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- Written by: Kamran Mofid
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On Wednesday 25 July 2001, the BBC News Talking Point conducted a global debate on Globalisation: Good or bad?
BBC News | TALKING POINT | Globalisation: Good or bad?
Nearly 13 years later, I am revisiting that debate and am offering my contribution to what surely must be a continuing debate and reflection:
Can globalisation ever be good?- Details
- Written by: Kamran Mofid
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At the state opening of parliament today (4 March 2014), the Queen announced the government’s plans for the coming year. David Cameron and Nick Clegg have said that their last Queen’s Speech before the 2015 general election will show that the coalition remains capable of “taking bold steps”, and that their legislative programme would be “unashamedly pro-work and pro-business and pro-aspiration.”
Yes, it is wonderful to be pro-aspiration. But aspiring for what? To aspire to be like Messers Cameron and Clegg?
It is great to be pro-work? But, what work and for what outcome? The same can be said about pro-business.
You see, it is always easy and cheap to make sound-bite statements, just in time for the news on TV and newspaper headlines. However, it is always more difficult to explain how the goals you have set for others to achieve can be realised. It is about time, we realise that without the right values nothing can be achieved.- Details
- Written by: Kamran Mofid
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The manifesto of 42 networks of economics students from 19 countries
It is not only the world economy that is in crisis. The teaching of economics is in crisis too, and this crisis has consequences far beyond the university walls. What is taught shapes the minds of the next generation of policymakers, and therefore shapes the societies we live in. We, 42 associations of economics students from 19 different countries, believe it is time to reconsider the way economics is taught. We are dissatisfied with the dramatic narrowing of the curriculum that has taken place over the last couple of decades. This lack of intellectual diversity does not only restrain education and research. It limits our ability to contend with the multidimensional challenges of the 21st century – from financial stability, to food security and climate change. The real world should be brought back into the classroom, as well as debate and a pluralism of theories and methods. This will help renew the discipline and ultimately create a space in which solutions to society’s problems can be generated.