Abstract:
UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose
This week’s lectures argues how decades of research and the 2008 financial crisis has exposed severe shortcomings in the orthodox neoclassical economic model and raised questions about policies and political ideologies that derive from that model. Eric makes the case that the economy is not the static equilibrium system of traditional theory but is in fact a “complex adaptive system”. He discusses what that perspective means and how such an understanding radically changes our notions of how the economy works and how it might be made to work better for more people. Eric also closes with some thoughts on implications of this perspective for politics, policy, and the future of capitalism.
The Rethinking Capitalism undergraduate module provides students with a critical perspective on these ‘grand-challenges’ and introduces them to new approaches to economics and policy which challenge standard thinking.
The module draws on the book “Rethinking Capitalism”, edited by Mariana Mazzucato (Director of IIPP) and Michael Jacobs (Visiting fellow in the UCL School of Public Policy). It features guest academic lectures from some of the chapter authors. These academic lectures are combined with presentations by policy makers working at the frontline of the issues under discussion, including from the Bank of England, the UK Treasury and government departments dealing with innovation and climate change.