Joseph Stiglitz: Economics and the Good Society

Commonwealth Club of California Podcast

One of the world’s leading economists joins us to offer a compelling new vision of personal and economic freedom.

Many Americans believe this nation was born from the conviction that people must be free. But since the middle of the last century, that idea has been co-opted. Forces on the political right have justified exploitation by cloaking it in the rhetoric of freedom, leading to pharmaceutical companies freely overcharging for medication, a Big Tech free from oversight, politicians free to incite rebellion, corporations free to pollute, and more.

How did we get here? Whose freedom are we―and should we―be thinking about?

In his new book The Road to Freedom, Nobel Prize winner Joseph E. Stiglitz dissects America’s current economic system and the political ideology that created it, laying bare what he identifies as their twinned failure. He says that “free” and unfettered markets have only succeeded in delivering a series of crises: the financial crisis, the opioid crisis, and the crisis of inequality. While a small portion of the population has amassed considerable wealth, wages for most people have stagnated. Free and unfettered markets have exploited consumers, workers, and the environment alike. Such failures have fed populist movements that believe being free means abandoning any obligations citizens have to one another. As they grow in strength, Stiglitz warns that these movements now pose a real threat to true economic and political freedom.

As an economic advisor to presidents and as chief economist at the World Bank, Stiglitz has witnessed these profound changes firsthand. He argues the failures follow from the elites’ unshakeable dedication to “the neoliberal experiment.” Explicitly taking on giants such as Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman, Stiglitz says accepted ideas about our political and economic life are really just twisted visions that tear at the social fabric while they enrich the very few.

Stiglitz posits what he says is a deeper, more humane way to assess freedoms―one that considers with care what to do when one person’s freedom conflicts with another’s. He says we must reimagine our existing economic and legal systems and embrace forms of collective action, including regulation and investment, if we are to create an innovative society in which everyone can flourish.

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