OMEGA Seminar: How Government Built USA’s Wealth and Infrastructure

Is planning anathema to the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness, or simply so ineffective that it can be condemned? Those who took control of America in the 1970s would have us believe so. It suited their purpose and fitted the beliefs handed down by Friedrich Von Hayek, Milton Friedman, Ayn Rand, and Ronald Reagan. But is it true, as these theorists claimed, that planning leads to dictatorship, that only selfish individuals create wealth, that the state is destructive, and that prosperity is owed entirely to the free market? 

To answer these questions Ian Wray's lecture goes in search of an America built by government, plans and bureaucrats, not businesses, bankers and shareholders. It turns out that Government plans did not damage American wealth. On the contrary, they built it, and in the most profound ways. Whilst entrepreneurs contributed hugely, the state created the bedrock: the infrastructure, the intellectual foundations, the research, as well as direct investment in industry. In concluding, the lecture looks at what might lie ahead. Not least it considers a huge irony: the ideology which has underpinned the rise of Asian power (by which America now feels so threatened) echoes the pragmatic technocracy which once secured America's own rise to globalism.

All are welcome and participation is free. 

Further details about the OMEGA Seminar Programme can be found on the OMEGA Centre’s website (http://www.omegacentre.bartlett.ucl.ac.uk/publications/seminars/omega-seminar-series-2019/). For enquiries and to join the mailing list, please contact Helen Chen (sizhe.chen@ucl.ac.uk).