The Economy in Plain English with Branko Milanovic

The Economy in Plain English returns with world-leading economist, Branko Milanovic to discuss his new book, The Great Global Transformation

Branko takes us through the ruins of the current world order and discusses where we go next, with journalist Clare English and David Hume Institute Director, Susan Murray.

A new international economic order is taking hold. Trade blocs, tariff wars, economic sanctions, and national champions are in; nationalism, anti-immigration movements and the far-right are on the rise. Liberalism is being rejected as the status quo of the past fifty years crumbles. What remains in its wake?

The discussion reveals the seismic shifts that are shaping our world, how the rising economic power of Asia is creating a new global ‘middle class’ in the greatest reshuffle of incomes since the Industrial Revolution. We discuss the fight ahead: as plutocracy returns, global war threatens, and a new system silently shapes our nations.

“The Great Global Transformation, Milanovic provides an invaluable guide to the new 21st century.”

About the author

Branko Milanovic is Senior Scholar at the Stone Center on Socio-Economic Inequality at the City University of New York and Visiting Professor at the International Inequalities Institute at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Formerly Lead Economist in the World Bank’s research department, he is a world-leading scholar of income inequality, and was the co-creator of The Elephant Curve, also known as the Lakner-Milanovic curve. He is the author of numerous books, including Visions of Inequality, Capitalism, Alone and Global Inequality: A New Approach for the Age of Globalisation.

Revisiting capitalism, Adam Smith and entrepreneurship - a new era?

Past Event: Monday 28th October 2024

Dr Samuel Mwaura of the University of Edinburgh Business School and David Hume Institute trustee discussed his latest thinking on capitalism and entrepreneurship with Dr Robbie Mochrie, author of How to think like an economist and Fran van Dijk, founder and CEO of One Stone Advisors. One Stone is Scotland's first B Corp: a certified company that meets high standards of social and environmental performance, transparency and accountability. 

One aspect of Adam Smith’s intellectual legacy has been surprisingly neglected in recent times: his grapples with the paradox of profit. 

Smith repeatedly, and resignedly, regarded profit an obscure “garb” and vehemently decried capitalists that profited at the expense of society. Indeed, while profit is incorrectly regarded as a return to capital, Smith and his peers instead associated residual profit with entrepreneurship although both concepts remained loose. 

Dr Mwaura discussed how classical economics had more firmly established interest as the return to capital. Yet, as capitalism emerged, capital rather expediently commandeered profit. Subsequently, profit became the sacrosanct lifeblood of capitalism, and the elephant in the room, unquestioned despite its importance “to our understanding of our economic order and, especially, to an appraisal of its fairness” as Harry Brown, a celebrated Georgist economist, observed in 1945. 

This event returned to this neglected debate, first decoupling profit from capital. Then building on Adam Smith and other classical thinkers to develop a radical new understanding of profit as residual errors to eradicate, not maximise, and firmly link this to entrepreneurship. This enables a coherent and readily implementable pathway to a new economy that delivers fair and sustainable outcomes, by design.

This event was produced in partnership with the University of Edinburgh Business School.