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If you like this Adam Smith Institute e-Bulletin, tell your friends. If you don’t, tell me.
In this bulletin:
Lights, cocktails, action! ASI hosts a Central London movie premier!
Make a (very) old man happy! Make a pledge to our 300th birthday fund.
Smoke-filled rooms. (Well actually, it’s smoke-free rooms: our plan to get folk off the cigs.) 
But first...
Lots of people getting fired these days—Open AI has fired its Chat GPT creator Sam Altman, while the UK Tory PM has fired Home Secretary Suella Braverman. Whereas Meghan is making a comeback and the people running the Bank of England are still in a job. Funny old world.
It’s been very amusing to watch the bien-pensants and the media trying to assimilate the election of the anarchy-capitalist, mass-privatisationist, chainsaw-wielding tax and bureaucracy cutter Javier Milei as President of Argentina. For those who divide the world into Trump, Pinochet and Braverman versus God, Maria Theresa and the BBC, it’s been quite a shock. Here’s [ [link removed] ]our resident blogger Tim Worstall on their plight. 
In other news, Italy plans to protect its farmers by banning lab-grown meat. Nigel Farage has gone into the jungle (following Matt Hancock MP, who came in third last year by being so bland that everyone forgot to vote him off), and UK Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, who raises £1 trillion a year and spends even more, has decided to give taxpayers a few bob back in what has been hailed as a ‘massive tax cut'. (Why is it that a ‘small tax rise’ costs you £500 and a ‘massive tax cut’ saves you 50p?—Ed.) 
ASI co-founder Madsen Pirie and I are presiding over the annual ASI staff Thanksgiving fest today, so don’t expect much coherence from any of us on Friday.
But I digress...
LIGHTS! COCKTAILS! ACTION!
We’re hosting a movie premiere with our friends from the Ayn Rand Center Europe of the classic 1942 movie We the Living, directed by Goffredo Alessandrini. A film loathed by communists and banned by fascists, We The Living will premiere exclusively at the Prince Charles Cinema in Leicester Square on Wednesday, December 13th, from 4:45 PM. After the premiere, a drinks reception and Christmas buffet will be held at All Bar One, Leicester Square (a 2 min walk from the cinema).
It is a war-romantic drama set in Bolshevik Russia after the October Revolution. Kira Argounova, a bold young woman from a wealthy family aspiring to become an engineer, openly expresses her anti-communist views and defies the new authorities. While her family struggles to survive in rapidly changing St. Petersburg, Kira meets young refugee Leo Kovalensky, hiding from the GPU. They fall in love and… well, you’ll have to see what happens next.
Nominally anti-communist but de facto anti-authoritarian, the film was made and released in Italy during World War II, only to be later banned and removed from cinema schedules by Mussolini's fascist government. The film was lost and forgotten for decades, only to be rediscovered and restored with Ayn Rand's involvement. It returned to the big screen in the United States in 1986.
There will be an exclusive introduction from the distributor of the remastered version, Duncan Scott, about his experience of working with Rand herself. Don’t miss it!
The admission to the screening is free. All you need to do is register via this link [ [link removed] ]
Freedom’s Fighters: The Rt Hon Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg MP
We are also hosting the second in the rebooted series of Dr Madsen Pirie’s Freedom’s Fighters. In these exclusive interviews, the audience will get to hear what motivates our chosen Freedom Fighter, including personal life stories and reflections on their careers. 
On Tuesday 28th November we will be welcoming the Rt Hon Sir Jacob-Rees Mogg MP as our second guest. Doors open at 6pm for refreshments, before we take our seats and listen in on an intimate, never heard before interview. The evening finishes with drinks and networking. No Q & A - that’s Madsen’s job.
Since spots are limited for this event, we will be allocating places by ballot. Quick! To enter, please RSVP using this form [ [link removed] ] before 24th November. That’s tomorrow!
You will be notified if you have been allocated a place.
And you can now watch the first interview, with the Rt Hon Nadhim Zahawi MP below:
In Conversation: Mick Mulvaney
We hosted a special event with Mick Mulvaney, former White House Chief of Staff under you-know-who. He talked about the forthcoming US election, which you might think is a rather depressing, albeit fascinating, topic, but jollied it up with lots of interesting and amusing anecdotes about life in the Trump power-house. Keep an eye on our YouTube Channel [ [link removed] ] for the video.
The Next Generation
Our planned speaker for the November TNG pulled out because he’d just been made a minister in the reshuffle (Congratulations—You guys, at least, know how to pick winners—Ed.) Luckily we were able to get the brilliant James Heale, political correspondent of The Spectator, to stand in at zero notice. He gave a very witty but also insightful view of what the ministerial shuffling all means.
End of the year show
ASI’s end of the year shindig is on December 5th, with our special guest, the Excalibur-wielding Rt Hon Penny Mordaunt MP. But it’ll be a rammy and you’ll need an invite to get in. So keep your eye on the mail to see if you are in luck.
AUTUMN STATEMENT
There was at least some good news…
Yes, that’s right. After years of calling for it, and even organising a campaign [ [link removed] ], the Chancellor finally made the full expensing policy, meaning that business can now immediately recoup the full cost of their investments in qualifying plant and machinery, permanent.
And here’s James Price in one of our shiny new explainer videos, edited by our digital guru Siddhi Badole.
REPORTS
Smoke-Free Rooms: Reviewing the Recommendations of the FCTC’s COP10
Our Research Director Maxwell Marlow has done it again with his catchily-entitled Smoke Free Rooms: Reviewing the Recommendations of the FCTC’s COP 10. Seems that the World Health Organisation is having a tobacco think-in and the usual daft proposals are on the table. Maxwell counters that they’d be better upholding evidence-based policies, and implement Swedish-style solutions to harm reduction. Meanwhile the UK government should think about legalising Snus and roll-out nicotine pouches and vapes to get smokers off the cigs.
Homes for All: A Debt Free Solution to the Housing Crisis
An innovative report by our own Maxwell Marlow and award-winning analyst Miles Saltiel outlines a fair way to build homes where people want to live (rather than where politicians want to put them). They suggest expanding planning permission but selling local resident shares in the subsequent development returns. Our exclusive polling suggests that over two-thirds (68% of people who oppose local building would support such a scheme). And it's got a really nice cover too.
No fewer than three former cabinet ministers commented publicly [ [link removed] ] in support of our housing proposals mentioned above (Sir Brandon Lewis, Sir Jake Berry and Sir Robert Buckland). Sir Brandon kindly wrote about it in the Telegraph [ [link removed] ] and the House Magazine [ [link removed] ].
OUT AND ABOUT
I recorded a brief comment on Adam Smith for An Evening at the Hayek Cafe, produced by a friendly think-tank in Slovenia: 
Then I joined an international panel that the Croatian think tank Centre for Public Policy and Economic Analysis [ [link removed] ] (CEA) and the Zagreb School of Economics and Management [ [link removed] ] (ZŠEM) organised to mark 300 years of the great thinker. And on Tuesday I was again expounding on Smith to the Highgate Literary & Scientific Institution, which is very grand. It’s been a busy 300th birthday year, and I don’t know where this dead economist is going to take me next!
I also spoke to the youth at the Cambridge Union [ [link removed] ] about whether we need a new Thatcher and at the University of St Andrews Union Debating Society [ [link removed] ] opposing the idea that capitalism has failed vulnerable groups.
Our research director, Maxwell, has been all over the shop. Last week, he spoke to Leicester University’s Politics Society [ [link removed] ], speaking about the British economy and how our research can help treat its ailments. Today, he is off to the Perse School in Cambridge to speak to 80 economics students about ‘Why Britain Can’t Build’, before jumping on a train up to Durham to speak at the Durham Union, debating the merits and demerits of private education.
Our Director of Engagement & Ops, Mimi Yates, has been busy speaking at the SEC Newgate Roundtables discussing the AI Summit and the run-up to COP28. She enjoyed discussing our papers (and future papers), and network with fellow wonks.
ON THE SUPER-BLOG
The Invisible Hand and social order. Adam Smith is best known today as an economist, but in his lifetime it was his moral philosophy that made him internationally famous. I explain why [ [link removed] ]it was such a revolution: that it did not rely on abstract speculation, but on the scientific study of human psychology and of the impact of customs, norms and culture upon our moral judgements. And, of course, it provides practical ways, like self-criticism, to improve those judgements. We could use a bit of that today.
Leasehold reform: a vote winner? Well, not the way the government’s doing it, says property expert James Wyatt FRICS. On the good side, the introduction of 990-year leases with peppercorn rents allow purchasers to get longer leases without waiting. But freeholders — who will lose ground rent and the extra value going with longer leases -- are threatening legal challenges that could cost taxpayers billions. Pretty reckless just before an election. But Wyatt thinks there are solutions. [ [link removed] ]
Announcing Net Zero targets without a clue how to achieve them is pretty world-beating stupidity, says management guru Tim Ambler [ [link removed] ]. The latest bureaucratic identity running this pantomime, the 8,498-strong DESNZ, still have no plan. Meanwhile, industry is not rushing to cut emissions until it sees the election results and/or a plan, whichever comes first. If you want to cut carbon, put the price up, you might say. But all this confusion is actually seeing the UK carbon price falling. Oh, dear!
MEDIA
Our Patrons have been highlighting our work in print and on the airwaves. Sir Brandon Lewis wrote about our ‘Homes for All’ proposals for the Telegraph [ [link removed] ] and the House Magazine. [ [link removed] ] Nadhim Zahawi mentioned our call to abolish the ‘factory tax’ in the House of Commons [ [link removed] ], [ [link removed] ] and was in the Telegraph [ [link removed] ] on our campaigns to abolish inheritance tax and make full expensing permanent, and on Times Radio and LBC with Andrew Marr to talk about our recent AI paper [ [link removed] ].
Speaking of AI, Director of Engagement and Operations Mimi Yates gave her take on the recent AI Safety Summit in Politics Home [ [link removed] ], the Telegraph [ [link removed] ] [ [link removed] ]and in CapX [ [link removed] ].
Meanwhile, Maxwell was in CapX on full expensing, [ [link removed] ] and the WHO’s plans [ [link removed] ] to tax and regulate tobacco harm reductions products in the same way that we do smoking, and responded to the Autumn Statement in Guido Fawkes [ [link removed] ] [ [link removed] ]and Conservative Home [ [link removed] ]. Director of Communications Emily Fielder was in Conservative Home [ [link removed] ] touting our ‘Flexible Right to Buy’ [ [link removed] ] idea, and Director of Government Engagement James Price and our Executive Director Duncan Simpson were on [ [link removed] ]Bloomberg Radio [ [link removed] ] and TalkTV respectively to talk about the Autumn Statement.
MAKE A (VERY) OLD MAN HAPPY
It’s Adam Smith’s 300th birthday year. Help us continue his legacy of economic enlightenment by supporting our activities to engage with and educate the coming generation.
We have big ambitions for 2023 and beyond with a fresh team, but we need your support.
That’s why we’ve launched the 300 Pledge.
Thanks to the generosity of one supporter, for the first £300,000 we raise, they will match every pound you put in. So there has never been a better time to support our work.
Make the Pledge here:
You’ll enable a step-change in our efforts and support entire new campaigns to be fought in the battle of ideas.
You’ll help us to hire a part-time economics researcher or fund influential policy research.
You'll help us to take on 3 new interns, organise 3 school engagements, or host 3 The Next Generation events.
And I quote…
To round off Adam Smith’s 300th birthday year, and to mark events in the Autumn Statement this week, I thought a quote on tax from the great sage would be in order:
"There is no art which one government sooner learns of another than that of draining money from the pockets of the people." (The Wealth Of Nations, Book V Chapter II Part II, Appendix to Articles I&II, p. 861, para. 12.)
Well, quite.
Bye…
e
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