In this episode, I invited François Allisson to talk to us about a game he made with some of his students called Sortons du capitalisme ! or Exit Capitalism! in English.
Two cards from the game. Translation of titles: Trust Fund Baby (left) and The Theory of the Dress (right). For further explanation in English, listen to the episode.
Erik Bengtsson, an economic historian of Sweden, refers to this cartoon which depicts the parliament in session when an invisible hand writes “General Strike” on the board published in a national newspaper, Söndags Nisse in 1906. Taken from Fredrik Ström’s Arbetets söner: text och bilder ur den svenska arbetarrörelsens saga. Third Edition. Steinsviks bokförlag AB, 1959.
As we heard in part one of our series on inequality, researchers looking at inequality urge people to look more on the micro level because the trends and causes are not universal across time and space. So in this second part, we look at why and how inequality goes up and down depending on where you look.
All the examples you will hear, in some way, critique and build upon Thomas Piketty’s comparative approach. We will hear from Erik Bengtsson, who studies the trends of inequality in Sweden. To check out Erik’s work, click here. We will also hear from Keith Tribe and his co-editor Pat Hudson talk about their collected work called The Contradictions of Capitalin the 21st century in which they build upon the renewed interest in the long run global development of wealth inequality stimulated by the publication of Piketty’s book Capital in the 21st Century.
To watch the TED talk video on inequality featured at the beginning, go here.
Featured music (apart from the usual intro and outro music): Sounds by Dave JF, Atmosphere 12, and Jordan Powell, Erokia.
Finally, thanks to David Philippy for helping with production.
In this two part series on inequality, we will be talking about moments during the history of researching inequality. In this first part, we explore different ways people have thought about inequality and how it is measured, and the possible impacts that this thinking and measurement has on our economies and policies. In part two, to be released soon, we look at why and how inequality goes up and down depending on where we look.
To check out Dan Hirschman’s approach to analysing how things are counted called knowledge infrastructures, see this article. He references the book A Vast Machine by Paul Edwards.
To find out more about Christian O. Christiansen’s project on historicising global inequality, check out their website. To check out his latest book, Talking About Inequality, click here.
Keith Tribe refers to Phelps Brown at the end, see his book here.
To watch the BBC Select video on the Occupy Movement featured at the beginning, go here. And the chant “We are the 99%” was taken from this video.
Featured music (apart from the usual intro and outro music): Sounds by Dave JF, Atmosphere 12, Alyonka, Kjartan Abel, Japan Sky and BaDoink, Acoustic E Minor Jam.
Finally, thanks to David Philippy for helping with production.
In this episode we present a book panel on the book Jan Tinbergen (1903-1994) and the Rise of Economic Expertise (CUP, 2021) by our regular host Erwin Dekker. Reinhard Schumacher provides a brief introduction to the panel which is chaired by Arjo Klamer, Professor of Cultural Economics at the Erasmus University Rotterdam. The panel opens with reflections on the book and the legacy of Jan Tinbergen, the first Nobel Prize winner in Economics and famous econometrician, by another Nobel Laureate James Heckman, Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago. The other panelists offer their reflections on the econometric and economic contributions of Tinbergen, and in particular his role as broker between academia and policy circles, a main argument of the book is that Tinbergen secured a permanent place for economic experts and models in policy circles. They also explore Tinbergen’s socialist convictions, his internationalism and dedication to peace, as well as his and their personal motivations to be an economist.
Guest hosts: Wilhelm Aminoff, Wyatt DeLong, Farrah Aridou, Jonathan Noulowe II and Paul Harding, students of a history of economics course at the American University of Paris.
Inspired by Radiolab’s episode on the cataclysm sentence, this episode explores whether we could find a cataclysm sentence for economics. Radiolab had found out about the famous and award winning physicist, Richard Feynman, who in the 60s wanted to revamp the physics undergraduate degree to get more researchers into physics. He started his course at Caltech with what he called the cataclysm sentence, which is:
“If, in some cataclysm, all of scientific knowledge were to be destroyed, and only one sentence was passed on to the next generation of creatures, what statement would contain the most information in the fewest words?”
We changed it a bit to apply only to economics:
“The one piece of economic knowledge that you would pass on to a future society if ours were to perish in a cataclysm.”
Along with students at the American University of Paris, we interviewed four people, an economic historian, an ecological economist, a feminist political economist and an historian of economics. Here is the list of their cataclysm sentences:
Julie Nelson’s (UMass Boston) definition of economics: “The study of the ways societies organize themselves to provide for the survival and flourishing of life.”
“Although not reducible to biophysics, the human economy is nevertheless ecologically constrained, especially in its primary macroeconomic goal of aggregate growth, by the fact that it is a physical subsystem of a finite ecosphere that lives from a non growing entropic flow of solar energy captured by scarce and depleting terrestrial materials.”
“Economics was a temporary science Necessary in times of perceived scarcity To understand the ways In which human needs Translated In various ways of organising human activities” (pictured above)
While everyone had slightly different takes on the task and took us down different avenues of knowledge, there were several common themes. So fasten your seat belts, as we take you on a journey of discovery and at times a rather philosophical, utopic and radical discussion about what really matters.
In this episode, Erwin talks with Alain Marciano and Pete Boettke about The Soul of Classical Political Economy a book they co-edited with archival material from the James Buchanan archives located at George Mason University. James Buchanan, Nobel Laureate in 1986 was an American economist who started as public finance scholar, who established the field of public choice and pioneered the constitutional political economy approach. They discuss the formation of the archives since Buchanan’s death in 2013, his role in the development of the Virginia School of Political Economy, his academic entrepreneurship and attempts to develop intellectual centres in sometimes hostile academic environments as well the evolution of his research program. Pete Boettke details the way in which Buchanan attempted to create a vibrant intellectual environment at the various universities in which he worked. Alain Marciano, who is working on an intellectual biography of Buchanan, explains the way in which the archives inform his project and how life and work became one for Buchanan.
Join Maria Bach for an interview with Kapil Raj about his approach in the history of science. Dr. Raj is Professor of the History of Science at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (The School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences) in Paris. In particular, they discuss Raj’s book Relocating Modern Science.
In this episode, Maria interviews three scholars who study underrepresented or what she calls marginalised voices in the history of policy and economics. They discuss why they came to study such lesser known figures and how the research can give us new perspectives. They also share the difficulties and constraints that they face. Jaci Eisenberg studied American women who contributed to the League of Nations. Gerardo Serra studies the history of economics and statistics in 20th century Ghana. Sharmin Khodaiji researches the institutionalisation of political economy in India. Listen to find out more about their research!
Hosts: Maria Bach and Reinhard Schumacher Production: Maria Bach
In this episode, we interview Beatrice Cherrier to talk about what it is like being a parent in academia – the ups, the downs and all the things we can do to make life and work easier.
In this episode, Maria shares a recent interview with Andrew Sartori, an intellectual historian at NYU. Andrew discusses his work in South Asian Intellectual History and how he ended up in this relatively small field when he started. He also talks about how he deals with the international diffusion of ideas. Finally, they debate the need to find a distinct Indian way of thinking and how this perceived need makes it hard to research in this area of study. Check out his publications here.
