Opportunity out of Crisis
Ian Mason is Head of Economics and Law and Principal of the School of Economic Science in London. He recently delivered the Annual Economics Lecture on 9th February 2009.
This is an excerpt from his talk, Opportunity out of Crisis:
The opportunity presented by the present crisis is to make the right choices that will affect the long term future for ourselves, our descendants and our planet. Many of the prescriptions that we read in the newspapers are about how quickly we can return to business as usual. How soon we can return to the myth of sustained economic growth and once more rising house prices. Most of them admit to the need for a more carefully regulated banking and financial system with more controls on the spread and dispersion of toxic assets. But there are not many who dare to contemplate a whole new economic order.
But that is the real choice we face. We can, if we choose, rebuild the crumbling building of contemporary economics—and it will have the same faults and weaknesses as before with minor variations. But the real opportunity is to rethink the entire architecture of economics and build a new economic order that conforms much more closely to Nature and her laws.
If you wish, you may download the full transcript [PDF, 168 KB] | Source
You can also listen to the talk online [5.9 MB / 53 minutes].
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