Lost Causes: The Retreat from Classical Liberalism

For most of his professional career as a pre-eminent development economist teaching at Oxford and University College, Deepak Lal has worked in and on Third World countries. After living in Britain for nearly thirty years, and having become a British citizen in 1987 he here casts his focus on the public policy debates in this country. Lost Causes is Professsor Lal's collected thoughts on the state of the United Kingdom today, taken from pamphlets compiled for various UK think tanks from the late 1980s. Written from the classical liberal perspective Lost Causes is, in part, an indictment of the failures of the long 'Socialist' winter since Labour's second term, but also a record of the hopes that arose and were dashed by the new coalition government elected in 2010. The issues that run through Lost Causes are, sadly, longstanding. Lal does not remove from the essays the references to the context and time when they were written, but attempts to show how these issues have evolved in recent history. Deepak Lal demonstrates how the wealth and welfare of his adopted country continue to depend upon the redemption of such lost causes.