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About William Davies

William Davies is Academic Director of The Centre for Mutual and Employee-Owned Business, University of Oxford. His weblog is www.potlatch.org.uk.

Articles by William Davies

Getting economists to wake up to reality

William Davies 20 October 2012

The Uneconomics series challenged the power of economists, inviting diverse perspectives from disciplines whose work on the economy has been increasingly recognised post-crash. This reflection by the editor ends the nine month series.

'Central banks should admit their mistakes': an interview with the Bank of England's Andy Haldane

William Davies and Andy Haldane 31 July 2012

Andy Haldane, Executive Director of Financial Stability at the Bank of England, has been hailed as a new type of policy expert and intellectual. In this interview, for our Uneconomics series, he sets out his vision for the future of economics and economic policy-making. It is a future where central banks are humble, "listen as often as they speak", and own up to their mistakes.

An intelligent industrial policy: and pigs might fly?

William Davies 29 June 2012

The call for a return to an ‘active industrial policy’ has failed to present a modern challenge to finance capitalism. For this argument to ring true in the 21st century, it must first consider with what type of knowledge it is now engaged. How can policy itself escape the pitfalls of nostalgia, lobbying and the bailout mentality? 

Taking risks with the economy? It's time to throw caution to the wind

William Davies 28 April 2012

What do British banks and prisons have in common? They are both part of systems designed to manage risks and that are now part of the problem. We need to break the cycle by opening up policy-making to more experimental, less familiar forms of intervention and regulation. What is there to lose, that the financial status quo isn't already losing? There may be a lesson here for the rest of the West as well.

Uneconomics: a challenge to the power of the economics profession

William Davies 9 February 2012
The fall-out from the financial crash is continuing to destroy lives around the globe, yet the power of economists is being entrenched, rather than questioned. In this debate, we bring together anthropologists, sociologists, historians and heterodox economists to ask and answer the big questions.

Happy now? As Britain prepares to measure 'wellbeing', we conclude our happiness debate

William Davies 11 November 2011
As Britain publishes its first 'national wellbeing indicators', OurKingdom wraps up our debate on happiness. Here, the editor of the debate looks back on the series of articles inspired by the growing interest in happiness shown by politicians, economists, statisticians and psychologists.

Hack-gate: the latest cultural contradiction of British conservatism?

William Davies 7 July 2011
The Murdoch-owned British Sunday tabloid, 'News of the World', has sunk deeper into an ongoing hacking scandal. Given that the right-wing tabloid press is a bastion of the British conservative establishment, how will the scandal affect the character of UK conservatism?

National wellbeing: the ‘personalisation of the public interest’?

William Davies 19 June 2011
Democratic states want to prove their success to their citizens and one way to do this is to incorporate the feedback from them about their 'wellbeing'. Is personalised government about making citizens happy or pleasing the state?

Why Happiness? an interview with co-founder of Action for Happiness

Geoff Mulgan and William Davies 7 June 2011
William Davies interviews the co-founder of Action for Happiness to explore the philosophy, politics and economic implications of the happiness agenda

The uses and abuses of 'happiness'

William Davies 22 April 2011
The happiness 'movement' has the potential to transform society, but do its proponents know what they're doing? William Davies sets out four strands of the debate - philosophical, statistical, economical and psychological - and shows how confusion between them is hindering progress

The Economics of Enough: How to Run the Economy as if the Future Matters

William Davies 9 March 2011
Diane Coyle’s The Economics of Enough is an eerily calm introduction to the severity of our economic situation. While the facts outlined appear to justify an overhaul of our entire political economy, the book leaves us with disappointingly timid proposals for change.

Happiness and production

William Davies 20 January 2011
What is progress? Could our societies grow richer but everyone get more miserable? Is output the best measure of a nation's success? Such questions bring OurKingdom and openEconomy together to launch the Happiness Debate, which opens with an essay by Will Davies on the relationship between happiness and production.

Who is the fairest of them all? Nick Clegg? A short philosophical report on the torture of a simple word

William Davies 18 November 2010
A brief critique of the abuse of the term 'fairness' in British politics.

Book review: Them and Us by Will Hutton

William Davies 3 November 2010
Will Hutton’s latest book on British political economy is uncannily of its time. In arguing that ‘fairness’ should be the measure of all political and economic relations, writes William Davies, he has performed a crucial service in erecting some principles by which the ‘fairness’ of coalition policies might be judged.

Decoupling 'fairness' from class and power in the UK

William Davies 4 June 2010
Fairness is all the rage, it was Gordon Brown's mantra, is claimed by the Lib Dems and advocated by the UK's new one-nation Tory premier David Cameron. What chance does the concept have with friends like these? As Labour prepares for opposition it might be advised to try and different approach.

This week's guest editors

openGlobalRights editors

Our guest editors James Ron, Leslie Vinjamuri, Sophie Arie and Archana Pandya introduce this week's theme of:

Emerging powers and human rights.

A Turkish Spring?

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Woolwich - terror or conflict?

Secret Courts: 8 nightmare scenarios now possible in Britain
Jo Shaw

Iran myths

Iranian presidential candidate and chief nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalill

Myths, falsehoods and misrepresentations about Iran
Peter Oborne and David Morrison

Palestinian borders

Palestine, peoples and borders in the new Middle East map
Ahmad Samih Khalidi

Nobel Women's Initiative

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Europe from the bottom up

European Union stars in Paris. Flickr/notarim. Some rights reserved.

A new Europe can only come from the bottom up
Etienne Balibar

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The media in Europe

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Mali: the plot thickens

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Remote control war

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oDRussia at journalismfestival .com

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