Economics & Beyond with Rob Johnson

World-renowned economist and inequality researcher Thomas Piketty in conversation with Rob Johnson, about Piketty’s just-released book, A Brief History of Equality.

Cambridge University's American History professor Gary Gerstle discusses his most recent book, about how the neoliberal order came about, why it is faltering, and the indeterminacy of what comes next.

Columbia University's renowned economist Jeffrey Sachs talks about the lessons he has learned from consulting with governments around the world, about how global problems, such as the war in Ukraine, will only be solved via efforts to understand the other side, never through force.

Luohan Academy's Director Chen Long discusses the academy's latest report, on the benefits of creating a "digital circular economy," which would go a long way towards reaching net zero carbon emissions and addressing the climate crisis. Report link: https://www.luohanacademy.com/insights/bc89734b94adf00c

MIT economic historian Peter Temin discusses his new INET-CUP book, Never Together: The Economic History of a Segregated America, in which he shows how efforts to bridge the gap between races were always undermined, resulting in constant economic hardship for Black people.

Author and peace activist Norman Solomon talks about the double standards in US foreign policy that have smoothed the path for Russia's inexcusable invasion of Ukraine. The role of the military-industrial-complex in the US is one of the main reasons we lack a single standard for the use of military force and human rights, says Solomon.

The Toronto Star journalist Joanna Chiu discusses her book, China Unbound: A New World Disorder, which argues that we need to go beyond the typical over-simplifications of democratic West versus autocratic China if we hope to engage China in a way that seriously addresses issues such as human rights, climate change, and economic development.

Distinguished Fellow at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore, Kishore Mahbubani, discusses his latest book, The Asian 21st Century, in which he relates US decline to the rise of plutocracy and Asia's renewed rise - after having fallen behind in the last 200 years - to its growing sense of dynamism, optimism, and diversity. This is the 200th episode of the podcast Economics and Beyond with Rob Johnson.

UNCTAD Director Richard Kozul-Wright and Kevin Gallagher, Global Development Policy professor at Boston University, discuss their book, The Case for a New Bretton Woods. Ever since the post-war economic order was dismantled beginning in the 1980s, a re-design of the global economic order has become increasingly urgent in light of the social and ecological crises that we face.

Peter Barnes, the entrepreneur and author of the recently published book, Ours: The Case for Universal Property, talks about how new conceptions of property - a universal commons - could fundamentally transform capitalism to make it more ecologically and socially sustainable.