Before I speak to Joseph Stiglitz, one of his surprisingly ample team asks if I can give him notice of my questions. The Nobel laureate, it turns out, appreciates time to prepare. Stiglitz’s critics might laugh: hasn’t he been preparing for the past three decades? Surely his leftist critique of free markets now comes naturally?
Stiglitz, chair of Bill Clinton’s council of economic advisers, then chief economist at the World Bank during the 1990s, found fame with his 2002 bestselling attack on the IMF, Globalisation and Its Discontents. Disdained by The Economist, for many left-wingers he nonetheless became the economist.
Some things have changed. At 81, Stiglitz finally feels in the ascendancy. Scepticism of trade rules is now received wisdom among Democrats and Republicans. “Where I was in 2000 on globalisation is really where the world is today,” he says, jovially and apparently spontaneously. Even the IMF has taken on board his critique.