Samuel Brittan
Samuel Brittan is a columnist at the
Financial Times. His most recent
books are Capitalism with A Human
Face (Edward Elgar—1995,
Fontana—1996) and Essays, Moral,
Political and Economic (Edinburgh
University Press, 1998). He is an
Honorary Fellow of Jesus College,
Cambridge; a Hon. Doctor of Letters
(Heriot–Watt University, Edinburgh);
and a Hon. Doctor of the University
of Essex. He has been Visiting
Professor at the Chicago Law School,
a Visiting Fellow of Nuffield College,
Oxford and an Honorary Professor of
Politics at the University of Warwick.
He has been awarded the George
Orwell, Senior Harold Wincott, and
Ludwig Erhard prizes. He was a
member of the Peacock Committee
on the Finance of the BBC (1985–86).
He was knighted in 1993 for “services
to economic journalism” and also
became that year a Chevalier de la
Legion d’Honneur.
Papers Published in World Economics:
Weapons Exports
The commonly held view that an ethical approach to arms sales is desirable but
‘unaffordable’ because jobs and exports are at stake is challenged by Samuel
Brittan. He argues that it arises from a failure to understand the circular flow of
income, the fallacy of a ‘lump of labour’ and a long discredited mercantilist view
of trade. The author contends that on moral and economic grounds, arms sales
should not be subsidised or officially promoted in any way, and governments
should be much stricter in enforcing bans on sales to dubious regimes.
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