In this second installment of his year-long series of lectures on “Understanding the Economy,” Prof. Kohn explains that the real obstacle to continuing economic progress was not the inherent limitations of a subsistence or organic economy, but predation.
The first of Prof. Kohn's talks, "Is Finance Theft?" (Sept. 26), is available on YouTube here.
Thursday Oct. 17 at 6 pm in Rocky 2.
Sponsored by the Political Economy Project, this series is free and open to the public.
Please join us for a wide-ranging discussion with Lawrence H. Summers, former Treasury Secretary of the United States and former President of Harvard University. Among the topics to be covered are the economic challenges facing U.S. policymakers, including the growing fiscal deficit, the geopolitical rivalry with China, the coming disruption caused by AI, the recent debate about intellectual diversity in the academy, and more.
Since 2012 a heated debate has been underway about the use of lethal autonomous weapon systems (LAWS) in war. Some critics argue that these weapons are an affront to human dignity, invite dangerous escalations, and could even place war under the systemic control of machines, with humans reduced to merely activating them. Is this scenario plausible? And should states forgo LAWS, despite the operational advantages they possess? Greg Reichberg, a research professor in the Peace Research Institute in Oslo, will discuss.
What are the key factors shaping the military, political, and economic prospects of Latin America as a region? Where is the promise and where is the peril? As a U.S. election looms, what role can or should the United States play in promoting stable development throughout the hemisphere?
Peter Deshazo (’69, Ph.D. UW-Madison) is a career-long expert on Latin America through his work in the State Department, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Johns Hopkins’ School of Advanced International Studies and elsewhere.
Strain and Leonhardt draw on their recent books—The American Dream is Not Dead: But Populism Could Kill It (2020), and Ours Was the Shining Future: The Story of the American Dream (2023), respectively—to debate one of the pressing issues of our time: whither the American Dream?
The recording of this Oct. 14 debate is now available here.