Glen Weyl, co-author of the book Radical Markets: Uprooting Capitalism and Democracy for a just society, will be joining us for a candid talk with Silvija Seres, President of Polytechnic Society. Radical Markets presents revolutionary ideas on how to use markets to bring about fairness and prosperity for all. The podcast will center on these topics and new technologies, in particular blockchain technology.

This will be the first in a series of podcasts from Polytechnic Society.

About the book

Many blame today’s economic inequality, stagnation, and political instability on the free market. The solution is to rein in the market, right? Radical Markets turns this thinking―and pretty much all conventional thinking about markets, both for and against―on its head. The book reveals bold new ways to organize markets for the good of everyone. It shows how the emancipatory force of genuinely open, free, and competitive markets can reawaken the dormant nineteenth-century spirit of liberal reform and lead to greater equality, prosperity, and cooperation.

Eric Posner and Glen Weyl demonstrate why private property is inherently monopolistic, and how we would all be better off if private ownership were converted into a public auction for public benefit. They show how the principle of one person, one vote inhibits democracy, suggesting instead an ingenious way for voters to effectively influence the issues that matter most to them. They argue that every citizen of a host country should benefit from immigration―not just migrants and their capitalist employers. They propose leveraging antitrust laws to liberate markets from the grip of institutional investors and creating a data labor movement to force digital monopolies to compensate people for their electronic data.

Only by radically expanding the scope of markets can we reduce inequality, restore robust economic growth, and resolve political conflicts. But to do that, we must replace our most sacred institutions with truly free and open competition―Radical Markets shows how.

About the Author

Glen Weyl is a Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research New York City, who uses ideas from political economy to develop social technology for widely-shared prosperity and social cooperation.

He is teaching a course on the book Radical Markets at Princeton University this fall as a Visiting Research Scholar and Lecturer.

Glen was born in San Francisco on May 6, 1985 and raised in the Bay Area, where he was a Democratic and socialist activist, before becoming an Ayn Rand follower and founding a national teenage Republican organization while attending boarding school at Choate Rosemary Hall in Connecticut.  Much of his life since has been about reconciling these apparently contradictory ideologies. As he worked to do this, he was valedictorian of Princeton University’s 2007 class, receiving an AB in economics, followed by an MA and PhD in 2008.  He then spent three years as a Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows and three years as an Assistant Professor at the University of Chicago before joining Microsoft.  He is a Sloan Research Fellow 2014-2019.

Høst-tilbud!

Få medlemskap ut året for kun:

– Studenter:                     100 kr.

– Seniorer (over 70 år):  300 kr

– Ordinært:                      500 kr

Dette tilbudet gir adgang til samtlige møter ut året i regi av Polyteknisk Forening. For innmelding, ta kontakt med oss på polyteknisk@polyteknisk.no eller ring oss på 2242 6870. Du kan gjerne betale med VIPPS: 81911.

Spesialarrangement og konferanser i samarbeid med partnere er ikke inkludert, men tilbys til sterkt reduserte priser for medlemmer av Polyteknisk Forening.

Vi ønsker nye medlemmer velkommen!

Listen to the podcast here.