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The Future of Capitalism and Fiscal Reform

Capitalist economies are undergoing rapid changes, leading to new grievances and the revival of old challenges in a new guise. Firstly, economic inequalities could approach the levels of the Belle Époque, injecting new life into questions about the justifiability of capitalism. Secondly, technology could fundamentally change the labour market, providing new opportunities but also raising doubts about the possibility of employment for all. 

In this seminar, we explore recent proposals by political philosophers that addresses these challenges to capitalism. And we will quantitatively analyse fiscal reform proposals aimed at realising them. 

For instance, early defenders of capitalism, including David Hume and Adam Smith, saw capitalism as a tremendous improvement over feudalism. But critics today point out how current institutional structures are incompatible with social justice.  We will focus on this comparison to diagnose which type of reforms would be needed to achieve a just system.  Such proposals are those related to property owning democracy, including sweeping tax and expenditure reforms. 

Having established those reform proposals and their philosophical underpinnings, we will look at the fiscal forecasting and fiscal reform literature in order to quantitatively assess the financial impact of these policies. This will allow us to assess their feasibility and relate them to the current debate.  

Please apply for the course here.

V3 / V4 priority for year 2016

V3 / V4: 6 ECTS graded