Reuven Brenner

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As economist Donald Luskin wrote in 2002, Reuven Brenner sees economics as "a joyful social science," based on his belief that "prosperity is the result of matching brains with capital and holding both sides accountable."

At the core of his economic model is the view that the metaphysical trumps the physical, with human capital the source of true wealth creation around the world. Physical wealth, as in wealth that comes from the ground is not portable, which means it can easily be taxed, or worse, expropriated.

While physical wealth is often a "curse" that allows governments to overtax, and generally be lax in their administration, economic growth that results from capital being matched with brains is a different, and more vibrant concept altogether. In his 2002 book, The Force of Finance, Brenner notes that economic success in certain countries often results from "political blunders of other nations," that lead "to the rapid outflow of both capital and talented people."

Brenner cites Hong Kong as one beneficiary of a talented human inflow, a city with notably nothing in the way of natural wealth to redistribute. To prosper there, "one must use one's brains for a living", and as "brains are mobile, you can't tax them too much." On the capital side of the ledger, Brenner writes that Hong Kong has prospered because it has "kept its capital markets open, something it did in part because it happened to be a city that could not count on rents from natural resources."

Importantly, stable money is a necessary ingredient of economic success, and as Brenner writes in The Force of Finance, if "the unit of account is not stable," the contractual agreements among economic actors "become more complex and expensive." Brenner advocates a return to the gold standard, which provided England (and later the United States) with stable money such that entrepreneurs in both countries could transact without the uncertainty that results from money that gyrates in value. No shill for Wall Street or governmental monoliths such as the IMF, Brenner notes that both stand to lose if we eventually return to a stable monetary standard.

In addition to The Force of Finance, Reuven Brenner is the author of seven other books. Labyrinths of Prosperity (1994) helps to explain among other things why the Dutch are seen as "frugal", why education spending rose in the United States after 1958, and why Russians refrained from buying apartments there after the U.S.S.R.'s collapse. For the macro-focused, he points out that statistics such as GDP sustain "the illusion that prosperity is necessarily linked with territory, national units, and government spending in general." For those skeptical about government measures of inflation, his discussion of the inherent flaws of CPI is particularly eye-opening.

In Gambling and Speculation (1991), Brenner makes a cogent argument for gambling legalization. He uses history and theory to cover all measures of risk taking, noting that risk-taking that is a daily part our lives.

Betting on Ideas (1985) and History - The Human Gamble (1983) also cover human action, including why people buy lottery tickets, foment revolutions, commit crimes, and why they gamble on both war and peace. The "why" that leads them to turn to new ideas is covered in depth. Brenner ultimately concludes we can either embrace aspects of disorder such as creativity, and live with the occasional negative consequences (crimes, wars), or maintain creativity-stifling order.

In Educating Economists (1992), Brenner and co-author David Colander discuss ways to improve the training of future economists. Rivalry: In Business, Science, Among Nations (1990) posits a theory of business enterprise that suggests risks are taken as a way to be outranked by one's peers in the hierarchical sense. It also discusses the impact of mathematics on business, and whether the latter discipline perhaps leads to a static, rather than fluid approach to commerce.

In addition to his books, Brenner's articles have been published in The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, National Post (Canada), Financial Times, Strait Times (Singapore), Asia Times, Dow Jones and Le Figaro (Paris).

Brenner holds the Repap Chair at McGill University's Faculty of Managment, and over the last twenty years he has consulted for companies including Bank of America, Knowledge Universe, Bell Canada. Brenner is the son of concentration camp survivors, and though he was born in 1947 in Rumania, he immigrated to Israel where he served in the Israeli Army during both the Six Day and Yom Kippur wars.