Latest thinking

Want economic recovery? Support businesses started by the middle-aged

Blog

01 Jun 2013

For a few years now there has been a fashion to offer support for entrepreneurs by focusing on a particular age group.

Social value hybrids: Best of all worlds?

Blog

28 May 2013

Paul Buddery

This is a guest post by Tim Cooper FRSA, senior manager and research fellow at the Accenture Institute for High Performance.

The legitimacy threat to business, politics and welfare

Blog

28 May 2013

Anthony Painter

When thinking about criminal justice and the state a very significant frame is that of legitimacy. Jean-Marc Coicaud defines legitimacy quite simple as the ‘right to govern’. It is about simultaneously justifying political power and obedience for Coicaud. But can we apply legitimacy thinking in other areas where the legitimate use of coercive force may not apply? With some modification, quite possibly. It might well be applicable to business, electoral politics and public services – especially welfare.

Sustainable communities through skill sharing

Blog

29 Apr 2013

Steve Broome

This post is by Jemima Gibbons FRSA.  Follow her at @JemimaG

The world's most influential economic policy maker is Plato. It's not a good thing.

Blog

29 Apr 2013

One of the best aspects of the RSA is its ethos of trusting in the general public to come up with solutions to big problems. Indeed the Society’s raison d’etre for a very large part of its existence was to offer cash prizes and honours to anyone who could develop new inventions or ideas in response to challenges set by the RSA. It was by this method, for example, that the Society played a central role in revolutionising agricultural practices in the eighteenth century.

'Demonopolisation': Thatcherism as though entrepreneurs really mattered

Blog

22 Apr 2013

A poll found last week that only 26% believed public utilities were best run by private companies answerable to shareholders. Fully 61% thought they were better off located in the public sector.

Three reasons to ban the word 'entrepreneur' (and one idea for what to put in its place)

Blog

15 Apr 2013

Every government wants entrepreneurs in its economy. They’re the innovators, the leaders, the job and wealth creators that any modern nation needs to compete and grow.  The UK Government is no different: all sorts of initiatives and reforms are underway to encourage people – particularly younger people – to set up a business.

The Marxist revolution has begun but no-one’s really noticed yet.

Blog

31 Mar 2013

For Marx, meaningful change would only come about when the workers seized control of the means of production.  In his day that meant land, factory machinery and transport networks. Were he around now, I think he would probably cast a tired eye over the left’s moral crusading on executive remuneration and welfare payments and look instead with enthusiasm to what is stirring in the economy. 

A high employment-low wage society: a deal with the devil?

Blog

22 Feb 2013

Benedict Dellot

And so the ‘productivity puzzle’ continues. Earlier this week the ONS published new figures showing that employment rose by 154,000 in the last quarter of 2012, taking up the total increase over the year as a whole to half a million. This is despite growing expectations that Britain will slide back into recession for the third time since the economic downturn. Indeed, the size of the economy in the last quarter was the same as it was a year beforehand. So what’s going on?