The Economic Democracy Initiative (EDI), led by Bard College, is the Open Society University Network's collaborative program focusing on the structural determinants of economic insecurity. Its projects examine the connections between inequality, unemployment and poverty and the policy space and financing capacities of governments to address these challenges.
Economic Democracy Initiative and Levy Economics Institute welcomed scholars for a two-day workshop on new research directions in the areas of money, finance, and public policy for intersecting crises, exploring synergies between different research traditions. The event was held at Blithewood on November 3–4, 2023.
All sessions were recorded and are available to watch online.
EDI was instrumental in the preparation of the new United Nations report on the job guarantee, “The Employment Guarantee as a Tool in the Fight Against Poverty,” which was released in June 2023 by the UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights Olivier De Schutter. Director Tcherneva provided her expert opinion in the development of the report.
The EDI Working Paper series features original research work on a wide range of topics such as unemployment, government spending, and Modern Money Theory.
The Machine Age and the Human Condition: Possible Futures. Robert Skidelsky, Emeritus Professor of Political Economy, Warwick University.
Tuesday, November 19, 2024
The Machine Age and the Human Condition: Possible Futures
Reem-Kayden Center Laszlo Z. Bito '60 Auditorium5:00 pm – 6:30 pm EST/GMT-5 Lord Robert Skidelsky will give a talk centered on his new book, The Machine Age: An Idea, a History, a Warning. Nearly a century ago, in the essay “Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren” (1930), John Maynard Keynes predicted that his grandchildren’s generation would only need to be laboring a mere three hours a day, given the projected pace of technological change. Skidelsky, Keynes’s biographer, explores why that has not come to pass. This leads him to a broader examination of how, with the intrusion of machines into our lives, “every increase in our own freedom to choose our circumstances seems to increase the power of technology to control those circumstances.” The Machine Age is an ambitious survey of the impact of machines on humanity in its various aspects, peaceful and warlike, democratic and Orwellian, yesterday, today, and tomorrow.