June 14th – Richard Jolly “Be outraged – there are alternatives”

 

“Pushed to extremes, austerity is bad economics, bad arithmetic, and ignores the lessons of history. We, an international group of economists and social scientists, are outraged at the narrow range of austerity policies which are bringing so many people around the world to their knees, especially in Europe. Austerity and cutbacks are reducing growth and worsening poverty. In our professional opinions, there are alternatives – for Britain, Europe and all countries that currently imagine that government cutbacks are the only way out of debt. The low-growth, no-growth trap means that the share of debt in GNP falls ever more slowly, if at all. It may even rise – as it has in some countries”

Sir Richard Jolly joins us in June to discuss the issues raised in Be Outraged – there are alternatives, a booklet to which he contributed.

Sir Richard Jolly is Honorary Professor at the Institute of Development Studies, Sussex and from 2000-2010 was Senior Research Fellow and co-Director of the UN Intellectual History Project at the Graduate Center, City University New York. Before this, Richard Jolly was for nearly 15 years an Assistant Secretary General of the UN as Deputy Executive Director of UNICEF and from 1996 to 2000, Principal Coordinator of the widely-acclaimed Human Development Report. He has co-authored some 20 books and over 100 articles on development and on UN history, including UN Contributions to Development Thinking and Practice and UN Ideas That Changed the World. He was knighted by the Queen in 2001 for services to international development.