State intervention into the economy is back on the political agenda. What might economic planning look like in the 21st century? What is the appropriate balance between democratic, technocratic, and market power in shaping economic life and responding to social and political challenges? Could economic planning help solve some of our most pressing problems, including global warming, economic stagnation, and the crisis of care? Or would a turn to planning today merely repeat the errors and tragedies of the 20th century?

This series of talks, sponsored by the Economic Planning and Democratic Politics research project at the Neubauer Collegium, aimed to foster a deeper understanding of various theoretical stances on economic planning. Our speakers drew on insights from Austrian economics, neoclassical economics, Keynesian, and democratic socialist perspectives.

About the Speaker

Suresh Naidu is Jack Wang and Echo Ren Professor of Economics and Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. He works on political economy and historical labor markets. Naidu is interested in the economic effects of democracy and non-democracy, monopsony in labor markets, the economics of American slavery, guest worker migration, and labor unions and labor organizing.

Other Events in the Series

Peter J. Boettke on the Austrian Perspective

J. W. Mason on Keynes, Carbon, and Socialism

Fikret Adaman and Pat Devine on Participatory Democratic Eco-Socialist Planning