Economics Archives - Public Seminar

Economy

Goldbugs

An excerpt from Hayek’s Bastards: Race, Gold, IQ, and the Capitalism of the Far Right

November 17, 2025 • by Quinn Slobodian

People make bad money, and that money makes bad people.— Peter Boehringer Monetary issues have long divided neoliberals. Can you trust a central bank to manage currency? Can the growth of the money supply be made automatic? Should fixed or floating rates reign in global currency markets? Must money be backed ...

Film

Good Versions of the Right Film

2025’s summer blockbusters are, like those before them, oversized ploys for maximum profit. They’re still not big enough for Hollywood.

November 5, 2025 • by Amelia Nonemacher

At any point this summer, you could take refuge from the heat in one of the nation’s chain movie theaters and enjoy a good old summer blockbuster. Whether you chose to watch the “most authentic” racing movie ever made (F1); a heroic tale of human kindness triumphing over tech moguls-turned-arms-dealers ...

East Asia & Pacific

US Tariffs and Trump’s Neopatrimonial Mercantilism

Implications for the United States, China, and the global order

May 21, 2025 • by William Milberg

I have spent decades giving boring lectures on tariffs to graduate students. Suddenly, every other newspaper article is on tariffs. We have to credit President Trump with tapping into the popular disgruntlement with globalization beginning in 2016, leading to a rethinking of the structure of global economic governance and a ...

US Tariffs and Trump’s Neopatrimonial Mercantilism

Colonization

How Israel Freezes Palestinian Salaries

Clearance revenues have got to go

May 14, 2025 • by Lamees Farraj

Israeli occupation of Palestine oppresses the Palestinian people using every possible tool and method—including control over people’s livelihoods. Some of this economic warfare is highly visible: the destruction of economic infrastructure in Gaza, the prevention of Palestinian laborers from accessing the Israeli job market, and the restriction or denial of ...

Body & Mind

Downward Mobility as a Relative Loss in Economic Security

How economic anxiety explains voting patterns

December 19, 2024 • by Teresa Ghilarducci and Ludovica Tursini

In 2016 formerly unionized parts of the country, the "Arsenal of Democracy," now called the Rust Belt (to the dismay of people who live there), switched from voting for the Democratic Party candidate Obama (both in 2008 and 2012) to the Republican Trump. Teresa Ghilarducci and Siavash Radpour (2016) show long-term stagnation ...

Downward Mobility as a Relative Loss in Economic Security

Capitalism

Social Capitalism: An Alternative to Neoliberalism

On the economic consequences of the US neoliberal period

December 18, 2024 • by Mark Setterfield

As defined by Hagen Krämer and coauthors (2023), social capitalism constitutes a "renewed social democracy" designed to achieve growth that is both inclusive (in the sense of being consistent with an equitable wage share of income) and sustainable (in the sense that it does not foster financial imbalances). These constitute narrow definitions of inclusivity and ...

Capitalism

Reconstructing Capital

The politics of translating Marx

December 6, 2024 • by Gant Roberson and William Clare Roberts

Gant Roberson interviews William Clare Roberts about the evolving relevance of Marxist theory with the latest translation of Capital. ...

Capitalism

Who Gets to Retire?

An excerpt from Work, Retire, Repeat

October 17, 2024 • by Teresa Ghilarducci

For the first time in modern American history, gains in retirement time are concentrated at the economic top. ...

Capitalism

Social Capitalism

Synthesizing Marx, Keynes, and Schumpeter

September 17, 2024 • by Anna Pick and Mark Setterfield

Feathers were ruffled at Davos this year when, during a panel on “How to Trust Economics,” a speaker went rogue, accusing economists of being a “tribal clique” who only quote each other and have “blind faith” in models, however disconnected from real events they may be. The critique came not ...

Economy

Is Finance a “Parasite”?

Tracing financial capital—from J. P. Morgan to BlackRock

June 25, 2024 • by Scott Aquanno, Stephen Maher and Anna Pick

Democratizing the state means deepening public control over the Fed and other macroeconomic institutions, to run finance as a public utility....

Economy

Columbia University’s “Crisis”

A political economy sketch map

May 3, 2024 • by Adam Tooze

Questions of political economy are at the heart of the Columbia University protests....

Finance

Platforms, Payments, and Ponzi Schemes

A review of Rachel O’Dwyer’s Tokens: The Future of Money in the Age of the Platform

May 1, 2024 • by Paulo L. dos Santos

Electronic platforms can also be thought of as a distinctive type of “terrain” that, like land, can define specific types of revenue and power for those who control them. ...