B A R B I C A N L I F E


his argument. It was not well received by the despot in question. I found that I had walked past St


Paul’s Cathedral School, a grim concrete block next to a magnificent Wren edifice, and was now standing by the Thames, which bore on its banks the remnants of a glorious past. I looked at the jumble of buildings, in a prime location- the heart of a great city. It was not inaccurate to say that the West’s success was in part at least centred on the City of London, bankers to the Empire and beyond, keeper of the reserves of gold. Imperialism was not new, though.


Ian Morris Niall Ferguson Jama Masjid frieze


In 1731 the Ottoman writer Ibrahim Muteferrika used the expression ‘invented by reason’ (his text elaborated on how ‘reason’ was not just the whim of the despot, but the touchstone of the common man) to describe the laws and rules of the conquering Western Christians – that is why they are gaining in power, and we don’t have the gumption to take a conquering barge up the Thames, was


The Jama Masjid in Ahmedabad was built by an imperialist Muslim ruler – the British found favour with this encampment, rather than an indigenous Hindu ruling class. A chaos of slow traffic isolates this beautiful frieze today. It wasn’t the Empire, which led to today’s false expectations of perpetual growth. To look for answers, I had to read a more modern Scotsman than Adam Smith. Niall Ferguson, whose academic merits are myriad, (and include a


Stanford) looking at the whole span of history, stated what I suspect was a string of his prejudices, which he annoyingly called a Theorem, “Change is caused by lazy, greedy, frightened people looking for easier, more profitable and safer ways of doing things. And they rarely know what they are doing.” I must say that though Ferguson’s list is comprehensive, it is Morris who


comes closer to why it feels as if we are living on the edge of chaos – we are all subject to change, and somehow the news, the blogs and everyday life seem to give credence to Morris’s ‘theorem’. I looked at the news of further ‘quantitative easing’ – printing money out of thin air to keep it simple… and wondered when they would realise that this alone is not a sufficient remedy for our economic ills. If it were so then Zimbabwe would be an economic powerhouse today. As the population ages, we are


recent sabbatical year from Harvard at the LSE) sent into the ether the phrase ‘six killer apps’ a couple of years ago to explain why the West had won so far; he made a list: property rights defended by the rule of law, strong public institutions and open competition, modern medicine and of course a strong work ethic as I recall. He also includes the scientific revolution, and a consumer society in this list – which I believe are a result of the foregoing, not independent factors. A year earlier in 2010 Ian Morris, (professor of Classics and History at


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increasingly realising that what we do today is important, because in the long run we may be dead, as Keynes said, but it is our children and grandchildren who will be alive, and will have to deal with the consequences of our actions – personal, public and economic. I recalled the diminutive crab-crawler who was recently caught whilst trying to escape out of my front door. I have it in my heart to wish him well. That is why it is necessary to teach him to trust us, and become worthy of his trust. SDK said that it was his three


daughters, and the future they face, which motivated him to write his book. It is a sweeping overview of


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