Good afternoon,
I’ve resorted to baking sourdough (Are you trying to rise to the occasion? - Ed.; that’s already enough - Ed.’s Ed.), one housemate has started an Instagram series of workout videos for his two fans, and the other is now spending his spare time drawing. I believe the term in modern English is ‘basic’. Anyhow, here’s this week’s newsletter:
In this bulletin
- Parking our tanks on every lawn: Big plans, big ideas, big campaigns!
- Dystopias, utopias, and real life: ASI staff community, thinly veiled communism, and what we should do next.
- Opening up: Businesses, city centres, and civil servants’ minds to new ideas.
But first…
Nature is healing, McDonalds is reopening in the UK on the 15th May! B&Q, Homebase and Pret have also started opening up in a limited way with strict social distancing, click + collect, or delivery services only. Apparently the Government will announce guidelines on stores re-opening next week. But businesses are already ahead of them (business, more responsive than government? Never! - Ed.).
Parliament in its infinite ability to screw up everything it touches has even managed to make a hash of electronic voting — with MPs reportedly left staring at the loading wheel of doom and unable to participate (well, every cloud has a silver lining - Ed.). And just when you thought that giant bush fires, global pandemics, locust swarms across East Africa, and fears of famine were enough to deal with, the US Navy went and threw UFOs into the mix. Cheers.
And as it’s May Day, I suppose it’s worth noting that the Communists finally got what they wanted. No one is at work, every business is on the brink and at 8.00pm every Thursday your neighbours shop you into the Social Media Stasi if you’re not out clapping the key proletariat.
But I digress…
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A huge thank you to everyone who has responded to our call for ideas. We have had over two hundred of the most brilliant minds from around the world submitting ideas on how we can respond to this crisis. Some of them were brand new even to the brilliant boffins with whom I share the ASI’s (virtual) office. We’re writing a series of papers now on how we should open up, and deal with short, medium, and long-term economic issues from the lockdown. We’ve gone through every one of them and we’re in the process of writing a whole load of them up. There’s still time to submit ideas, so please do so!
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TESTING TIMES
We haven’t taken a penny of public money. We haven’t furloughed anyone, we haven’t applied for any government loans or grants. We have upped our workload and more importantly, our output has increased.
This work matters. The Government’s test target has been reached. This is in no small part because of the pressure that our Matthew Lesh’s research put onto the government to open up testing capability beyond just the labs of Public Health England and involve private sector labs, charities and universities.
This research has been quoted dozens of times across media outlets and circulated in the corridors of power. It is now widely accepted that PHE’s failure to expand testing in the early days hampered our response.
We could not do this work without your support and generosity. But the work is only just beginning. We want to do more to push the government to be pro-business, pro innovation, and pro-liberty in the crucial weeks and months ahead.
To do that, we need your help more than ever. If you’re a financial supporter, know that you’ve already helped ensure that we save lives and the economy. If you’re able to give, please do, it makes an enormous difference.
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Events
In addition to the epidemiological puzzle, the challenge ahead is to safely ‘unfreeze’. This is unlikely to be an easy task. Join Matthew Lesh, Professor Deirdre McCloskey, Martin Wolf CBE, and Dr Chris Berg as we examine how we can unfreeze the economy in the weeks and months ahead.
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And make sure you catch up with last week's Webinar!
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John Macdonald is joined by Johnny Leavesley of the Midland's Industrial Council, Daniel Hannan, and Dr Eamonn Butler
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Our Studentship programme honours the memory and furthers the work of the late and great John Blundell (1952-2014). Its purpose is to enable freedom-minded students to embark upon postgraduate study or research work that they could not otherwise afford.
John Blundell was a tireless promoter of the free society and the free economy. Teachers, students, activists, professionals and politicians around the world were brought to an understanding of these ideas, and to become activists themselves, through John’s unique efforts.
Successful applicants will be assigned a mentor and are expected to produce regular updates on the progress of their work and to attend seminars and other events deemed part of the Studentship programme.
Additionally, Gap Year applications will open next week on our website. It’s open for those just leaving school before going to university. Our two current (paid!) gap year stars, Charlie and Julia, have been involved in national campaigns, in the media, done the dishes in the office, edited papers, read more books than anyone currently on an undergraduate course, devised TikToks that wow the world, and been the best help and friends those of us more permanently shackled to the desks at 23 Great Smith Street could possibly have hoped. Big shoes to fill but each year they always somehow manage to do it. If you’re interested and want more details please email me via [email protected].
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Superblog
This year marks the 60th anniversary of the publication of Hayek’s “Constitution of Liberty.” Madsen argues that, while right about nearly everything, Hayek was wrong about himself: Hayek was a Conservative.
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Dr Eamonn Butler takes aim at the big state socialists and planners as he reiterates something very true and exceptionally important to learn from this crisis. Against all the odds, it was the little guys and private businesses who pulled this country through while the central planners failed.
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Wonderweb
Our good friends at the Institute of Economic Affairs hosted our very own Madsen Pirie for the latest in their School of Thought series, looking at the one and only Adam Smith himself. Well, they couldn’t have come to a better place for an expert on that particular subject.
Old Eastern bloc states really are stepping up to the plate during this crisis, showing up the West. Philip Salter at The Entrepreneurs’ Network looks at how Estonia is powering ahead through its use of digital government. Meanwhile in Lithuania, the whole capital city is allowing its public spaces to become open air cafes and restaurants, Britain might think about turning its public parks into giant beer gardens if the number of coronavirus cases continues to fall.
Some great news too. It looks like people do become immune against Coronavirus, at least for a period of time, after infection. Reports of second infections in people in South Korea were caused by false-positive tests. Now that’s news to celebrate going into the weekend.
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Meeja
Morgan Schondelmeier was in CityAM arguing that it’s time to look again at government attitudes to migration as the public shifts — a lot of people now know very well that ‘low-skill’ does not mean non-essential. Migrants to the UK are in every sector and industry, they pick our fruit and vegetables, ensure our investments are safe, keep the Prime Minister alive in the ICU, keep our shelves stocked, deliveries on time, and elderly looked after.
Matthew Lesh was on BBC Question Time Extra Time last night as he continues to place pressure on testing, track and trace, and the economic response by the government to this ongoing crisis. His comments on fiscal responsibility allowing us to borrow more during the crisis were picked up by Bloomberg this morning. He took a swing at the Sacred Cow too, arguing in the Telegraph this week that placing ‘Protecting the NHS’ above the goal of ‘Saving Lives’ has actually cost lives. Institutions may well matter, but people matter more.
Matthew was also quoted in CityAM and the Daily Express on the idiotic idea of a financial transaction tax being mooted by the EU — yeah, when transactions are at near nil and you want them to go up again to get you out of an economic collapse, you don’t slap a tax on them. He has also been on the PoliticsHome podcast, the Institute of Public Affairs’ Looking Forward podcast, and the E2 Review podcast.
John Macdonald was also in the Daily Express saying that Corbyn left Labour in tatters (we know John, we all happily remember the night of December 12th very well - Ed.) and Keir has his work cut out whipping the party into shape.
Julia wrote for the Telegraph on the negative impact of stan culture have been glossing over the atrocities of the North Korean regime.
Meanwhile I was in the Telegraph talking about some of the ideas you’ve sent in and laying the groundwork for our next paper. If we want to ensure that we’re not impoverished forever by this virus, Britain’s new normal has got to be low tax and pro-innovation. Those saying “we can’t afford tax cuts” have got the logic the wrong way round. Without a vibrant private sector, you cannot afford large projects run by the state.
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What we're watching
Working from home? Pretending to work from home? I thought you might like to know what our boffins at the Adam Smith Institute are reading on our Kindles or catching up with on Netflix.
Charlie has been reading Raghuram Rajan’s The Third Pillar, and says the book—largely an attempt at finding solutions to the political agitation and despair from stagnant and left behind communities—has a place in today’s crisis and beyond. We’ve all seen a revival in community volunteering and activism through local associations and groups of households. It would be a huge loss to society if these groups were crowded out by the dead overreaching hand of the state during reconstruction.
Morgan, has been watching The Platform on Netflix. The Spanish-language film takes place in a dystopian future prison composed of hundreds of different levels all served by a descending platform of food. There is enough for everyone, but only if those at the top take only what they need. In reality, those at the top gorge on gourmet food while those at the lower levels starve to death — or worse. What I’m sure was intended as a thinly veiled critique of capitalism is, in her eyes, more accurately a critique of human nature and the uneven distribution of power in centralised systems.
Matthew Lesh has been watching the first season of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan on Amazon, because he can’t resist a bit of trashy TV with an underlying plot about an infectious virus.
Julia has been watching Crash Landing on You, a South Korean drama following the (fictitious) love story between a North Korean soldier and South Korean beauty mogul. While it is just as sensationalist as the fans of Kim Yo Jong that she critiqued earlier in the week in the Telegraph, the show is likely a better use of pop culture in spreading awareness of the issues facing North Koreans.
Daniel has been indulging his obsession with medieval history by watching The Last Kingdom on Netflix, which is loosely based on Alfred the Great’s attempts to become ‘King of All England’. He’s also been re-reading David Deutch’s The Fabric of Reality—in which the author weaves the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, Popperian epistemology, computational theory and evolutionary theory into a Theory of Everything. Fun stuff!
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And I quote...
As we look next at how we can get the economy out of the doldrums, and the big state spenders tell us that all so difficult to raise growth, let’s remember the wise words of the Gipper:
“There are no great limits to growth because there are no limits of human intelligence, imagination, and wonder.”
— President Ronald Reagan
Bye…
Matt
Matt Kilcoyne, Deputy Director
Adam Smith Institute
23 Great Smith St,
London SW1P 3DJ
Web: adamsmith.org
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @mrjkilcoyne
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