The Ascent of Money
Niall Ferguson moderated by Omair Ahmad, presented by Goldman Sachs
In a dynamic and thorough session, Ahmad and Ferguson investigated the nature of capitalism and economics today. Ferguson said that in terms of the conditions that had led to the recent global recession, ‘the relationships in capitalism are as volatile as the relationships we form in our emotional lives. Crises are part of the deal.’ Ahmad said that India’s economy had ‘been progressing slowly’ and still remained fragile in many areas. As such, he questioned the wisdom of India entering the moon race with China. Ferguson observed that India is much less exposed to the crises of globalisation because it remains highly self-sufficient and without too much debt, content to grow at a sustainable rate in comparison, saying that China resembled the hare and India the tortoise. However he warned that India not become too complacent because there were still problems including inequality, bureaucracy and unregulated financial systems, all of which ‘hold back growth and prevent the poor from escaping from their traps.’ In terms of regulating capitalism, Ferguson said the debate was over the nature of that regulation rather than whether there should be any, urging that markets be regulated to function ethically rather than monopolistically: ‘no serious advocates of capitalism since Adam Smith have argued for it to be unlimited.’ Ahmad and Ferguson also discussed the ‘fascinating trade-off’ in Chinese economics, saying the Chinese had undergone ‘the biggest industrial revolution there has ever been’ and that its economic growth had been at the expense of individual freedom, basing its social contract around economic growth. Ferguson warned that this model was not stable and there may be global consequences when it started to ‘malfunction’ because it could become more aggressive internationally. That said, he said he worried more about the Middle East than Asia in terms of impending conflict.
