Joseph Stiglitz 通往自由之路 經濟學與美好社會

通往自由之路：經濟學與美好社會

https://www.amazon.ca/Road-Freedom-Economics-Good-Society/dp/132407437X
作者：約瑟夫·E·斯蒂格利茨（作者）——2024 年 4 月 23 日

來自世界頂級經濟學家之一，令人信服的個人和經濟自由新願景。
我們是一個從人民必須自由的信念中誕生的國家。但自上個世紀中葉以來，這個想法已被利用。政治右翼勢力以自由的言論為幌子為剝削行為辯護，導致製藥公司隨意收取藥品費用，大型科技公司不受監督，政客自由煽動叛亂，公司自由汙染，等等。我們是怎麽走到這一步的？我們是誰的自由——我們應該——考慮嗎？

在《自由之路》一書中，諾貝爾獎得主約瑟夫·E·斯蒂格利茨剖析了美國當前的經濟體係及其背後的政治意識形態，揭露了兩者共同的失敗。“自由”和不受約束的市場隻帶來了一係列危機：金融危機、阿片類藥物危機和不平等危機。雖然一小部分人積累了可觀的財富，但大多數人的工資卻停滯不前。自由和不受約束的市場剝削了消費者、工人和環境。這些失敗助長了民粹主義運動，他們認為自由意味著放棄公民之間的任何義務。隨著這些運動的壯大，它們現在對真正的經濟和政治自由構成了真正的威脅。

作為總統的經濟顧問和世界銀行的首席經濟學家，斯蒂格利茨親眼目睹了這些深刻的變化。正如他所說，失敗源於精英們對“新自由主義實驗”的堅定不移的奉獻。斯蒂格利茨直言不諱地批評了弗裏德裏希·哈耶克和米爾頓·弗裏德曼等巨人，揭露了我們政治和經濟生活中的既定觀念的真麵目：扭曲的觀念在使極少數人致富的同時，也撕裂了社會結構。

《通向自由之路》開辟了新局麵，展示了經濟學（包括斯蒂格利茨在其中發揮了重要作用的最新進展）如何重新定義人們如何看待自由以及國家在二十一世紀社會中的作用。斯蒂格利茨借鑒當代哲學家的著作，解釋了一種更深刻、更人道的評估自由的方式——一種仔細考慮當一個人的自由與另一個人的自由發生衝突時該怎麽做的方式。如果我們要創建一個人人都能蓬勃發展的創新社會，我們必須重新構想我們現有的經濟和法律體係，並接受包括監管和投資在內的集體行動形式。這個任務十分緊迫，斯蒂格利茨的最新著作對於那些致力於美國理想的人們來說是必讀書籍，即建立一個為所有人帶來福祉、機會和有意義的自由的經濟和政治體係。

The Road To Freedom: Economics and the Good Society

https://www.amazon.ca/Road-Freedom-Economics-Good-Society/dp/132407437X
by Joseph E. Stiglitz (Author) – April 23 2024

From one of the world’s leading economists, a compelling new vision of personal and economic freedom.
We are a nation born from the conviction that people must be free. But since the middle of the last century, that idea has been co-opted. Forces on the political Right have justified exploitation by cloaking it in the rhetoric of freedom, leading to pharmaceutical companies freely overcharging for medication, a Big Tech free from oversight, politicians free to incite rebellion, corporations free to pollute, and more. How did we get here? Whose freedom are we—and should we—be thinking about?

In The Road to Freedom, Nobel prize winner Joseph E. Stiglitz dissects America’s current economic system and the political ideology that created it, laying bare their twinned failure. “Free” and unfettered markets have only succeeded in delivering a series of crises: the financial crisis, the opioid crisis, and the crisis of inequality. While a small portion of the population has amassed considerable wealth, wages for most people have stagnated. Free and unfettered markets have exploited consumers, workers, and the environment alike. Such failures have fed populist movements that believe being free means abandoning any obligations citizens have to one another. As they grow in strength, these movements now pose a real threat to true economic and political freedom.

As an economic advisor to presidents and as chief economist at the World Bank, Stiglitz has witnessed these profound changes firsthand. As he argues, the failures follow from the elites’ unshakeable dedication to “the neoliberal experiment.” Explicitly taking on giants such as Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman, Stiglitz exposes accepted ideas about our political and economic life for what they are: twisted visions that tear at the social fabric while they enrich the very few.

The Road to Freedom breaks new ground, showing how economics—including recent advances in which Stiglitz has played such an important role—reframes how to think about freedom and the role of the state in a twenty-first century society. Drawing on the work of contemporary philosophers, Stiglitz explains a deeper, more humane way to assess freedoms—one that considers with care what to do when one person’s freedom conflicts with another’s. We must reimagine our existing economic and legal systems and embrace forms of collective action, including regulation and investment, if we are to create an innovative society in which everyone can flourish. The task could not be more urgent, and Stiglitz’s latest book is essential reading for those committed to the American ideal of an economic and political system that delivers well-being, opportunity, and meaningful freedoms for all.

YouTube 通往自由之路：經濟學和美好社會
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVhGkgb1dwc

LSE 2024年5月3日

我們很抱歉出現了技術問題，部分音頻沒有錄製下來。

歡迎參加這次特別活動，諾貝爾獎獲得者約瑟夫·斯蒂格利茨將談論他的新書，這是對資本主義與自由關係的重大重新評估。

自由是人類的核心價值。但很少有自由倡導者問過這個想法的真正含義。”我們在考慮誰的自由——我們應該考慮嗎？當一個人的自由以犧牲另一個人的自由為代價時會發生什麽？是否應該允許公司的自由以現在的方式侵犯個人的自由？斯蒂格利茨與哈耶克和弗裏德曼等新自由主義巨頭展開較量，從右翼手中奪回自由的語言。他指出，“自由”——不受監管的——市場非但不能促進增長和企業發展，反而會減少大多數人的經濟機會，並將財富從多數人手中轉移到少數人手中——無論是個人還是國家。他指出，新自由主義經濟學及其隱含的道德體係如何以令人驚訝的方式影響我們的法律和社會自由，從財產和知識產權到教育和社交媒體。
發言人：
約瑟夫·E·斯蒂格利茨教授

主席：
瑪麗·卡爾多教授
詳細信息/
出席：https://www.lse.ac.uk/Events/2024/04/...
介紹

好的，歡迎大家，我們很高興能邀請到喬·斯蒂格利茨，觀眾的爆滿證明了這一點，呃，這次活動是為了慶祝或聽取他的新書介紹，這本書看起來非常令人興奮和著迷，《通往自由之路》，由 LSC 的項目主辦，名為“凝聚力資本主義”，由開放社會資助，嗯，我想大家都知道喬·斯蒂格利茨是誰，他是諾貝爾獎獲得者，他是美國經濟顧問委員會的成員，他是世界銀行的高級經濟學家，但實際上這個房間如此擁擠的原因
是因為喬在這個非常瘋狂的世界中是一個非常理智的批判性和實質性的聲音，所以我真的很期待聽到他要說的話

約瑟夫·E·斯蒂格利茨
非常感謝瑪麗，最後我會試著讓你改變你的中心的名字，進步資本主義中心的名字，所以，到最後你會明白的，很高興再次回到這裏，主持我的最新著作，我準備了一些幻燈片，希望有助於討論，自由和自由與經濟體係的關係已經成為大西洋兩岸討論的焦點，部分原因是俄羅斯入侵烏克蘭，一個國家的自由真的處於危險之中，但更促使我寫這本書的部分原因是疫情期間發生的事情，當時人們戴口罩非常重要並接種疫苗，但右翼人士說，右翼人士說，這剝奪了我的自由，作為一名經濟學家，我的反應是，他們不戴口罩或不接種疫苗的自由剝奪了我生存的自由，或者不住院的自由，或者不感染疾病的自由，在任何情況下，任何理性國家的人都會說生存權比攜帶 AK-47 的權利更重要，但同樣的想法也延伸到諸如汙染權之類的概念，威脅他人健康生活的權利，你知道這是有權衡的，但社會必須做出判斷，但我認為在每一種情況下都很容易，但我想說，有很多情況有些困難，有些情況非常困難，我接下來要談的是分配，在累進稅再分配的概念中存在權衡。把錢從某人手中奪走，實際上是把錢給了別人，自由主義者聲稱他們有權獲得自己的收入，而稅收實際上剝奪了這一權利，因此稅收是一種強製形式，它限製了他們的預算，限製了他們的機會，但與此同時，這種再分配稅收正在擴大其他人的機會，當然，這意味著我們必須做出判斷，判斷就是說，如果從傑夫·貝佐斯或伊隆·馬斯克手中拿走錢，他們的行為會受到顯著影響嗎？如果他們隻有 300 億美元而不是 3000 億美元，我認為答案很清楚，如果他們隻能得到 300 億美元，他們的行為就會和現在的 3000 億美元一樣好，他們的行為無論是好是壞都不會受到顯著影響，但與此同時，這筆錢會如果這些錢被有效地用於教育投資，就會產生巨大的變化或研究或向低收入者轉移收入，但實際上不平等也會帶來外部因素，因此不平等的減少可以使整個社會變得更好，這實際上是我早期一本書《不平等的代價》的論點，在某些情況下，糾正不平等的政策實際上可以使整個社會變得更好，這導致了這樣一種觀念，即某些強製措施，例如強迫人們納稅，實際上可以解放所有人，我舉的交通信號燈就是最有力的例子，如果沒有交通信號燈，交通信號燈就是一種強製形式，你不能通過十字路口，直到綠燈亮起，它就強迫你不要過去，所以這是對你的自由的真正限製，但如果沒有交通信號燈，你無論如何都無法移動，網格網格鎖，所以一個簡單的規定，說你必須輪流，這是一個規定，但你必須輪流，實際上可以讓每個人最終都更自由，就像我定義的那樣，擴大他們的機會集，因為他們實際上可以跨越交叉點，所以這個論點實際上是更多的公共產品，比如基礎研究搜索對基礎設施教育和健康的投資可以擴大所有人的機會，嗯，明顯的例子是另一個明顯的例子是資助mRNA平台，這是我們在美國和世界各地非常成功的疫苗的基礎，最有效的疫苗，我們可能不會在這裏，但對於創建該mRNA平台的基礎研究，但如果你要做那種研究，你必須資助它，如果你用稅收來資助它，經濟學家會說，在沒有你知道問題的情況下，這就是所謂的自由作家問題，每個人都希望其他人做出貢獻，自由人可以搭便車，所以你必須有納稅的強製，但這種強製允許所有人我們可以更自由地生活，或者活得更長，所以，這裏的概念是，強製可以讓人自由，而且有些強製協調，政府的集體行動解決了協調問題，隻需付出很少的努力，就能維持協調，帶來巨大的好處，最明顯的例子是，我們必須協調你在道路的哪一側行駛，如果你訪問某些國家，你知道他們還沒有解決這個問題，如果你這樣做，你就會知道生活是什麽樣的，你會不斷麵臨風險，但我們已經在英國解決了這個問題，在美國，你解決問題的方式不同，我不明白你為什麽用錯誤的方式解決問題，但隻要你呆在這兩個地方中的一個，它就會起作用，但不要試圖在另一個地方開車，但關鍵是，解決協調問題實際上會以非常重要的方式凍結我們這涉及到更廣泛的背景，所以這就是剝削在實踐中出現的地方，監管不足的剝削市場以剝削為標誌，你知道你每天都能看到市場力量，金融領域的剝削，那些掠奪性的貸款人濫用信用卡實踐，現在你知道每天都有新的騙局，至少在美國，最新的騙局是每個人都想擁有太陽能電池板，所以現在有很多掠奪性的太陽能電池板供應商，他們與華爾街合作，向你提供貸款來安裝太陽能電池板，隻收取你 30% 左右的費用，當你不付款時，費用就會翻倍，我的意思是，這是華爾街發現的一種新的掠奪性行為，利用他人，再次，這裏有一個權衡取舍但我再次認為這是一個權衡，我們知道如何做到這一點，也就是說，嗯，哪個更重要，企業剝削他人的權利，還是他人不被剝削的權利，嗯，壟斷企業對市場力量本能的剝削限製了消費者的機會，嗯，再次重申，這是廣泛的共識，但我不想說這是普遍的，嗯，我在金融部門的朋友不同意，他們認為他們應該被允許剝削他人，但嗯，不知何故，它會從他們身上滲透到社會的其他人，我認為這扭曲了經濟，我認為他們都是道德和效率的依據，可以限製他們的行為，嗯，這裏有一點需要注意，我之前在我的親社會行為介紹中提到過，有時候會有非強製性的方式以親社會的方式改變行為，嗯，你知道，嗯，這些是現代行為經濟學的見解，嗯，我的下一本書是 繼續討論這個話題，所以我希望我能再來一次，嗯，經濟學中的其中一個假設是，偏好是外生的，決定了你進入一個固定偏好的生活，不會改變，但當然，我們中沒有人真的相信，作為父母，我們花費了大量的精力試圖讓我們的孩子變得乖巧，嗯，我們有時會失敗，嗯，但我們至少相信，我們對偏好和我們希望我們的孩子成為什麽樣的人有一些影響，作為老師，這是我們試圖做的事情之一，不僅僅是把知識灌輸到你的大腦裏，嗯，它實際上是試圖改變你對世界的看法，嗯，你認為什麽是對的，什麽是錯的，嗯，這與上個世紀柯南、泰勒和特西主導的行為經濟學非常不同，後者關注的是我們如何有偏好但是，因為我們必須快速思考，所以我們通常不會按照那些深層的偏好行事，在這種情況下，我們的社交互動實際上會改變我們的偏好，我隻想說兩點，有時我們成功地改變了它們，使我們不像經濟學家那樣自私，假設最後通牒遊戲、獨裁者遊戲、實驗室實驗和其他情況下有很多證據表明，人們並不像經濟學家那樣自私，假設有些人真的很自私，比如唐納德·特朗普，不要誤會我的意思，所以不是每個人都是這樣的，但大多數人都是這樣的，當我們想到自己時，我們不會認為自己像唐納德·特朗普那樣卑鄙，自私貪婪等等，所以我們不想這樣看待自己，希望我們不是，所以如果我們能夠產生親社會行為，我們可以部分地內化一些外部因素，所以我們可以，你知道，你去瑞士，人們不會，垃圾，你知道，通過高額罰款來強製執行，嗯，這真的在他們的行為中被內化了，嗯，第二點，我沒有太多時間談論，那就是經濟和政治製度，經濟和政治製度實際上影響著我們的行為，嗯，如果你有一個獎勵自私貪婪的經濟製度，嗯，短期主義，你們這些貪婪、自私、短期的人，嗯，這真的是我對新自由資本主義的批評之一，米爾頓·弗裏德曼等人把它捧上了神壇，嗯，事實上，你知道，他寫了一篇論文，說公司的首席執行官應該最大化股東價值，不管它對環境、剝削工人或利用消費者的影響，你知道，這一切都是為了最大化股東價值，無論你能逃脫什麽，他的觀點是不這樣做是不道德的，我認為這是錯誤的，而且經濟體係對人們的塑造有著重要的影響，這裏有一些微妙的微妙之處，關於同儕壓力和社會製裁之間的區別，製裁是社會脅迫，但我注意到我的時間不多了，所以讓我繼續說，再說一點，當我們考慮塑造媒體觀點時，我們必須意識到媒體扮演著非常重要的角色，它們幫助創造你可能會說的元敘事議程，我們如何看待世界，我的一個擔憂是，今天媒體的控製權不成比例地掌握在非常富有的人手中，因此，傳達的信息元敘事在英國被扭曲了，至少你有一個非常強大的英國廣播公司，你知道，它可能資金不足，但你和瑞典有很多信任，瑞典也有類似的公共媒體美國我們沒有任何可比性，有證據表明，強大的媒體實際上創造了公共媒體，有助於在社會上建立更多的信任，這真的很重要，不僅僅是為了確保元敘事不被少數高層人士控製，而且是為了加強社會信任，信任對於經濟體係的運作非常重要，讓我繼續分析這本書的第二部分，即什麽樣的經濟體係最能為大多數人提供最多的自由，在這裏，顯然，我試圖比較兩個係統，一方麵是新自由主義資本主義的諷刺畫，但實際上不是諷刺畫，另一方麵是我想添加的倡導某種形式的進步資本主義的體係，嗯，這背後有幾個定理和幾個基本思想，嗯，我自己之前研究的一部分就是，嗯，我們知道不受約束的市場不會帶來有效的結果，而且這不僅僅是在我談到的具有外部性的世界中，而且更根本的是，每當有不完善的信息或不完整的火星時，嗯，火星總是沒有效率的你效率不高，嗯，我曾經說過，換句話說，亞當·斯密提出的觀點，他並沒有真正相信，追求利益會像一隻看不見的手一樣，導致社會的福祉，嗯，這是錯誤的，嗯，假設是，不受約束的市場不會帶來社會的福祉，嗯，我簡潔地說，看不見的手之所以看不見，是因為它不存在，嗯，嗯，重點是，米爾頓·弗裏德曼認為股東價值最大化會再次帶來社會福利，這是錯誤的，嗯，有趣的是，與此同時，弗裏曼在 N 推動了這一進程，他在 1970 年的《紐約時報》雜誌上寫了一篇著名的文章，嗯，我，我，一個人和與桑迪·格曼一起工作，都在寫文章，證明股東價值最大化並沒有導致社會的福祉，但我犯了一個錯誤，我們犯了一個錯誤，我們在《QJ》和《金融雜誌》上發表了我們的論文，他在《紐約時報》上發表了他的論文，你認為哪本雜誌更受關注，嗯，他贏得了公開辯論，我認為我們贏得了知識辯論，事實上，有一次我在芝加哥舉辦了一個研討會，彌爾頓在那裏，他說你錯了，我說我的假設或分析哪裏錯了，他說我知道你錯了，我們繼續這樣討論一段時間，然後很明顯，它並沒有取得多大進展，進化論，嗯，同樣，我，我，我，我之前提到過他的書《自由選擇》，我說真的，他應該把他的書稱為《自由利用》，因為那真的是他所提倡的，嗯，hyx進化論，同樣有缺陷，甚至雖然這有點微妙，但他的主張是，進化係統動力學將導致更好的結果，更有效的結果，但是當他在 LSC 時，他寫了更多的數學文章，隨著年齡的增長，他變得越來越空洞，他從來沒有證明過這個結果，顯然原因是它不是真的，我們現在知道進化沒有任何理論，我已經證明了這一點，事實上，很容易證明進化過程可能導致非常糟糕的結果，如果我們能夠更好地引導它，我們就能得到更好的結果，實際上，我在書中指出，新自由資本主義甚至可能不是一種可持續的製度安排，正如我在幻燈片的最後一點所說的那樣，新自由資本主義是一個可能吞噬自身，因為沒有強大的政府，你就無法維持競爭，因為從環境上講，它不可持續，你會汙染環境，整個世界都處於危險之中，分裂導致政治上不可持續，它們破壞了信任，沒有信任，市場經濟就無法運作，你不能像唐納德·特朗普那樣，把每一份合同都告上法庭，他和承包商簽訂的每一份合同，就像我之前說的，它鼓勵破壞信任的特質，從而破壞經濟可持續性，所以這就涉及到一個關鍵問題，什麽樣的製度更好，什麽樣的社會最有可能維持政治自由和民主，所以這裏真的是係統分析的關鍵，新自由主義認為，解放經濟，取消監管，減少經濟規模國家完全控製不受約束的市場將導致高增長，涓滴經濟學確保所有人都能共享利益，但這並沒有奏效，它催生了民粹主義，而民粹主義又催生了威權主義，而目前的環境正走向一種21世紀的法西斯主義，所以另一種選擇是我對進步資本主義的看法，首先讓我說一下，有些人說，資本主義這個詞本身就是一個矛盾體，你知道這兩個詞不相容，我想說的是，在一個大社會，一個大經濟體中，你必須有權力分散，你可以集中決策，但你知道，我們現在知道，這是行不通的，所以你必須有權力分散，這意味著你必須在我們的社會中有不同的單位，而使用資本主義隻是提醒你，在社會中，會有一些單位，在一個有組織的社會追求利潤最大化，你知道製造鋼鐵可能有意義，讓一個利潤最大化的公司製造鋼鐵，但我們真的應該考慮一個更豐富的製度安排生態，嗯，政府是集體行動的一部分，但還有其他形式的集體行動，嗯，工會是一種收集形式

The road to freedom: economics and the good society 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVhGkgb1dwc
LSE 2024年5月3日 

We apologise there was a technical issue and part of the audio was not recorded.

Join us at this special event at which Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz will talk about his new book, that is a major reappraisal of the relationship between capitalism and freedom.

Freedom is a core human value. But few of freedom’s advocates ask what the idea really means.” Whose freedom are we – should we be – thinking about? What happens when one person’s freedom comes at the expense of another’s? Should the freedoms of corporations be allowed to impinge upon those of individuals in the ways they now do? Stiglitz takes on giants of neoliberalism such as Hayek and Friedman to reclaim the language of freedom from the right. He shows that ‘free’ – unregulated – markets, far from promoting growth and enterprise, in fact lessen economic opportunities for majorities and siphon wealth from the many to the few – both individuals and countries. He shows how neoliberal economics and its implied moral system have impacted our legal and social freedoms in surprising ways, from property and intellectual rights, to education and social media.

Speakers:
Professor Joseph E Stiglitz
Chair:
Professor Mary Kaldor

Full details/attend: https://www.lse.ac.uk/Events/2024/04/...

Introduction
okay well welcome everybody it's very exciting that we have Joe siglett here and the fullness of the audience is a testament to that uh this event is to celebrate or to hear about his new book which looks really exciting and fascinating the road to freedom and it's hosted by the program at LSC called cohesive capitalism which is funded by the open Society um I think everybody knows who Joe stiglitz is he's a Nobel Prize winner he was an a member of the US Council of economic advisors he was the senior Economist at the World Bank but actually the reason this room is so full is because Joe is a very sane critical and substantial voice in a very mad world and so I'm really looking forward to hear what he has to say 

Joseph E Stiglitz
well thank you very much uh Mary and and uh I'm going to try by the end to have you change the name of your uh Center the the center for Progressive capitalism uh so uh but you'll you'll understand more uh by the end and it's really nice to be uh back here again uh uh hosting my uh newest book um the um I prepared some slides to to hopefully help the discussion well the discussion of freedom and and Liberty uh and the relationship to the economic system uh have moved uh up front and center in in
discussions on both sides of the Atlantic and it's uh partly because of the Russian invasion of uh Ukraine uh where the freedom of uh a country is really been put uh in Jeopardy um but uh what part even more motivated my writing the book was uh what happened during the pandemic where uh it was really important for people to be masked and get vaccinated but the right said uh people on the right uh said uh that's taking away my freedom and uh as an economist my reaction was their freedom not to be masked or not to uh be vaccinated was taking away my freedom to live uh or not
to be hospitalized or not to get the disease those cases anybody in any Trade tradeoffs rational country would say the right to live is more important than the right to carry in AK-47 but that same idea then extends to Notions like uh the right to pollute
threatens others right to live a healthy life and uh that you know there is a tradeoff but again um and Society has to make judgments but uh in each of these cases I think those are easy but I I want to say that there are a lot of cases uh that are somewhat more difficult and some that are very difficult um the one I'm going to talk about next is um distribution there are trade tradeoffs in
um no the notion of progressive taxation redistribution you're taking money away from somebody and effectively giving it to somebody else and uh Libertarians claim that they have the right to their income and uh taxation is taking away that right um actually uh and and therefore taxation is a form of Co coercion uh and it is restricting their budget uh constraints and therefore their opportunity set but uh at the same Judgements time uh this redistributive taxation is expanding uh the opportunity set of
others and uh uh what that means of course is uh we have to make judgments and the judgment is say taking money away from Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk will there Behavior be significantly affected if they have only 30 billion rather than 300 billion and you know the answer I think is pretty clear uh they would have been as repati if they only could get 30 billion as they are getting 300 billion and uh that that their behavior you know for good and for ill would not be affected uh uh significantly but at the same time that money will make could make an enormous difference if it is used productively for investments in education or research or um transfers of income to those uh with uh low um uh uh uh income but
actually uh there are externalities that come even Inequality from uh inequality so the reduction of inequality can make all of societ Society better off and that was really uh the thesis of one of my earlier books called the price of inequality that that actually in some cases uh uh policies to redress inequalities can actually make all Society uh better off and that uh leads to the notion that some coercion like forcing people to pay taxes can be
actually freeing for everybody uh and the example that I give
Traffic lights that illustrates this I think most forcefully is traffic lights in the absence uh you know traffic lights are a form of coercion you can't proceed across an intersection until it's green it's coercing you not to go and so it's a real restriction on your freedom but in the absence of the traffic light you couldn't move anyway there would be grid grid lock and so a simple regulation that says you have to take turns it's a regulation but it you have to take turns actually can make everybody in the end Freer in the way that I've defined it which is expand their opportunity set because they actually can go across uh the intersection so this argument uh is actually more general public goods like basic research search investments in infrastructure education and health can expand the opportunity sex for all um the obvious example is another obvious example is uh financing uh uh the MRNA platform which was the basis of the
very successful vaccines that we had in in the United States and around the world the most effective ones uh we might not be here but for that basic research that created that mRNA platform but if you're going to have that kind of research you have to fund it if you fund it out of Taxation again economists will say in the absence of you know the problem is what is called the free riter problem uh everybody would like others to contribute and Free People free ride on that and so you have to have the coercion of paying taxes but that coercion allows all of us to be freeer to live uh or live longer lives than we otherwise would be so um the the notion here is that coercion uh can be freeing and there are uh some kinds of Coercion coordination uh uh uh where a government Collective action solves a coordination
problem where coordination can be sustained with the very little effort
with enormous benefits and the obvious example is we have to coordinate on what side of the road you drive on uh if you
visit certain uh countries you know they haven't solved that problem yet and uh if you do that you know what life is like you're at constant uh risk but we've solved that problem in England in the US you solve the problem differently I can't figure out why you solved it in the wrong way but uh uh it it works uh as long as you stay in one one of those two places but and and don't try to drive in the other place um but uh the point is that that actually solving coordination problems actually freeze Us in very uh important ways and that goes to a a a broader set of of
um context um so that's where exploitation comes in um in practice uh un and underregulation exploitation markets are are marked by uh exploitation um you know you see it uh every day Market power uh the exploitation in the financial sector uh of those who were the predatory uh uh lending the Abus of credit card practices uh now that um you know constantly every day there's a new scam uh at least in the United States the latest scam is everybody wants to have solar panels uh so uh there are now a host of predatory
providers of solar panels where working together with Wall Street they make you a loan to put on the solar panel only charging you 30% or so and and uh uh when you don't make your payment doubling that I mean it's a new form of of predatory uh behavior that uh Wall Street has found to take advantage uh of others and um again there there's a tradeoff tradeoff uh but again I think it's a tradeoff where we understand how to make that that is to say um which is more important the right of Corporations to
exploit exploit or the right of others not to be exploited um and uh the exploitation for instincts of Market Power by the monopolis constrains consumers opportunity Set uh again it's broad
consensus but I I don't want to say it's Universal uh uh my friends in the financial sector don't agree they think
they should be allowed to exploit others but um and that somehow it will trickle down uh from them down to the rest of society I I I think it distorts the economy and I think they're both moral and efficiency grounds for uh constraining their behavior um there's a little note here that I I I mentioned earlier uh in my
prosocial behaviour introduction is that U there's sometimes non-coercive ways of altering behavior in a pro-social way uh you know uh one of the uh these are insights of of modern behavioral economics um my next book is going to be on this uh subject uh so I hope I'll come uh again um where uh one of the
assumptions that has been inflicted on you by your uh in e in economics is that preferences are exogenous determine you enter a life with fixed preferences and unaltered but of course uh none of us really believes that as parings we spend an enormous amount of energy trying to make our children uh nice and uh we sometimes fail but uh we at least believe that we have some effect on the
preferences and what we want uh our children to uh to be like and as teachers that's one of the things that we try to do not just uh pour knowledge into your brain uh it's really trying to change your views of the world um and what you think is right and wrong so um that this is very different from the behavioral economics that dominated in the last century with Conan and Taylor
and tersi which was focusing on uh how we have preferences but
because we have to think fast we often don't act consistently with those deep
preferences this is a case where actually our social interactions alter
our our preferences and uh there're just uh two points I want to make which is sometimes
we succeed in altering them a way that make us not as selfish as economists
assume there's a lot of evidence in ultimatum games dictator games uh
laboratory experiments and in other context that people are not quite as selfish as uh economists uh assume there
are some who are really selfish like Donald Trump uh don't get me wrong and and so it's it's not everybody but there
are that that most people and when we think of ourselves we don't think of ourselves as as nasty
as Donald Trump and as selfish greedy and and so forth so um we don't want to
think of ourselves uh that way and hopefully we we aren't um so um if we
can engender pro-social Behavior we can partially internalize some of the
externalities so we can you know you go to Switzerland people don't
Litter um you know enforce that by a big
fine uh it's really uh internalized uh in their
behavior um the second point that I won't have much time to talk about is
economic and political system
that the economic and political system actually affects our behavior and that
uh if you have an economic system that rewards selfishness
greediness uh short-termism you people who
are greedy selfish and short term and uh
that's really one of my criticism of uh neoliberal capitalism that people like
Milton Freedman put on a pedestal uh in fact you know wrote a paper that firms
CEOs should maximize shareholder value regardless of the effect that it had on
environment exploit ation of workers or um taking advantage of consumers and you
know that was it was all about maximizing shareholder value whatever you could get away with his view was it
was immoral not to do that and I think that's wrong and and that the economic
system has an affecting shaping people in important
way there are some subtle subtleties here about the distinction between peer
pressure uh and social sanction sanctions as social coercion but I noticed my time is running out so let me
go on uh and just make one further point
that uh as we think about uh shaping
media
views uh we have to be aware that the media plays a very important
role uh they help create you might say the mer meta narrative the agenda how we
see the world and uh one of my concerns
is that disproportionately today control of the media is in the hands of very
rich and uh therefore the messages The Meta narratives that are being conveyed
are distorted in britainy at least you have a very effect uh strong BBC you know
it's maybe been underfunded but you and there's a lot of trust in Sweden there's a similarly a public media in the United
States uh we don't have anything comparable and there's evidence that a
strong media actually creates a public media helps create more trust in society
more generally and U uh is really important not not just
for uh uh making sure that the meta narrative isn't controlled by a few of
the people at the very top but uh for uh
strengthening uh trust in society and trust is really important for the
functioning of the economic system uh let me uh move on to the
second part of the uh analysis of of the book which is uh um what kind of an
economic system uh best delivers on the most freedoms for the most
individuals and uh here uh obviously uh I'm trying to compare two
systems um a a little bit of a caricature but not really a caricature
of of neoliberal capitalism on the one hand and and the system that I'm trying
to add advocate for uh some form of progressive capitalism and um underlying this are a
couple theorems a couple basic ideas that um part of my own uh research uh
earlier was that uh we know that unfettered markets uh do not lead to efficient
outcomes and it's not just in in Worlds with externalities of the kind I've talked about but more fundamentally when
Whenever there is imperfect information or incomplete Mars um which is always Mars are not
predo efficient they're not efficient um I've argued that that in
other words that the idea that Adam Smith put put forward but didn't really
believe that the pursuit of Interest would lead as if by an invisible hand to
the well-being of society uh that's wrong uh the presumption is that
unfettered markets do not lead to the well-being of society uh and the way I
put it succinctly is that the reason that the Invisible Hand is invisible is
that it's not there and um so
um uh the point is that Milton Freedom's idea that shareholder value Max
shareholder value maximization
imization uh would lead to societal welfare again is wrong uh
interestingly uh when uh uh at the same time M Freeman was pushing this forward
uh in N he he wrote a uh a famous article in the New York Times magazine
in 1970 uh I uh both alone and working with Sandy Gman were writing articles proving
that shareholder value maximization did not lead to the well-being of uh
Society but I made a mistake uh uh we made a mistake we published our papers
in the QJ and the Journal of finance and he published his paper in
the New York Times a magazine which do you think got more attention um and he won the public
debate I think we won the intellectual debate
in fact there was one time I gave a seminar at Chicago and uh Milton was
there and and uh he he said uh you're wrong uh and I
said well where did I make a mistake in my assumptions or my analysis he said I
know you're wrong and uh we continued in that vein
for a while and then uh it was clear it was not making much progress uh
evolutionary theory
um uh similarly uh I
I uh I mentioned before his book free to choose uh I said really uh he should
have called his book free to exploit uh because that was really what he was uh
advocating um The hyx evolutionary theory uh was uh
equally flawed even though it was a little bit more subtle uh his claim was that the evolutionary System Dynamics
would lead to uh uh better outcomes efficient
outcomes um but while he when he was at LSC he was writing more mathematical
articles after he as he got older he got uh more and more fluffy and uh uh he
never proves that result and obviously the reason is it's not true um and uh we
now know that Evolution doesn't have any thology that uh I've shown that in fact
uh that uh it's very easy to show that that uh evolutionary processes uh can
lead to very bad outcomes uh and uh if we can guide it better we
can get better better outcomes uh actually I've argued I argue
in the book that neoliberal capitalism may not even be a su a sustainable
institutional Arrangement that uh as I say in the last Point here uh on the
slide uh neoliberal capitalism is a system which uh may devour itself and it
both because you can't sustain competition without strong government uh
because uh uh it is not environmentally sustainable you pollute and the whole
world is put put in Jeopardy um the divid that gives rise to
make it politically unsustainable uh they undermine trust and without trust a market economy can
function you can't uh couldn't go to court with every every uh contract in
the way that Donald Trump tries to do with with uh uh every contract that he
uh uh contractor that he engages with um and uh as I said before it encourages
traits which uh undermine trust and thus undermine economic sustainability so
that comes to the critical questions of what kind of system is better um and
what kind of a society is most likely to sustain political iCal freedom and democracy so uh here is really the the
the Crux of of of the systemic analysis neoliberal uh neoliberalism argued that
freeing the economy stripping away regulations reducing the size of the state giving full Reign to unfettered
markets would lead to high growth trickle down economics ensure the benefits would be shared by all and uh
this hasn't worked out it's given rise to populism and populism is giving rise
to authoritarianism and ex setting is on the road to a a 21st century uh uh form
of uh fascism so uh the alternative is uh my
vision of uh Progressive capitalism uh let me first say some
capitalism
people say uh putting the word capitalism there is an oxymoron uh you
know the two words don't go together uh the point I want to make is in a large
Society uh a large economy you have to have decentralization the idea that you
could centralize decision making it's just you know we know that now that that
doesn't work so you have to have decentralization that means you have to have different units in our society and
using capitalism is only a reminder that among the units that you have in society
there will be some that in a in a well organized society that are profit
maximizing that you know making steel may make sense to have a profit
maximizing firm make steel but there are we we really ought
to be thinking about a richer Ecology of institutional
Arrangements um the government is one part of that Collective action but there
are other forms of collective action um uh labor unions are a form of collect
collective action that are very important uh for workers Civil Society
is an important part of collective action to oversee both the public and the private
sector um uh other form of collective action
are class action suits uh when somebody gets injured a single individual may not
be able to seek remedy but uh a collective action of a class action suit
uh may be and you know uh moving more towards uh for encouraging forms of that
kind of collective action is an important part of what I view as uh
Progressive capitalism but then there are also uh all sorts of other institutional
cooperatives
Arrangements cooperatives cooperatives May encourage more Cooperative
Behavior Uh uh a little bit less selfish selfishness and we saw the most
successful uh parts of America's Financial system that were exhibit shown
demonstrated in the 2008 financial crisis were our financial cooperatives we call them Credit Unions they were the
only ones that did not engaged in rep pacious behavior that marks uh uh the
other for-profit bank Banks and after 2008 they were the only ones that
contined to provide credit to small businesses um so uh you know I we have
actually many cooperatives uh in the United States uh consumer and producer
cooperatives and again in Europe uh there being some very successful um uh
cooperatives mandran and in Spain being one of the largest in the world um and
then there are uh not for-profit organizations like Columbia
University uh and when you think about you know one of the real strengths of
universities
the United States it's our universities uh our our research
institutions none of them are for-profit uh the example of the for
profit institution is Trump University I don't really mean to break Trump uh you
know I think he's a great leader but uh uh but those of you may remember
Trump University it had to pay fines and the millions of dollars because it had
exploited those who wanted to get ahead and thought they were getting education and he it was it was a it was a k job
just like everything he does is a k job so uh uh uh uh the the the um uh all of
our successful universities are either State universities like University of
California and Berkeley and Los Angeles and or not for-profit institutions like
Columbia Harvard prinston Yale um and so uh and these you know they're not
perfect institutions but human fallibility no institution is going to be perfect but they have actually worked
very well and have been the foundations I think of a lot of of our of our
success as a as a country so uh the first thing I I I you
know call for in this Progressive capitalism is a richer Ecology of
institutional Arrangements um um the other uh thing I
call for is greater efficiency and Equity with more freedom to choose um as
a result of doing a better job at reducing negative externalities through better
regulation uh more investing in public goods and uh correcting a whole variety
of other market failures um and this comes back to the fundamental theme externalities and
public goods are especially important in 21st century economies we have a high
level of urbanization that means that we interact a lot more than you w would if
you're living in an isolated Farm um and we've moved to a knowledge economy and the basic thing about
Collective action
knowledge is it's a public good and efficient provision of public goods
requires Collective action and so as we've changed our
economy we've become uh the benefits of collective action have become uh even
more important um and there are other important Collective roles limiting of
iy of forms of exploitation and ring seeking providing social protection and
social insurance um and a broader view that better risk management enables more
risk-taking and uh in some circumstances even more Innovation because undertaking
Innovation uh entails risk uh finally just a word about uh
with uh something I said earlier uh the nature of the economic political and
social system does shape individuals and I think Progressive
capitalism uh tempering some of the selfishness that has been the Hallmark
of neoliberal capitalism we shape individuals in different ways um as I
said it it shapes individuals to be greedy selfish uh with limited concerns
for others less empathy and less honest uh than we might
like and it's at least possible that cooperatives and other forms of uh
organizational forms May shape individuals to be more Cooperative other regarding and to enhance social
Selfserving argument
cohesion and um there are a lot of benefits to moving
in that direction let me uh as a next to the last slide uh talk
uh about uh a self-serving uh argument for why what we do in Academia is so
important uh this is probably an audience I don't have to convince of that but um I want to just emphasize the
centrality of liberal education and a democratic media that um
education um Pro provides a better understanding of the way our preferences
are shaped uh and our actions are affected by uh others by peer pressure and doing
this can be in that sense fundamentally freeing uh in fact that's one of the
purposes of a liberal ARS education so I I know a lot of you are
concerned about uh having an education giving you skills to get a job but what
I'm trying to encourage you to do is uh get an education also to uh uh be Freer
in your thinking uh about uh life more generally and um by the same token I
think a more democratic media frees us from having our beliefs shaped by and
for the interest of the wealthy um there are some difficult
Conclusion
philosophical problems that arise in the context of endogenous
preference formation and uh I'm not going to be able to solve them
uh today but I don't want uh somebody to say well you haven't thought about that
question so so I this is a defensive slide um so let me
conclude um with uh greater Investments including in public goods and
individuals capabilities better management of negative externalities better social social insurance and
stronger social cohesion Progressive capitalism can enhance individual Freedom far more than the kind of
unfettered capitalism that Hayek and Freedman advocated a kind of
neoliberalism that has predominated for the last uh four decades and in that
sense uh uh that links to the subtitle economics in the good Society I think
that kind of progressive capitalism uh can do a better job of
creating a good society and uh setting us more firmly on the road to Freedom uh
than neoliberalism which has been setting us on the road I think to
Social Ecology
authoritarianism thank you [Applause]
[Music]
well thank you so much Joe that was brilliant and I love your social
ecology and I say social ecology because I was trying to think is Progressive
capitalism really the term you want why stick to
capitalism um you're not talking about socialism at least not socialism as
state controlled but maybe something like the Civil economy or the social
economy I mean capitalism implies the market is still the predominant mechanism in
society yeah um well let me say first uh it was partly because I'm uh trying to
sell these ideas to an American audience so I so I don't want to undermine the sense
of pandering uh that uh I but uh that having been said uh I do think that it
still will be the case that profit making institutions will play an important
role regulated taxed uh properly uh but they're still
an important part uh of our institutional structure and um I also
use words to describe it as a rejuvenated social democracy and the
reason I use the word rejuvenated is that some places where there's been
social democracy it's really been weakened in the last 30 years with the
the predominance of neoliberal ideas so some of the places that we used to think
as the Bastion of the of of social democracy it's really been weakened in
the way that I would at least like to see it no
Social Democracy
not to mention this country um gosh we could and and can I
say one thing what I like about the term social democracy as opposed to the
emphasis of progressive capitalism it does emphasize the role that Democratic
processes have to play in making sure that our society
functions uh for the benefit of most people yeah I do I agree but anyway um
Audience Questions
we should have some questions from the audience somebody and I don't know who
is collecting the questions online Sharon okay but I'm first going to take
some questions here so yes we'll take this will be the first
because you're the first person I've seen I'm trying to get the microphone to work
well actually we're going to have very limited time so may I got the question and a standard question let me
uh which is that uh we all you know the
government often is inefficient uh ineffective and uh um anybody who's
lived through the Trump Administration knows the government can fail uh or even
through uh the last Bush Administration uh all human institutions are failable
you we're all faible so the question since the enlightenment has been how do
we uh structure Society to ensure
that uh it does what we want it to do including uh democratic
governments um now when I talk about when we talk about waste no government
is well I shouldn't say no government few governments have wasted money on the scale of what happened in the 2008
financial crisis that lead up to it in the afterwards massive misallocation of
resources uh in the Capital Market massive the result of that was massive
underutilization of resources you know costing us trillions of dollars so it
lets make clear that the private sector can be very very inefficient and you
know as we sort of glorify the the the private sector we should remember I mean
and I'll talk a little bit from the point of view of the United States the inefficiency of our private
Health Care system of our private uh uh um of our telephone systems uh every day
is a battle with the internet companies um our banks are out there to
exploit us and we see it food companies are exploiting people so that we have a
episode of of uh childhood di epidemic of childhood
diabetes um we um uh have an opioid crisis the
pharmaceutical pushed opioids on our country and the cost of our to our
country of that is lives a short you know lifespan has declined and and so we
should be clear that there are lots of imperfections on all sides around and
the main failure I think of government is not stopping the private sector from
engaging in these totally destructive activities um that's the main failure
now uh the successes of government where would we be without government
investment that led to the internet uh especially at in covid-19 it
even invented uh uh the the the first browser and then uh it gave us the M
mRNA platform that allowed us to have an effective vaccine so yes government fails Trump
illustrates but uh government succeeds a lot and the private sector fails and the
private sector succeeds a lot and so our goal is shouldn't be to demonize one or
the other but to try to say how can we use the strengths of each of them and
how can we use and one of the things I emphasize is how can we use systems of
checks and balances not only within government but within our overall Society to prevent the abuses uh that
can occur in either of the two sectors okay I've got Robert Wade here
Industrial policies
that's a great question and you know uh Robert did some uh very important research on Industrial policies in
Taiwan wasn't it and uh they worked there and then in the era of uh new
liberalism uh industrial policies were a no no uh or more accurately the United
States uh and Europe used uh the
WTO to circumscribe the ability of developing
countries and Emerging Markets to use industrial policies while we continue to
use industrial policies in the United States in our defense department and
that's where we got the internet and we and and then we use Public Health as
another source of industrial policy but everybody is believes it's good to have uh better drugs against disease um and
we've now brought back industrial policy in the United States interestingly in a
bipartisan way and so even uh
Republicans have now abandoned the extremes of neoliberalism and and have
said you need a government partly in response to the
strong evidence of the lack of resilience of the private sector that became so evident in covid-19 you know
they had Supply chains that were just not resilient uh you the the uh just in time
inventory system made our whole economy very fragile it was very good when there
were no disturbances but it was not robust against uh disturbances so the so
I welcome this kind of Rebirth of uh Resurgence of of industrial
policy um those particular industrial policies
were not optimally designed partly uh
because we hadn't had really the experience that East Asia we hadn't learned the lesson from East Asia of how
to design good industrial policies I think they did a lot a a a better job in
designing theirs in Korea Japan uh and Taiwan uh than we have and
there's now a lot of work I'm engaged and some of this of how we can reform
those industrial policies to make them better and better in the sense of uh
better outcomes per dollar more Equitable less capture uh insulate them
against capture uh um so overall though
uh they are uh really important and just the IRA is called it an inflation
reduction act that really wasn't much about inflation its main objective was to move the United States along in the
trajectory of of the green transition uh when we had resisted doing
that and the chips Act was to um restore
the ability of the US to make certain to make ships uh um less dependence on
Conflicts
Taiwan great now I'm going to ask Sharon to read out two questions and then I'm
going to take the lady at the back on my principle of taking women but too many men have put their hands
up hello hello okay I have a question um
what oh sorry can hear her what is your what is your economic perspective about the impact of the current conflicts
around the world at two qu asked two questions what was the first question I
hear it what is the economic impact of current what's your what's the what's your perspective on the current conf
on and what is your proposal for the policy change we can make to discourage pursuit
of shareholder value at all costs will tax reform do the
trick it can you say it a bit louder oh sorry what is what is your proposal for
what policy change we can make to discourage pursuit of shareholder value
at all costs will tax reform do the trick can tax
reform uh reduce the pursuit of shareholder value oh well yeah
um okay first on the first question uh conflicts are bad uh I I think you mean
you know uh Wars and and what's going on in
the Middle East and Ukraine uh are bad uh for the people who are affected but
they're also bad for the global economy uh you know in the Middle East
there there's still a risk of of what
what uh happened in the uh 70s with the conflict where oil prices went way up
we've just been through a very bad episode of energy prices going up and it's been really hard especially for
Europe but but for the global economy uh ex uh the way uh we produce food today is
very dependent on on fertilizer and that's very depend depending on a supply
of of of energy and and so it's not just just
uh uh Direct Energy uh our Energy System but it's also our food supply system so
conflicts create a lot of risk and and uh uh when those risks get materialized
they have can have disastrous effects on the global economy and the aftermath of
the um the sharp rise in oil prices in the 70s uh was a lost decade in Latin
America it's just one example of of of the global repercussions so um uh but the most uh
obviously the the the greatest effect are still on the people in in in the
conflict areas on the issue of shareholder uh value
maximization um uh uh taxes are not uh enough um uh you
need uh multiple changes in our legal framework uh one example is Corporate
goverance laws uh in many countries corporate governance laws say that
that's what firms are supposed to do they were influenced by Milton Freedman
unfortunately and uh many many places have corporate governing laws that
say if a CEO doesn't do that uh he's not doing what the company doesn't do that
he's not doing he's not fulfilling the obligation and he can be sued uh for doing for for not maximizing uh
shareholder uh value um the uh other countries other states
jurisdictions in the United States corporate governance laws in the United States are largely the responsibility of
the individual Stakes uh say that you should have broader stakeholder value
stakeholder uh uh capitalism where you take into account uh not only the
shareholders The Balancing Act but of the workers the communities uh uh the
customers and and the environment so you take a a broader uh perspective
um we have uh uh the you know peculiar
situation in the United States if you're a pension fund uh you are not
uh a union pension fund uh is obligated
in many almost everywhere in the United States to look only at the economic
returns they get out of their Investments and so they aren't allowed to even think
about whether the companies in which they are investing their money are engaged in bad labor practices like
Amazon um you know that they they say well as a union pension fund you're just
concerned with maximizing the Returns on your Investments not with the
environment not with with with uh uh how their their labor practic is and I I
think that's wrong and and it turns out that taking a broader view can often
over the longer run get Justice ey or even higher uh returns so um those are
examples of of changes in our legal structure that that H ought to that would facilitate a move away from
shareholder value maximization great now I'm going to take
Global Governance
two questions from the floor and I'm taking that lady there and this lady
here in a blue again so yeah um governments of
course work at the country level the most rapacious corporations uh are very much Global so
what steps would you recommend and in especially in the current very challenging International context to
ensure that these very needed checks and balances can also be applied at the global level
to avoid companies jumping around between different jurisdictions and so that the checks and balances can really
work in a in a by means of a global governance hold that question can you
remember it because I I somebody was talking to me and now the lady in
blue I think you need a
mik um thank you um in relation to Progressive uh capitalism um what's the
role of AI in it and do you see it um as
potentially hindering Freedom or uh vice versa well um let me
say the way that AI interacts with freedom in in a broad
sense is that uh AI has the potential and I I would say
likely and I've written a little bit about this uh likely to have large distributive effects unless we uh
respond appropriately and when was respond appropriately what I mean is both steer The Innovation the nature of
the Innovation and to the extent that we don't succeed in steering it the right
way at least engage in redistributive actions um that uh make sure that the
benefits don't all go to a few people and are widely shared um and uh an
important ingredient in this overall policy it will entail uh
adapting our competition laws uh the question you know there is
at least there's a significant risk of further agglomeration of Market power uh
because uh they work more powerfully when they have more data and there will
be be some Enterprises that will have larger data sex and really uh at least
there's a potential they're dominating that market uh there's a lot of uncertainty about the evolution of AI uh
even among the people uh in Silicon Valley and those
engaged in in AI um uh the the the concern of course is that
AI will be what we call Labor replacing uh and therefore decrease the
demand for labor particularly not only unskilled labor which is what robuxs
have done but even skilled labor um that there are feels like you
know like uh they they can uh write a a
good uh do good journalism not great journalism but you can do journalism um
for my 80th birthday uh one of my uh
students uh former students um trained uh um AI on uh my data and the question
was uh could I be replaced uh and um uh the uh uh I asked it 10
questions and uh on the first five which were you know uh the kind of questions I
get asked all the time about you know the effect of interest rates or something like that um it did as well as
I could have done and much faster you know it just spews out the answer um uh
but uh on the last three that were more difficult
uh where it hadn't really read my 1973 article as closely as itur probably
because it's uh not wasn't fed to it uh uh was going back too too far it was a
disaster uh it got exactly the wrong answer uh 180 degrees wrong so uh I have
a few more years before I'm going to be replaced uh but uh that's one aspect of
of AI it replaces labor it reduces the demand the other aspect is the point I
just made it it can enhance our productivity and I sometimes call that
IIA intelligence assisting rather than AI uh so it it it's like a microscope a
telescope enhances our our our our own innate abilities and there are people
working on on aspects of AI that will you know that actually like uh ettech um
trying to improve the quality of Education by saying having uh qu uh
working question uh where they adapt more quickly to where you give a wrong
answer where you give a right answer so there there are things that they can do to to enhance our our ability I think
overall though I I do worry about it increasing inequality and we will have to respond on the question of um the
regulation of multinationals uh that's really it's a good question and and you know some of
the multinationals are bigger than small countries uh and that makes it more
difficult uh the particular aspect of that that I've been involved in is uh
how do we uh in our global Iz World make these multinationals uh pay their fair share
of taxes um companies like Apple and Google may have produced Goods uh that are you
know that we like a lot uh you know uh uh Apple making the corners of their
telephone round rather than square is really given a lot of people a lot of enjoyment um and and uh and I don't know
if know about there was a big intellectual property dispute over over that particular question um so you know
but they may I I don't want to minimize how what they've done but
they've been even smarter about avoiding taxes uh and uh globalization has given
them uh a framework in which they can do that with the secrecy Havens uh uh
Cayman Islands and you know uh why are so many companies located in Cayman
Islands uh you know is the weather really particularly good for engaging in financial transactions or is there
something else going on called secrecy and tax evasion and I think we are or
regulatory evasion we all know the answer it is not because the Cayman Islands are a particularly good place to
do Financial transactions uh other than tax evasion and and Regulatory uh avoidance
um so there's been a uh a big uh Global
campaign to make them pay their fair share of taxes
um but it was originally put uh in the hands of the
oecd uh which is the uh think tank of
the advanced countries and the advaned countries uh were this is a case where of capture
were captured by particularly the United States by Apple and Google and the
digital Giants and what came out eventually out of a long process lasting
over 10 years was uh something good uh a requirement
of a minimum tax uh but was set at 15% and then they
have carals to bring them rate down to 12 or 133% Which is less than half half of the
tax rate in Latin America for instance so um it having minimum is better than
zero but it really wasn't up to the task and and uh so now now there is a big
initiative at the UN to frame a better to to create a better framework for
requiring them to pay their fair share of taxes um
in terms of regulating bad
behavior uh in one way or another uh Europe and the United States
have a special responsibility and uh there is for
instance again in the area of digital uh the uh digital Giants there's something
that's now called the Brussels effect that uh
regulation of the digital Giants uh through uh the digital marketing act dma
the digital Service Act which tries to restrict some of the uh digital harms
created by uh uh these digital Giants uh is having a Global Effect it's
not strong enough uh but uh when Europe and the United States act
strongly they have Global effects and so yes you know a small country isn't going
to be able to fully regulate but they can say you know South Africa can say if
you don't play by our rules you can't come in and there are enough good South
African entrepreneurs and sufficient Global competition that
if one of the American companies like Google doesn't behave
well uh the void can be filled there's other search engines that can enter so I I
don't think even small countries should resign and just say oh you know we're
vict victims I think they can take a stronger actions great now I'm going to go back
to the online and you're going to give me another two questions
okay so can you comment on the value of social religious institutions in lower
income countries versus high income countries for example in Nepal social institutions
such as religious tabos are used to limit people from cutting down trees in local
forests I didn't neither of could hear that did you hear the beginning no no we
didn't hear anything of it oh sorry I have to really shout sorry can you
comment on the value of social religious institutions in lower income countries versus higher income countries for
example in Nepal social institutions such as religious tabos are used to limit people from cutting down trees in
local forests I think if I understand the question is yeah I mean this is part of
of of the general view that I have that uh a successful Society ought to have a
broad array of institutions um and I think I I I was going to comment uh earlier that uh this
is increasingly important because we're moving to uh a care economy where a
large fraction of the population a large proaction of GDP we've moved from
manufacturing to a service sector economy and an important part of the service sector economy is caring for you
know Education Health Care caring for the elderly and many of those people uh
they're large asymmetries of information and many of the people are not able to make really informed decisions
about uh whether they're getting adequate care somebody with dementia
can't judge whether they're being taken advantage of and in that
context uh religious Institution nonprofits of a variety of kind can play
a very important role uh you know more
broadly uh uh thinking about the infinite future future
Generations uh churches and have played an important
role in protecting the environment thinking about the Next Generation uh and the uh
Pope francis's in cyclical on uh
uh the environment climate change uh and social justice has had in many parts of
the world a lot of influence so that that's an example of of of how a broad
array of Institutions that we ought to embrace uh is uh we think about what
makes for a good Society now it's actually 8:00 but we
started 5 minutes late and there's somebody and we haven't taken anyone
from the top floor and there's somebody at the back there in a white jacket who's been trying to catch my eye the
entire time so I'm going to let him last the last question hello H thank you Professor
esle thank you Professor Calder thank you LC uh my question
is how we can apply this knowledge the workers the local people we as a student
the people that don't know about economics this we talk about a um
fredman inclusive growth the war Freedom how we can apply this H amazing
knowledge thank you so much well the the
um there are two parts of the answer uh
to that question um you know one is uh
how this affects our Behavior as individuals
um uh let me tell a little story uh
uh for a long time I you know gone to Davos and at Davos which is you know
where all all the Mucky mucks get together to talk to each other uh uh
I for a long time had sessions um with the some corporate
leaders uh some very some important ones
uh about uh Corporate social responsibility uh um sometimes about the
environment sometimes about broader issues of social justice um and
uh many of the people who you the in the sessions I go to you know are seemingly
very uh conscientious and we have discussions about inequality and talk about the data
about how bad things are getting and they express uh concern about uh
inequality and how bad it is um and then one year uh one of the
CEOs a very nice guy who a leader of a major American company
uh said um in our discussion we having
uh you know I just discovered that 40% of my labor force uh is being paid was
paid less than a living wage um which of course was what we've
been talking about for the last five or 10 years but he thought about it in a very
abstract term uh about inequality as a as a you
know as a concept and suddenly it dawned on him that it was actually something
that he was a player this was a game in which he had a lot of uh uh uh agency
and and being able to change and so he said well I mean he said after he
discovered it he raised all his way workers wages to a livable wage you know
it cost his shareholders a little bit but it made him feel a lot better and
and I think in the long run it was probably good for the company uh and the fact that the workers
in the company felt that they were actually not part of the problem but part of the of the solution so um there
are so many aspects of our individual behavior that affects all the things
that I've talked about that uh we ought to think about uh as we go about our
day-to-day life but you know this book is really written much more U as you may
have figured out by now um with a uh political objective uh in
mind um that uh it is really through uh
political action that we're going to change uh uh the way our economic system
works we have to change the regulations the tax structure expenditures the rules
the rules that govern us uh uh uh that govern the economy so uh this is really
a a call for political action and uh try to uh uh engage
governments to move in this direction my own view is very strongly I hope it came
across that uh small tweet to the system
aren't going to be enough um that uh the deficiencies in
our economic system are too grave to uh be remedied by a little bit more
education here a little bit more regulation there um somebody might say well why you know
don't we need a revolution um and I have a little discussion of of that in the book
uh the answer might be uh yes we do need a revolution but the history of revolutions is not uh very good and um and there's a good reason for that because revolutions tear the fabric of society and Society if it's going to function there has to be trust and there has to be a kind of cohesiveness and that's where the term of uh your your term of Co cohesive or what uh uh uh uh um capitalism is a good term so there has to be a certain kind of of social uh cohesion if we're going to get societal change um and so you know what I'm really uh calling for is uh the most radical change reforms that we can get out of our political system and uh uh without a revolution and uh that we can get peacefully because conflict I think is is destructive um so really I try to lay out an agenda for that kind of uh rapid change in our society well thank you that was absolutely wonderful now before
you start clapping I just want to make an announcement and then you're allowed to clap as long as you like which is
that there are signed books you can buy out side but if you want uh Joe to sign your copy of your book you have to queue up here and just for 15 minutes on this side so you can do that after you've clapped but now you're allowed to clap