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About Tony Curzon Price

Tony Curzon Price received a PhD in economics from University College London (UCL), and has a first from Oxford in Politics, Philosophy and Economics. He has lectured on economics and energy policy at Imperial College, London, and at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). He blogs at tony.curzon.com

Articles by Tony Curzon Price

Saturday 28th January

Jimmy Wales or Kim Dotcom - is anti-SOPA about fundamental principles or competing commercial interests?

Tony Curzon Price and Albert Wenger, 28 January 2012
In this podcast, Tony Curzon Price talks to Albert Wenger, partner at Union Square Ventures, the venture capital fund behind a lot of the most innovative and visible web companies of today, to try to understand: is anti-SOPA activism more about principle or about the competing interests of big Tech vs. big Entertainment
Monday 16th January

Credit rating agencies: the wrong institutions for public judgement

Tony Curzon Price, 16 January 2012
Whether the ratings agencies get this or that decision right or wrong - they were probably right in the case of the European downgrades - is not the point. They have become the buck-passing agencies for weakened states. The most important public judgements of credit-worthiness ought to be made in public institutions, not behind corporate doors
Monday 9th January

High pay: what Machiavelli would have recommended a politician do

Tony Curzon Price, 9 January 2012
It's true that high pay for bosses serves no purpose except keeping them (and their headquarters) in the country. The only real solution is economic policy coordination. In its absence, Machiavelli would have been proud of the proposals and statements on display this new year in the UK
Friday 9th December

Why I wish I could condemn Cameron's decision whole-heartedly but can't

Tony Curzon Price, 9 December 2011
It is now that we really need a genuine democratic European movement with strong civil society roots. But it doesn't exist, and in its absence, the Commission is an untrustworthy institution.
Monday 21st November

"Free" and membership

Tony Curzon Price, 21 November 2011
Time to pay up for the wonders of the economy of "free". Become an openDemocracy Friend or Member
Tuesday 15th November

Clearing Zuccotti Park: the strange resilience of democracy with a thin skin

Tony Curzon Price, 15 November 2011
The occupation of Zuccotti Park was only the visible tip of a movement whose significance and power goes well beyond the tent city. The next moves of the movement need to remember the nature of the symbol they are building. The author's 2c: they should virtualise while spreading physical meetings to many ad hoc locations
Friday 4th November

Stephen Pinker’s guide to violence: dotting some “i’s” in Rawls

Tony Curzon Price, 4 November 2011
Stephen Pinker's new book is a powerful paean to humanistic modernity. But its method of questioning may not be its own best friend
Friday 7th October

Joining up the dots: Steve Jobs, Slavoj Žižek and "good capitalism"

Tony Curzon Price, 7 October 2011
Thanks to jmak on TumblrWatch the moving and inspirational commencement speech that Steve Jobs gave at Stanford in 2005. From the story of his birth to the daily awareness of his death, he joins up the dots to write the personal story. But those dots are part of a larger context of what has made the technology industry a success over the past 30 years in contrast to the failure of finance in the same period. Strong, pro-active anti-trust policy is as much a part of the Jobs/Valley success-story as the manipulation of legislation is part of the tragedy of finance
Thursday 6th October

Carter and Blair: two tales of post-power hope

Tony Curzon Price, 6 October 2011
When President Carter addressed a crowd of well-wishers in London, the unavoidable comparison was with the post-leadership of Tony Blair
Wednesday 5th October

Afghanistan: graveyard of hegemons

Tony Curzon Price and William Dalrymple, 5 October 2011
Video'd conversation with historian William Dalrymple on the subject of his next book: the first Anglo- Afghan war (and defeat) – 1839-42
Saturday 1st October

Planning at Wormwood Scrubs illustrates the flaws of English local democracy

Tony Curzon Price, 1 October 2011
England is about to have its land-use planning system overhauled ... if the platoons of Tories against the proposals do not force another climb-down. But the current land-use planning system does have very serious flaws. Their solution, however, can only come through a thorough democratisation of local government. Without it, the proposed reforms are suspect
Wednesday 21st September

Update to commenting policy

Tony Curzon Price, 21 September 2011
Ever since the early summer, commenting has become much more polarised on the site. Our previous modus vivendi based on community moderation broke down. This is an update to the commenting policy laid out in August
Wednesday 14th September

Freedom to re-invent financial reality

Tony Curzon Price, 14 September 2011
The fictions of finance gives us freedom to change what might seem like externally determined constraints; but we certainly need political systems that are better at exercising that freedom. A reply to Roger Scruton's Unreal Estates
Monday 12th September

Fear and loathing. What 9/11 has to do with the economic crisis

Tony Curzon Price, 12 September 2011
The mentality created by the War on Terror created the demand for a sense of security which translated, in the US and the UK, into excessive investment in homes - the ultimate "place of safety" in the Anglo-Saxon mindset. The War on Terror gave us the economic crisis also.
Sunday 4th September

Why the Euro is a force of political centralisation

Tony Curzon Price, 4 September 2011
This article was published 11 years ago in the Salisbury Review - then a small right-wing magazine edited by oD author Roger Scruton. The author wonders why he stands behind the basic position and analysis despite having moved from right to left over the decade
Monday 29th August

Granta's "Ten years later". Animals and other subjects

Tony Curzon Price, 29 August 2011
Dog multiculturalismThe recurrence of animal imagery in Granta Magazine's powerful collection of fiction and reportage remembering the decade after 9/11, points to the depth of incomprehension and "otherness" that we have been left with
Wednesday 10th August

Proving Standard & Poor's wrong: "Starve the beast" versus "Feed the dream"

Tony Curzon Price, 10 August 2011
The downgrade of America's Sovereign debt rating is a recognition that the Gingrichite revolutionaries might win their struggle. The only response left must be to persuade voters of an ambitious, worthwhile common project above the levels of the family, locality and church
Tuesday 5th July

What's the mampus all about? The merging of the shopping-mall & the campus in urban and social web design

Tony Curzon Price, 5 July 2011
Plans for a mall on my doorstep reminds me of the malls that Facebook and Google are building on our screens. Email should be part of the strategy to reclaim our public spheres
Tuesday 7th June

Treason of the heart. A conversation with David Pryce-Jones

David Pryce-Jones and Tony Curzon Price, 7 June 2011
David Pryce-Jones in conversation with Tony Curzon Price about his latest book on radicals of the left and right whose anger with England and whose traumas led them to seek comfort and revenge in foreign causes. Is there a common thread linking Paine, Byron, T.E. Lawrence and Lord Haw-Haw? Or should one take care to distinguish reason from motive?

Sunday 15th May

Liberalism: The road from serfdom. A conversation with Domenico Losurdo

Domenico Losurdo and Tony Curzon Price, 15 May 2011
Liberalism does not evolve and progress according to some internal process, but because of the historical challenges it has faced. Slavery, colonialism, anti-semitism have all been a part of this. How do religious fundamentalism, environment and immigration challenge Liberalism today? A conversation based around Domenico Losurdo's book, Liberalism, A counter history (Verso)
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