David Cameron must tackle moral hazard


It is widely expected that the Prime Minister is going to start calling for a more moral form of capitalism. I have a simple test of whether a politician is trying to debate, or avoid, tough policy questions – I ask myself whether anybody would agree with the opposite of what the politician is calling for.

During the 1997 election campaign, for example, the Labour Party called for an ‘integrated transport system’. Clearly nobody wanted the opposite – a dis-integrated transport system. What the Labour Party actually wanted was a state-planned transport system because they did not believe that the market would bring about a more integrated system. But it was not convenient for Labour to talk about specifics.

So, who is for a more immoral form of capitalism? Since no party would make that its campaign slogan, the harder question is what detailed policies does David Cameron want to put behind his empty slogan? Does he believe that morality within the market system can be improved by state regulation? Does he simply want people to look at their own consciences and freely choose a better way of life? Or does he, like some other politicians who call for a more moral capitalism, want a market system that punishes people who are reckless with and lose large amounts of other people’s money? These are the substantive policy issues on which the Prime Minister needs to reveal his position.

Read the full article in City A.M.

Philip Booth is Senior Academic Fellow at the Institute of Economic Affairs. He is also Director of the Vinson Centre and Professor of Economics at the University of Buckingham and Professor of Finance, Public Policy and Ethics at St. Mary’s University, Twickenham. He also holds the position of (interim) Director of Catholic Mission at St. Mary’s having previously been Director of Research and Public Engagement and Dean of the Faculty of Education, Humanities and Social Sciences. From 2002-2016, Philip was Academic and Research Director (previously, Editorial and Programme Director) at the IEA. From 2002-2015 he was Professor of Insurance and Risk Management at Cass Business School. He is a Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Federal Studies at the University of Kent and Adjunct Professor in the School of Law, University of Notre Dame, Australia. Previously, Philip Booth worked for the Bank of England as an adviser on financial stability issues and he was also Associate Dean of Cass Business School and held various other academic positions at City University. He has written widely, including a number of books, on investment, finance, social insurance and pensions as well as on the relationship between Catholic social teaching and economics. He is Deputy Editor of Economic Affairs. Philip is a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society, a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries and an honorary member of the Society of Actuaries of Poland. He has previously worked in the investment department of Axa Equity and Law and was been involved in a number of projects to help develop actuarial professions and actuarial, finance and investment professional teaching programmes in Central and Eastern Europe. Philip has a BA in Economics from the University of Durham and a PhD from City University.


1 thought on “David Cameron must tackle moral hazard”

  1. Posted 08/11/2011 at 21:53 | Permalink

    With respect to Justice and Peace’s call for a global regulator and a global bailout, and the Prime Minister’s cognitive dissonance in regard to moral hazard, perhaps Benedict’s own Caritas in Veritate can point them in the right direction: ‘the Church searches for truth, proclaims it tirelessly and recognizes it wherever it is manifested. This mission of truth is something that the Church can never renounce (§9).’

    The clerics of early mediaeval scholasticism and the later School of Salamanca (both precursors to the Austrian School) knew the moral errors of debasing the currency and of interfering in the free exchange of the marketplace; they too are among the patrimony of the ‘Church’s social doctrine [which] illuminates with an unchanging light the new problems that are constantly emerging (§12).’

Comments are closed.


Newsletter Signup