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SUMMARY:The Two Puzzles of Social Democracy: How it Confutes Market Doctri
 nes - Avner Offer (Oxford)
DTSTART:20171121T120000Z
DTEND:20171121T140000Z
UID:TALK88931@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:59961
DESCRIPTION:Economics assumes that every person is a free-standing unit wi
 th something to sell. But over the life-cycle\, dependency on others is in
 escapable through infancy\, education\, unemployment\, ill-health and old 
 age. Social democracy and market liberalism offer different solutions to t
 he same problem: how to provide for life-cycle dependency. Social democrac
 y makes lateral transfers from producers to dependents by means of progres
 sive taxation. Market liberalism uses financial markets to transfer financ
 ial entitlement over time.  Social democracy is undertheorized but works. 
 Economic theory is elaborate but fallible. It is underpinned by the presti
 ge of the Nobel Prize in economics.  In the process of responding to the s
 uccess of social democracy economics shifted its norms from good faith to 
 bad faith\, providing a license of anti-social conduct. The Nobel Prize is
  the pinnacle of meritocracy. The adoption of meritocracy by social-democr
 atic parties has undermined their effectiveness\, and the challenge to mer
 itocracy is the driver of the current political and economic crisis. 
LOCATION:Seminar Room SG2\, Alison Richard Building
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