MdM Keynote Speaker Series 2022: "The Tragedy of the Commons, Revisited", by Prof. Dirk Philipsen

Prof. Dirk Philipsen, from Duke University, will be giving a keynote on “The Tragedy of the Commons, Revisited”. Our invited speaker will be available for informal meetings with ICTA-UAB researchers afterwards. You can also follow the event live by zoom.

 

MdM Keynote Speaker Series 2022


Title: “The Tragedy of the Commons, Revisited”   

  
Speaker: Prof. Dirk Philipsen, Associate Research Professor of Economic History at the Sanford School of Public Policy, and Senior Fellow at the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University
  

Date: Wednesday,  2^nd of November 2022
Time: from 11:30 to 12:30 
Venue: Room Z/023 - Z/022  - Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85614278071?pwd=dlZrZG5NOVNONGlEaXBLNERJSWZUUT09

  

BRIEF BIOGRAPHY and RESEARCH INTERESTS   

Dirk Philipsen is a historian and political economist at Duke University (USA), Senior Fellow at the Kenan Institute for Ethics, Fellow at the Royal Society of Arts, and founding associate of the Wellbeing Economy Alliance. His research (and writing) centers wellbeing economics, the costs of growth, and the history of capitalism. His latest book is published by Princeton University Press under the title “The Little Big Number – How GDP Came to Rule the World, And What to Do About It” (2015/17). He is currently researching alternatives to economic systems grounded in expansion and growth. For a sample of such questions, see “The Tragedy of the Private: Theft, Property, and the Loss of a Commons” 

TOPIC of the KEYNOTE    

This talk explores the idea of property. It examines the extent to which endless and exponential economic growth is rooted, both conceptually and historically, in property, a historical construct that predated growth, and without which there is no growth. After reviewing some fundamental qualities of property, I will argue that a necessary post-growth future requires re-conceptualizing the central role of property in contemporary societies. Within capitalist economies, growth is the basis of concentrated power, escalating inequality, ecological destruction, and what I call the tragedy of the private.