Do free markets still beat central planning? japantimes.co.jp - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from japantimes.co.jp Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
By Andrew Sheng and Xiao GengHONG KONG In 1944, Friedrich A. Hayek suggested that the spontaneous order of markets was inherently superior to the supposedly dynamism-draining totalitarian order of communist or fascist regimes. The ensuing decades when free-market economies thrived, and the Soviet Union’s centrally planned economy imploded seemed to vindicate him. Then
May 12, 2021
HONG KONG – Last month, the world marked the 51st Earth Day. This year’s theme “Restore Our Earth” was apt. As the COVID-19 pandemic has reminded us, the effects of human activity on the planet do not respect borders. The Earth is a single living, self-regulating system, and it demands a single, shared system of accounting that balances at the global level. We need a one-Earth balance sheet.
In a 1946 telegram, Albert Einstein pleaded for funding to finance the “life-and-death struggle to harness the atom for the benefit of mankind and not for humanity’s destruction,” arguing that a “a new type of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive and move toward higher levels.” The same can be said about the environmental crisis humanity has created. Surviving it, and achieving a better, more sustainable future, requires “a new type of thinking.”
A One-Earth Balance Sheet
At the dawn of the nuclear age, Albert Einstein wrote that “a new type of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive and move toward higher levels.” As the world confronts the escalating climate crisis, a new type of thinking is needed once again – and it starts with a new type of accounting.
By Andrew Sheng and Xiao Geng
Last week, the world marked the 51st Earth Day. This year’s theme – “Restore Our Earth” – was apt. As the COVID-19 pandemic has reminded us, the effects of human activity on the planet do not respect borders. The Earth is a single living, self-regulating system, and it demands a single, shared system of accounting that balances at the global level. We need a one-Earth balance sheet.