corporation, rent-seeking, Richard Florida, Ronald Reagan, scientific management, sexual politics, shareholder value, Sheryl Sandberg, Silicon Valley, spinning jenny, Steve Bannon, Steven Pinker, supply-chain management, surveillance capitalism, tech bro, The Bell Curve by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thorstein Veblen, three-martini lunch, Tim Cook: Apple, transfer pricing, Tyler Cowen, unit 8200, upwardly mobile, Vilfredo Pareto, W. E. B. Du Bois, wealth creators, women in the workforce

The artificial noble shrinks into a dwarf before the noble of nature …’9 William Cobbett (1763–1835), a labourer’s son who became the most influential journalist of his generation, was equally withering about ‘the thing’, as he dubbed the British establishment. The establishment existed to support ‘tax eaters’ at the expense of wealth-creators, and office-holders at the expense of ordinary people: it was thus ‘all-corrupting and all-degrading’. The Corn Laws kept the price of food high in order to make life easy for aristocrats. The system of patronage stuffed the administration with bloodsuckers. Cobbett drew up plans to write a play with the memorable title of ‘Bastards in High Places’ but unfortunately died before he could put pen to paper. Let’s hope somebody today takes up both the title and the challenge.10 John Wade (1788–1875), a former wool-sorter turned journalist who was inspired by Tom Paine and Joseph Priestley and funded by Jeremy Bentham, provided a full-scale anatomy of these ‘bastards in high places’ in The Black Book, or, Corruption Unmasked!

…

R. 340 Cobbett, William 147 Cobden, Richard 163 Cohen, Nick 342 Coke, Sir Edward 31 Colbert, Jean-Baptiste 125, 126 Cold War, and education of women 274 Coleman, James, Report (1966 US) 302 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, on China 84 Colet, John, St Paul’s School 104 College of Fort William, India 82 Communism China 357–60 rejection of Plato 70 see also Left, political communitarianism 21, 294–7 competition 112 and aristocracy of talent 156 and Cambridge University examinations 150–51 in education 158–9 open 398 for civil service 157–8, 160–61 for schools 166–7 for universities 158–9 women and 257–8 and prizes 150, 151 risks of 375 see also examinations Comte, Auguste 134 Conant, James 223–7 ‘Education for a Classless Society’ (1940) 225 and Jeffersonian ‘natural aristocracy 225–7 ‘Public Education and the Structure of American Society’ (1945) 225–6 condescension 341–4, 375 Condillac, Étienne Bonnot de 120 Condorcet, Marquis de 119, 130 ‘Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind’ 122 Confucianism and Chinese examination system 81 and Christianity 72 criticism of 84–5 and hard work 366 revival in China 359–60 Singapore 351–2 tradition of 70, 71 Confucius Analects 37, 76 and Chinese examination system 76–7 theory of meritocracy 76–7 Connolly, Cyril 231 conservatism social 229–32, 324 view of meritocracy as threat 15 consultancy educational 314–15 management 253, 322, 352 consumption, conspicuous 33, 146 Contagious Diseases Act (1864) 259 Cook, Peter 236 Cook, Tim 14 Cooper, Yvette 312 Corbyn, Jeremy 337, 339 Corn Laws 147 corporations American 197, 253–5 see also business corruption aristocracy as curb on 184 China 361–2, 393 Old Corruption system 54, 56, 148–9, 391 for school and college admission 315–17 see also political corruption Cotton, Calvin 191 Coulson, Andy 338 Covid-19 crisis 343, 384 Trump and 345 Cox, Catharine Morris 222 Cox, Hayward 159 Coyer, Abbé, La Noblesse commerçante 126 craniometry 228–9 Crawfurd, Helen 173 creativity 96, 141–2 Singapore’s lack of 354 Crèvecoeur, J.

Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy by Daron Acemoğlu, James A. Robinson

Andrei Shleifer, British Empire, business cycle, colonial rule, conceptual framework, constrained optimization, Corn Laws, declining real wages, Edward Glaeser, European colonialism, Gunnar Myrdal, income inequality, income per capita, invisible hand, Jean Tirole, John Markoff, Kenneth Rogoff, land reform, minimum wage unemployment, Nash equilibrium, Nelson Mandela, oil shock, open economy, Pareto efficiency, rent-seeking, seminal paper, strikebreaker, total factor productivity, transaction costs, Washington Consensus, William of Occam, women in the workforce

The emergence of democracy in Britain and its subsequent consolidation took place in a society that had long shed nearly all the remnants of medieval organization and that had successfully resisted the threat of absolutism. They also took place Argentina 5 in the context of rapid industrialization, urbanization, expansion of the factory system, rising inequality, and – in the period after the Repeal of the Corn Laws – rapid globalization of the economy. 2. Argentina The beginnings of the modern Argentine Republic were in 1810 when it declared its independence. Following this period, the country was immersed in a chaotic series of civil wars and internal conflict over the structure of power and political institutions.

…

So, if the strategy was aimed at winning elections, it was clearly a failure. Although the fact that the Conservatives lost the election does not prove that franchise extension was not aimed at winning elections, other aspects of this reform also appear inconsistent with a strategy of maximizing Conservative votes. In particular, as a result of the split over the Corn Laws, support for the Conservative Party was essentially concentrated in rural areas, with Tory landowners exerting substantial control over the electorate in the absence of a secret ballot. The reform measure passed under Disraeli increased the voting population by only 45 percent in counties compared to 145 percent in the boroughs, effectively ensuring a Conservative defeat in the subsequent elections.

Owning the Earth: The Transforming History of Land Ownership by Andro Linklater

agricultural Revolution, Alan Greenspan, anti-communist, Anton Chekhov, Ayatollah Khomeini, Bear Stearns, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, British Empire, business cycle, colonial rule, Corn Laws, Cornelius Vanderbilt, corporate governance, creative destruction, Credit Default Swap, crony capitalism, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, electricity market, facts on the ground, flying shuttle, Ford Model T, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, full employment, Gini coefficient, Glass-Steagall Act, Google Earth, Great Leap Forward, income inequality, invisible hand, James Hargreaves, James Watt: steam engine, John Perry Barlow, joint-stock company, joint-stock limited liability company, Joseph Schumpeter, Kibera, Kickstarter, land reform, land tenure, light touch regulation, market clearing, means of production, megacity, Mikhail Gorbachev, Mohammed Bouazizi, Monkeys Reject Unequal Pay, mortgage debt, Northern Rock, Peace of Westphalia, Pearl River Delta, plutocrats, Ponzi scheme, profit motive, quantitative easing, Ralph Waldo Emerson, refrigerator car, Right to Buy, road to serfdom, Robert Shiller, Ronald Reagan, spinning jenny, Suez canal 1869, The Chicago School, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, Thorstein Veblen, three-masted sailing ship, too big to fail, trade route, transatlantic slave trade, transcontinental railway, ultimatum game, wage slave, WikiLeaks, wikimedia commons, working poor

But what made Wakefield’s system so compelling was his unabashed appeal to free enterprise as the force that would make property-based colonization a success. The vision of the colonies as new capitalist societies was coupled with a stirring appeal for international free trade, beginning with the repeal of the high tariffs that Britain’s Corn Laws imposed on cereals imported into Britain. Once they were gone, Wakefield predicted that “the English will hunt over the world in search of cheap corn” to feed their industrial economy. There would be an enhanced two-way trade between the colonies and the home country, and where Australia was concerned, the chance of opening up a three-way network exporting cereals to China, Chinese tea to Britain, and British manufactures to Australia.

…

And, as the Public Lands Survey had already proved in the United States, the natural development of landed property into rural capital brought in economic forces that knocked aside the government’s opposition. In 1846, the voting strength of Britain’s industrialists carried through what Wakefield had always wanted, the repeal of the Corn Laws that protected British cereal farmers with a high tariff on imported grain. From then on, the search for cheap corn to feed the workers employed in Britain’s factories would suck farmers within its empire into a global trading network. The links that carried food and raw materials in one direction sent people and investment in the other, hastening the transition of imperial outposts from rural to industrial capitalism.

Dreams of Leaving and Remaining by James Meek

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, agricultural Revolution, anti-communist, bank run, Boris Johnson, Brexit referendum, centre right, Corn Laws, corporate governance, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Etonian, full employment, global supply chain, illegal immigration, Jeff Bezos, Jeremy Corbyn, Leo Hollis, low skilled workers, Martin Wolf, mega-rich, Neil Kinnock, North Sea oil, Northern Rock, obamacare, offshore financial centre, race to the bottom, Ronald Reagan, savings glut, Shenzhen special economic zone , Skype, sovereign wealth fund, special economic zone, Stephen Hawking, working-age population

They wanted an end to high duties on imported corn. They wanted cheap bread. But they also wanted the vote, and education for their children. By the time the twentieth century arrived, the successors to the constellation of idealists, organisers, polemicists and journalists who led the Chartists and the Anti-Corn Law League had moved on from the Robin Hood myth’s focus on the contents of the strongbox and the futile hope for the return of that wise, just ruler, the absent king. They understood that the silver coins were only a symbol of the power that was denied them, and that to achieve that power, they must become their own king.

What's Wrong With Economics: A Primer for the Perplexed by Robert Skidelsky

additive manufacturing, agricultural Revolution, behavioural economics, Black Swan, Bretton Woods, business cycle, carbon tax, Cass Sunstein, central bank independence, cognitive bias, conceptual framework, Corn Laws, corporate social responsibility, correlation does not imply causation, creative destruction, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, degrowth, disruptive innovation, Donald Trump, Dr. Strangelove, full employment, George Akerlof, George Santayana, global supply chain, global village, Gunnar Myrdal, happiness index / gross national happiness, hindsight bias, Hyman Minsky, income inequality, index fund, inflation targeting, information asymmetry, Internet Archive, invisible hand, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Arrow, knowledge economy, labour market flexibility, loss aversion, Mahbub ul Haq, Mark Zuckerberg, market clearing, market friction, market fundamentalism, Martin Wolf, means of production, Modern Monetary Theory, moral hazard, paradox of thrift, Pareto efficiency, Paul Samuelson, Philip Mirowski, Phillips curve, precariat, price anchoring, principal–agent problem, rent-seeking, Richard Thaler, road to serfdom, Robert Shiller, Robert Solow, Ronald Coase, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, sunk-cost fallacy, survivorship bias, technoutopianism, The Chicago School, The Market for Lemons, The Nature of the Firm, the scientific method, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Kuhn: the structure of scientific revolutions, Thomas Malthus, Thorstein Veblen, Tragedy of the Commons, transaction costs, transfer pricing, Vilfredo Pareto, Washington Consensus, Wolfgang Streeck, zero-sum game

It also makes sense globally. The era of liberal economics opened with the publication of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations in 1776. Despite the early intellectual ascendancy of free trade, it took a major crisis – the potato famine of the early 1840s – to produce an actual shift in policy: the 1846 repeal of the Corn Laws that ushered in the free trade era. In the 1870s, the pendulum started to swing back to what the historian A.V. Dicey called the ‘age of collectivism’. The major crisis that triggered this was the first great global depression, produced by a collapse in food prices. It was a severe enough shock to produce a major shift in political economy.

Half In, Half Out: Prime Ministers on Europe by Andrew Adonis

banking crisis, Berlin Wall, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Boris Johnson, Bretton Woods, Brexit referendum, British Empire, centre right, colonial rule, congestion charging, Corn Laws, cuban missile crisis, Dominic Cummings, eurozone crisis, imperial preference, mass immigration, Neil Kinnock, oil shock, Suez crisis 1956

He began with a careful consideration of the potential economic impact of British membership, highlighting the danger of Britain’s Commonwealth partners being left without a market for their agricultural produce. In the economic sphere, Eden declared, ‘What we may shortly have to decide is more important than any decision since the repeal of the Corn Laws.’ On the political side ‘it can be more important than any decision we have taken in history’. The European Commission had stated that progress towards economic union was progress towards political union. This was a ‘confession of intent which we should be ostriches to ignore’. Like later Eurosceptics he insisted that those who had doubts about closer political unity did not contemplate or in any sense desire to turn their backs on Europe.

How Did We Get Into This Mess?: Politics, Equality, Nature by George Monbiot

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Alfred Russel Wallace, Anthropocene, bank run, bilateral investment treaty, Branko Milanovic, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, collective bargaining, Corn Laws, creative destruction, credit crunch, David Attenborough, dematerialisation, demographic transition, drone strike, en.wikipedia.org, first-past-the-post, full employment, Gini coefficient, hedonic treadmill, income inequality, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), investor state dispute settlement, invisible hand, land bank, land reform, land value tax, Leo Hollis, market fundamentalism, meta-analysis, Mont Pelerin Society, moral panic, Naomi Klein, Northern Rock, obamacare, oil shale / tar sands, old-boy network, peak oil, place-making, planned obsolescence, plutocrats, profit motive, rent-seeking, rewilding, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, transaction costs, urban sprawl, We are all Keynesians now, wealth creators, World Values Survey

In the short term, governments should refer the academic publishers to their competition watchdogs, and insist that all papers arising from publicly funded research are placed in a free public database.16 In the longer term, they should work with researchers to cut out the middleman altogether, creating, along the lines proposed by Bjorn Brembs, a single global archive of academic literature and data.17 Peer review would be overseen by an independent body. It could be funded by the library budgets which are currently being diverted into the hands of privateers. The knowledge monopoly is as unwarranted and anachronistic as the Corn Laws. Let’s throw off these parasitic overlords and liberate the research which belongs to us. 29 August 2011 34 The Man Who Wants to Northern Rock the Planet Brass neck doesn’t begin to describe it. Matt Ridley used to make his living partly by writing state-bashing columns in the Daily Telegraph.

The Great Tax Robbery: How Britain Became a Tax Haven for Fat Cats and Big Business by Richard Brooks

accounting loophole / creative accounting, bank run, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, bonus culture, Bretton Woods, carried interest, Celtic Tiger, collateralized debt obligation, commoditize, Corn Laws, corporate social responsibility, crony capitalism, cross-border payments, Double Irish / Dutch Sandwich, financial deregulation, financial engineering, haute couture, information security, intangible asset, interest rate swap, Jarndyce and Jarndyce, mega-rich, Northern Rock, offshore financial centre, race to the bottom, shareholder value, short selling, supply-chain management, The Chicago School, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, transfer pricing, two and twenty

Just one year later, and by now prime minister for the second time, Peel – once an opponent of the tax – squeezed a new version through parliament both to deal with the crisis and to compensate for a series of reforms under which duties were reduced and tariffs on hundreds of goods scrapped as part of a free trade policy that within a few years would culminate in his repeal of the Corn Laws. Although Peel accompanied the income tax, yet again, with a politician’s promise to repeal it within five years, he had firmly entrenched its importance to government finance. Economic necessity did not bring popularity for the tax. But repeated commitments to scrap it over the following decades, notably from great rivals Gladstone and Disraeli, became increasingly less realistic.

Reaching for Utopia: Making Sense of an Age of Upheaval by Jason Cowley

"World Economic Forum" Davos, anti-communist, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Boris Johnson, Brexit referendum, Bullingdon Club, Cambridge Analytica, centre right, Charles Lindbergh, coherent worldview, Corn Laws, corporate governance, crony capitalism, David Brooks, deindustrialization, deskilling, Donald Trump, Etonian, eurozone crisis, fake news, Fall of the Berlin Wall, illegal immigration, Jeremy Corbyn, liberal world order, Neil Kinnock, Occupy movement, offshore financial centre, old-boy network, open borders, open immigration, plutocrats, post-war consensus, public intellectual, Right to Buy, Robert Mercer, Ronald Reagan, Russell Brand, technological determinism, University of East Anglia

As a young man, he was a Thatcherite but now describes himself as being neither right nor left but an anti-system radical: he told me that his hero was John Wilkes, the eighteenth-century parliamentary agitator and pamphleteer, and that he took inspiration from the nineteenth-century tradition of dissenters and free traders such as John Bright and Richard Cobden, who helped form the Anti-Corn Law League. ‘We’ve got to get back control of our country,’ he said to me in 2014. ‘We’re in deep denial about how we’ve given away control of almost everything. When you get back control of your country you get proper democracy. You get back proper debate.’ ‘Get back control’: the Brexiteers would adapt this slogan and use it to devastating effect in the European referendum campaign in 2016

Understanding Power by Noam Chomsky

anti-communist, Ayatollah Khomeini, Berlin Wall, Bretton Woods, British Empire, Burning Man, business climate, business cycle, cognitive dissonance, continuous integration, Corn Laws, cuban missile crisis, dark matter, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, deindustrialization, Deng Xiaoping, deskilling, disinformation, European colonialism, Fall of the Berlin Wall, feminist movement, gentrification, global reserve currency, guns versus butter model, Howard Zinn, junk bonds, Korean Air Lines Flight 007, liberation theology, Mahatma Gandhi, Mikhail Gorbachev, military-industrial complex, Monroe Doctrine, mortgage tax deduction, Nixon triggered the end of the Bretton Woods system, Paul Samuelson, Ralph Nader, reserve currency, Ronald Reagan, Rosa Parks, school choice, Strategic Defense Initiative, strikebreaker, structural adjustment programs, systems thinking, the scientific method, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, union organizing, wage slave, women in the workforce

There was a set of laws in England which gave people rights, called the “Poor Laws” [initially and most comprehensively codified in 1601]—which essentially kept you alive if you couldn’t survive otherwise; they provided sort of a minimum level of subsistence, like subsidies on food and so on. And there was also something called the “Corn Laws” [dating in varying forms from the twelfth century], which gave landlords certain rights beyond those they could get on the market—they raised the price of corn, that sort of thing. And together, these laws were considered among the main impediments to the new rising British industrial class—so therefore they just had to go.

…

And the founders of classical economics in fact said they’d developed a “scientific theory” of it, with—as they put it—“the certainty of the principle of gravitation.” Alright, by the 1830s, political conditions in England had changed enough so that the rising bourgeoisie were able to kill the Poor Laws [they were significantly limited in 1832], and then later they managed to do away with the Corn Laws [in 1846]. And by around 1840 or 1845, they won the elections and took over the government. Then at that point, a very interesting thing happened. They gave up the theory, and Political Economy changed. It changed for a number of reasons. For one thing, these guys had won, so they didn’t need it so much as an ideological weapon anymore.

Winds of Change by Peter Hennessy

anti-communist, Beeching cuts, Berlin Wall, Bletchley Park, Bretton Woods, British Empire, centre right, Corn Laws, creative destruction, cuban missile crisis, Dr. Strangelove, Etonian, Fall of the Berlin Wall, floating exchange rates, full employment, government statistician, Great Leap Forward, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, Joseph Schumpeter, land tenure, liberal capitalism, meritocracy, Mikhail Gorbachev, Nelson Mandela, Norman Macrae, North Sea oil, oil shock, reserve currency, rising living standards, Robert Gordon, Scramble for Africa, Suez canal 1869, Suez crisis 1956, Ted Sorensen, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, total factor productivity, upwardly mobile, uranium enrichment

He told me that in spite of (a) the farmers; (b) the Commonwealth; (c) the probable break-up of the Conservative Party he had decided to support our joining the Common Market. It was too late to turn back now. It was too big a chance to miss, for Britain’s wealth and strength. But we must face the fact that we might share the fate of Sir Robert Peel and his supporters.130 The Conservative Party did not sunder in the 1960s as it had in the 1840s over repeal of the Corn Laws, but for many of its natural supporters the European question has created a permanent tension that expresses itself as a political virus, from that day to this. At the 26 April Cabinet sixteen months earlier, Butler raised caveat after caveat and propped them up against the overall tilt towards Europe, making use of Kilmuir on sovereignty in the process: In July 1960, the Cabinet had agreed that there were insuperable difficulties in the way of our accepting membership of the Six under the existing provisions of the Treaty of Rome.

…

Harold Wilson, then Shadow Foreign Secretary, opening for Labour on the second day, congratulated Macmillan on his ‘deep sense of history’ and proceeded to give a little seminar of his own: I do not think that he will have missed the parallel between this decision which has now to be taken and that which faced Sir Robert Peel [on the Corn Laws] 115 years ago, though I think that … in the sphere of world politics the importance of this issue transcends even that of the Free Trade issue of 1846.177 The twin stars of day two were the men who made the political running in the post-Macmillan era – Wilson and Ted Heath – as the old man recognized himself in his diary: On the second day (Thursday) Wilson made a brilliant speech, attacking the Common Market but more intent on attacking HMG [Her Majesty’s Government].

Social Class in the 21st Century by Mike Savage

Bullingdon Club, call centre, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, Clapham omnibus, Corn Laws, deindustrialization, deskilling, Downton Abbey, emotional labour, financial independence, gender pay gap, gentrification, Gini coefficient, income inequality, liberal capitalism, Mark Zuckerberg, megacity, meritocracy, moral panic, New Urbanism, Occupy movement, old-boy network, precariat, psychological pricing, Sloane Ranger, The Spirit Level, the strength of weak ties, unpaid internship, upwardly mobile, very high income, winner-take-all economy, young professional

Admittedly, from the eighteenth to the mid-twentieth century, London was at the centre of the aristocratic practice of attending the court and displaying its debutantes during the ‘Season’, but, during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, distinctive county, urban and regional elites could meaningfully contest London’s hegemony in various ways until the later twentieth century (for instance, via the Anti-Corn Law League or through Chamberlain’s municipal Conservatism). This kind of regional or non-London-urban elite group is, we would suggest on the basis of our data, now much weaker – if it exists at all. Having a relationship with London venues and its ‘scene’ is now fundamental to the new elite-class practices.

The Weightless World: Strategies for Managing the Digital Economy by Diane Coyle

Alan Greenspan, barriers to entry, Berlin Wall, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, blue-collar work, Bretton Woods, business cycle, clean water, company town, computer age, Corn Laws, creative destruction, cross-subsidies, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, dematerialisation, Diane Coyle, Edward Glaeser, everywhere but in the productivity statistics, financial deregulation, flying shuttle, full employment, George Santayana, global village, Great Leap Forward, hiring and firing, Howard Rheingold, income inequality, informal economy, invention of the sewing machine, invisible hand, Jane Jacobs, Joseph Schumpeter, Kickstarter, knowledge economy, labour market flexibility, laissez-faire capitalism, lump of labour, Mahbub ul Haq, Marshall McLuhan, mass immigration, McJob, Meghnad Desai, microcredit, moral panic, Neal Stephenson, Network effects, new economy, Nick Leeson, night-watchman state, North Sea oil, offshore financial centre, pension reform, pension time bomb, pensions crisis, Robert Solow, Ronald Reagan, Silicon Valley, Snow Crash, spinning jenny, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, the market place, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thorstein Veblen, Tobin tax, Tragedy of the Commons, two tier labour market, very high income, War on Poverty, winner-take-all economy, working-age population

Americans would suffer from their inability to buy cheap imports, but: ‘They would gain greatly overall because the production of those more expensive and/or inferior US goods behind tariff walls would do wonders for their wages by increasing the demand for their labour’. The US trade deficit has translated into a net loss of 1.4 million jobs, he has claimed. Britain has had such a strong history of free trade, since the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1848, that protectionist sentiments are extremely rare. Leftwingers opposed the extension of the free market during the Thatcher years but did not query trade liberalisation — until recently. The opening shots in the campaign to make protectionism acceptable were fired by David Marquand, often described as one of the ‘gurus’ of Labour leader Tony Blair.

The Unknowers: How Strategic Ignorance Rules the World by Linsey McGoey

Alan Greenspan, An Inconvenient Truth, anti-globalists, antiwork, battle of ideas, behavioural economics, Big Tech, Black Lives Matter, Branko Milanovic, British Empire, Cambridge Analytica, carbon tax, Cass Sunstein, Clive Stafford Smith, conceptual framework, Corn Laws, corporate governance, corporate raider, Credit Default Swap, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, Donald Trump, drone strike, en.wikipedia.org, European colonialism, fake news, Frances Oldham Kelsey, hiring and firing, Howard Zinn, income inequality, it is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it, joint-stock company, junk bonds, knowledge economy, market fundamentalism, mass incarceration, Michael Milken, minimum wage unemployment, Naomi Klein, new economy, Nick Leeson, p-value, Paul Samuelson, Peter Thiel, plutocrats, post-truth, public intellectual, race to the bottom, randomized controlled trial, rent-seeking, road to serfdom, Robert Mercer, Ronald Reagan, Scientific racism, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), Social Justice Warrior, Steven Pinker, Suez crisis 1956, The Chicago School, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, union organizing, Upton Sinclair, W. E. B. Du Bois, Washington Consensus, wealth creators

Mason is right that western governments today extensively subsidize the private sector, but he is wrong to suggest this is a new practice – that in the 19th century, the British government ‘stood back’ from business. The British government was strongly interventionist then just as it is strongly interventionist now.32 Domestic measures such as Britain’s repeal of protectionist Corn Laws have been romanticized in a way that overshadows 19th-century subsidies to industry groups, including government subsidies to West Indies plantation owners which offset the already rock-bottom cost of hiring indentured labour, or the government compensation offered to former slave owners after slavery was abolished across British colonies in the 1830s.

The Rough Guide to England by Rough Guides

active transport: walking or cycling, Airbnb, Albert Einstein, Apollo 11, bike sharing, Bletchley Park, Bob Geldof, Boris Johnson, Brexit referendum, British Empire, car-free, Columbine, company town, congestion charging, Corn Laws, country house hotel, Crossrail, deindustrialization, Downton Abbey, Edmond Halley, Etonian, food miles, gentrification, Great Leap Forward, haute cuisine, housing crisis, Isaac Newton, James Watt: steam engine, Jeremy Corbyn, John Harrison: Longitude, Kickstarter, low cost airline, Neil Kinnock, offshore financial centre, period drama, plutocrats, Suez canal 1869, Suez crisis 1956, the market place, trade route, transatlantic slave trade, University of East Anglia, upwardly mobile, urban sprawl

The spectacular rise of Cottonopolis, as it became known, arose from the manufacture of vast quantities of competitively priced imitations of expensive Indian calicoes, using water and then steam-driven machines developed in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Rapid industrialization brought immense wealth for a few but a life of misery for the majority. The discontent came to a head in 1819 when eleven people were killed at the Peterloo Massacre, in what began as a peaceful demonstration against the oppressive Corn Laws. Things were, however, even worse when the 23-year-old Friedrich Engels came here in 1842 to work in his father’s cotton plant: the grinding poverty he recorded in his Condition of the Working Class in England was a seminal influence on his later collaboration with Karl Marx in the Communist Manifesto.

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Later Romantic poets such as Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron took a more socially engaged position, but much more dangerous to the ruling class were the nation’s factory workers, who grew restless when mechanization put thousands of them out of work. The Chartists – and social reform Industrial discontent coalesced in the Chartists, a broad-based popular movement that demanded parliamentary reform – the most important of the industrial boom towns were still unrepresented in Parliament – and the repeal of the hated Corn Laws, which kept the price of bread artificially high to the advantage of the large landowners. Class antagonisms came to boiling point in 1819, when the local militia bloodily dispersed a demonstration in support of parliamentary reform in Manchester in the so-called Peterloo Massacre. Tensions continued to run high throughout the 1820s, and in retrospect it seems that the country may have been saved from a French-style revolution by a series of judicious parliamentary acts: the Reform Act of 1832 established the principle (if not actually the practice) of popular representation; the New Poor Law of 1834 did something to alleviate the condition of the most destitute; and the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846 cut the cost of bread.

…

Tensions continued to run high throughout the 1820s, and in retrospect it seems that the country may have been saved from a French-style revolution by a series of judicious parliamentary acts: the Reform Act of 1832 established the principle (if not actually the practice) of popular representation; the New Poor Law of 1834 did something to alleviate the condition of the most destitute; and the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846 cut the cost of bread. Furthermore, there was such a furore after six Dorset labourers – the Tolpuddle Martyrs – were transported to Australia in 1834 for joining an agricultural trade union that the judiciary decided it was prudent to overturn the judgement six years later. Significant sections of the middle classes supported progressive reform too, as evidenced by the immense popularity of Charles Dickens (1812–70), whose novels railed against poverty and injustice.

The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World (Hardback) - Common by Alan Greenspan

addicted to oil, air freight, airline deregulation, Alan Greenspan, Albert Einstein, asset-backed security, bank run, Berlin Wall, Black Monday: stock market crash in 1987, Bretton Woods, business cycle, business process, buy and hold, call centre, capital controls, carbon tax, central bank independence, collateralized debt obligation, collective bargaining, compensation consultant, conceptual framework, Corn Laws, corporate governance, corporate raider, correlation coefficient, cotton gin, creative destruction, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, credit default swaps / collateralized debt obligations, crony capitalism, cuban missile crisis, currency peg, currency risk, Deng Xiaoping, Dissolution of the Soviet Union, Doha Development Round, double entry bookkeeping, equity premium, everywhere but in the productivity statistics, Fall of the Berlin Wall, fiat currency, financial innovation, financial intermediation, full employment, Gini coefficient, Glass-Steagall Act, Hernando de Soto, income inequality, income per capita, information security, invisible hand, Joseph Schumpeter, junk bonds, labor-force participation, laissez-faire capitalism, land reform, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, Mahatma Gandhi, manufacturing employment, market bubble, means of production, Mikhail Gorbachev, moral hazard, mortgage debt, Myron Scholes, Nelson Mandela, new economy, North Sea oil, oil shock, open economy, open immigration, Pearl River Delta, pets.com, Potemkin village, price mechanism, price stability, Productivity paradox, profit maximization, purchasing power parity, random walk, Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, reserve currency, Right to Buy, risk tolerance, Robert Solow, Ronald Reagan, Savings and loan crisis, shareholder value, short selling, Silicon Valley, special economic zone, stock buybacks, stocks for the long run, Suez crisis 1956, the payments system, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thorstein Veblen, Tipper Gore, too big to fail, total factor productivity, trade liberalization, trade route, transaction costs, transcontinental railway, urban renewal, We are all Keynesians now, working-age population, Y2K, zero-sum game

THE AGE OF T U R B U L E N C E ness of its annual supply" must depend upon "the productive powers of labor." Two centuries of economic thought later, little has been added to those insights. With the help of Smith and his immediate successors, mercantilism was gradually dismantled and economic freedom spread widely In Britain, this process reached its finale with the 1846 repeal of the Corn Laws, a set of tariffs that for many years had blocked imports of grain, keeping grain prices and therefore landowners' rents artificially high—and elevating, of course, the price paid by industrial wage earners for a loaf of bread. The acceptance of Smith's economics was, by then, prompting the reorganization of commercial life in much of the "civilized" world.

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., 90, 343, 344n, 373, 468 consumer price index (CPI), 62, 481-82, 483 consumers, consumption, 124n, 386, 387-88 confidence of, 114,207 profits and, 368 short-term debt of, 346^17 Soviet, 127, 128n consumer spending, 10, 13, 14, 69-70, 153, 166, 207 Category 5 recession and, 67 inflation and, 66 9/1 l's effects on, 5, 229-32 ratio of income to, 269-70 Continental Illinois Bank, 109 contracts, 256, 319n, 379, 451 "Contract with America," 156 "conundrum," the, 377-91 downward pressures on wages and, 381-84 globalization and, 378-81 interest rates and, 377-78, 3 8 0 - 8 1 , 382, 383-85, 387-88,390-91 use of word, 381 Coors Brewing Company, 50 copper, 42, 257 corn ethanol, 461 Corn Laws, 264 corporate governance, 278, 4 2 3 - 3 6 AG's role in, 77-80, 100, 101, 209, 3 7 1 , 427-28 authoritarianism in, 424-25, 429, 431-32, 436 Sarbanes-Oxley and, 430-31 shareholder role in, 424-25, 4 3 5 - 3 6 "corporate university," 402 Corrigan, Gerry, 103, 105, 106, 108, 134 corruption, 126, 254, 302, 317, 337, 388-89 freedom from, 275-76, 388, 389 in Russia, 325, 327 Costello, Peter, 293 Cost of Living Council, 62 cotton, 62 Cotton Counts Its Customers, 32 cotton gin, 495 C 0 2 emissions, 453, 454-55, 458 Council of Economic Advisors (CEA), 54, 6 1 , 236, 249-50,279,446-47,494 AG as chairman of, 63-76, 373 description of, 64 counterparty surveillance, 3 7 0 - 7 1 , 373, 489 creative destruction, 4 8 - 5 1 , 127, 174, 282, 285, 401,504 buffers against, 279, 280 in China, 254, 304 corporate governance and, 432, 436 deregulation and, 72-73 516 More ebooks visit: http://www.ccebook.cn ccebook-orginal english ebooks This file was collected by ccebook.cn form the internet, the author keeps the copyright.

Brexit, No Exit: Why in the End Britain Won't Leave Europe by Denis MacShane

"World Economic Forum" Davos, 3D printing, Alan Greenspan, Alvin Toffler, banking crisis, battle of ideas, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Boris Johnson, Bretton Woods, Brexit referendum, British Empire, centre right, Corn Laws, deindustrialization, Doha Development Round, Donald Trump, Etonian, European colonialism, fake news, financial engineering, first-past-the-post, fixed income, Gini coefficient, greed is good, illegal immigration, information security, James Dyson, Jeremy Corbyn, labour mobility, liberal capitalism, low cost airline, low interest rates, Martin Wolf, mass immigration, military-industrial complex, Mont Pelerin Society, negative equity, Neil Kinnock, new economy, non-tariff barriers, offshore financial centre, open borders, open economy, post-truth, price stability, purchasing power parity, quantitative easing, reshoring, road to serfdom, secular stagnation, Silicon Valley, Thales and the olive presses, trade liberalization, transaction costs, women in the workforce

TTIP, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership agreement between the EU and the USA, has been blocked as politicians on both sides of the Atlantic have preferred to side with street protests than stand up for free trade. There is always a justification for a protectionist measure and it needs the kind of mass mobilisation that did away with the protectionist Corn Laws in England in the mid-nineteenth century to overcome the natural fear of change and disruption that allowing citizens to choose amongst the cheapest goods and services that can be put on offer will provoke. So the Brexit ideologues, headed by the newly created minister of international trade, Liam Fox, want a complete rupture with the Customs Union.

The Pineapple: King of Fruits by Francesca Beauman

British Empire, Columbian Exchange, Corn Laws, Fellow of the Royal Society, Honoré de Balzac, Isaac Newton, John Harrison: Longitude, language of flowers, Maui Hawaii, refrigerator car, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, trade route

In 1842 1,000 pineapples from the Bahamas were imported into the busy port of Liverpool by Claypole and Son: some were sold at the point of entry, but most were transported by railway to Keeling and Hunt’s warehouse in London.2 Thereafter, stacks of crates of pineapples became a regular feature of Britain’s ports, no doubt further encouraged by the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846 which encouraged free trade – each shipment averaged from about 2,000 to up to 50,000 as the century progressed. In the summer of 1850 The Times calculated that a total of 200,000 pineapples had been imported in the space of just three months.3 The result was that, eight short years since the inauguration of the trade, the pineapple was available to buy in unprecedented quantities.

Radical Markets: Uprooting Capitalism and Democracy for a Just Society by Eric Posner, E. Weyl

3D printing, activist fund / activist shareholder / activist investor, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Airbnb, Amazon Mechanical Turk, anti-communist, augmented reality, basic income, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, Branko Milanovic, business process, buy and hold, carbon footprint, Cass Sunstein, Clayton Christensen, cloud computing, collective bargaining, commoditize, congestion pricing, Corn Laws, corporate governance, crowdsourcing, cryptocurrency, data science, deep learning, DeepMind, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, endowment effect, Erik Brynjolfsson, Ethereum, feminist movement, financial deregulation, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, full employment, gamification, Garrett Hardin, George Akerlof, global macro, global supply chain, guest worker program, hydraulic fracturing, Hyperloop, illegal immigration, immigration reform, income inequality, income per capita, index fund, informal economy, information asymmetry, invisible hand, Jane Jacobs, Jaron Lanier, Jean Tirole, Jeremy Corbyn, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Arrow, labor-force participation, laissez-faire capitalism, Landlord’s Game, liberal capitalism, low skilled workers, Lyft, market bubble, market design, market friction, market fundamentalism, mass immigration, negative equity, Network effects, obamacare, offshore financial centre, open borders, Pareto efficiency, passive investing, patent troll, Paul Samuelson, performance metric, plutocrats, pre–internet, radical decentralization, random walk, randomized controlled trial, Ray Kurzweil, recommendation engine, rent-seeking, Richard Thaler, ride hailing / ride sharing, risk tolerance, road to serfdom, Robert Shiller, Ronald Coase, Rory Sutherland, search costs, Second Machine Age, second-price auction, self-driving car, shareholder value, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Skype, special economic zone, spectrum auction, speech recognition, statistical model, stem cell, telepresence, Thales and the olive presses, Thales of Miletus, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, The Future of Employment, The Market for Lemons, The Nature of the Firm, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thorstein Veblen, trade route, Tragedy of the Commons, transaction costs, trickle-down economics, Tyler Cowen, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, universal basic income, urban planning, Vanguard fund, vertical integration, women in the workforce, Zipcar

The hard life of labor available on colonial plantations was hardly much of a lure, one reason that planters resorted to the slave trade. In such a world, it was natural for the Radicals to focus on the freeing of markets for goods and capital from aristocratic privilege, such as the ending of the British Corn Laws, or ending unfree migration in the form of the slave trade rather than emphasizing free migration. First, putting aside the important but limited exception of migration to colonial possessions (starting with the New World centuries earlier), free migration would not have significantly increased the well-being of ordinary people.