Green Machines

There is a neo-puritan strain running through parts of modern society which urges us to live more simply. Looking longingly back to easier and quieter times, it urges us to learn to do without the motor car and the conveniences it brings. This view is sometimes expressed as an aversion not onlyto automobiles, but to economic growth itself. It sees modern technology as the source of insuperable problems, and urges us to dismount the tiger which we have by the tail.

This report derives from the alternative view that the problems derive not from surfeit of modern technology, but a deficiency of it. It seeks to explore how a more advanced technology of a lower level. It endeavours to apply the problem-solving techniques of public policy in order to accelerate the development of a technology which brings answers instead of problems.

The solution looked for is not one which seeks to banish the automobile, but one which seeks to tame it, to humanize it, to make it an acceptable companion of our cities. 

Read the full paper here.

Fast Track Forward

High speed rail networks across continental Europe are developing rapidly, with the liberalisation of Eastern Europe and the unification of Germany. With the French Railways (SNCF) and German Railways (Bundesbahn) looking to expand eastwards. Britain risks being left on the sidelines as an island nation. It must look for innovative ways to rejoin Europe with high speed rail. The Labour Party's policy document "Moving Britain Into Europe - A high speed future for transport" is one possible way of bridging the gap. This paper critically analyses Labour's proposals, examines the controversy surrounding the fixed link, suggests policies for a high speed UK rail network and develops two sets of proposals for high speed services to Europe. It is also calling Government to implement feasibility studies on such proposals or to put forward its own alternatives. 

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Curbing Crime: Its Origins, Pattern and Prevention

This colloquium discusses the causes, nature and framework for crime prevention in the UK. Although no consensus was attempted, the majority of participants believe that alternative ways of curbing crime other than simply sentencing policy should be pursued.

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Streets Ahead

This report by Nick Elliott shows how people in parts of the UK, the US and many other countries have given up on failing local services and take over the management of their own streets - leading to better services, calmer and safer traffic, and falling crime.

Read it here.

The Future of Community Care

In this paper several experts discuss the future of community care in the UK.

Read the full paper here.

A Capital Offence

In A Capital Offence, published in 1989, Dr Barry Bracewell-Milnes and Bruce Sutherland CBE propose the abolition of capital gains and income tax as they argue this would create wealth and incentivise production. In his concluding remarks, Dr Barry Bracewell-Milnes hopes to see dramatic cuts in capital gains tax and tax in the near future.

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The Art of the State

The Art of the State by Douglas Mason outlines the argument for the removal of state interference in the arts sector. He explains the moral and practical argument for freeing the arts from the bureaucratic elite.

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A Home For Enterprise

Written by Douglas Mason for the Adam Smith Institute and published in 1989, A Home For Enterprise suggests that one of the Scottish islands should be set aside as a home for anyone from Hong Kong who wished to live there.

You can read the paper here.

Bricks in the Wall

Bricks in the Wall by Daniel Moylan argues for the liberalisation of markets and the negative effects of protectionism on markets in light of the European Commission adopting a series of protectionist measures.

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Duty to Repeal

These modes of taxation, by stamp–duties and by duties upon registration, are of very modern invention. In the course of little more than a century, however, stamp–duties have, in Europe, become almost universal, and duties upon registration extremely common. There is no art which one government sooner learns of another, than that of draining money from the pockets of the people.

All taxes upon the transference of property of every kind, so far as they diminish the capital value of that property, tend to diminish the funds destined for the maintenance of productive labour. They are all more or less unthrifty taxes that increase the revenue of the sovereign, which seldom maintains any but unproductive labourers; at the expense of the capital of the people, which maintains none but productive.

So wrote Adam Smith over 300 years ago. Still the problem persists today, and even though Nicholas Gibb wrote this report into Stamp Duty two decades ago it is still pertinent today. Quite simply it is a call for the abolition of Stamp Duty.

Read the full paper.