Events

Browse MMN events below.

Fiscal Machines

May 11, 2015

This seminar will explore the relationship between public investment, technological innovation and twenty-first century internet infrastructure. Questions to be addressed include: How do the government’s investment goals and constraints differ from those of market actors? What is the appropriate role for federal, public investment in technological innovation? What should a twenty-first century public internet infrastructure look like, and what will it take to…

Crowdsourcing Machines

May 5, 2015

This seminar will explore various initiatives aimed at decentralizing the levers of public finance, and increasing the level of citizen and community participation in government budgetary decisions. Questions to be addressed include: How can public finance be harnessed to address issues such as political corruption, copyright overexpansion and structural racial wealth inequality? What are the benefits and drawbacks of promoting citizen-level investment…

Big Data Machines

Apr 28, 2015

This seminar explores the growing importance of big data to economic activity, and the effect of this shift on personal freedom and systems of social discrimination and control. Questions to be addressed include: How are businesses adopting big data tools, algorithms and practices into their commercial and employment practices? What are the legal, social and personal ramifications of our collective transition to…

Money Machines

2015

Description This series examines the tools, technologies and systems that drive and shape the forces of money and finance in the twenty-first century economy. Rationale The rise of the Internet and digital computing has irreversibly altered the course of modern finance capitalism. Yet, the underlying dynamic of technological innovation driving economic change is nothing new. Monetary and financial systems have historically…

An Economic Bill of Rights for the 21st Century

Oct 18, 2014

This conference will consider Franklin D. Roosevelt’s proposal for an Economic Bill of Rights, guaranteeing included employment at living wages, housing, medical care, education and old age security. In 1944 Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed an Economic Bill of Rights whose guarantees included employment at living wages, housing, medical care, education and old age security. This conference will consider FDR’s proposal in light…

Rethinking Economics NYC

2014

A three-day, student-driven conference on economic pluralism, organized in partnership with Rethinking Economics, and hosted by New York University Law School, the New School for Social Research, and Columbia Law School.

Macroeconomic Perspectives on Student Debt

May 1, 2014

This seminar explores the macroeconomic and social dynamics behind the current student debt regime, and potential ways to address them through financial and budgetary reform. Questions to be address include: Who relies most on student debt? Why is student debt different from other kinds of debt? What are the economic implications of financing higher education through a debt-based system? What alternative models exist for…

Complementary and Social Currencies

Dec 4, 2013

This event explores the historical and contemporary evolution and function of complementary and social currencies, and their political and economic implications. Questions to be addressed include: What are complementary and social currencies? How do complementary and social currencies differ in design and function? What are the strengths and weaknesses of complementary and social currencies vis-a-vis state currencies and financial markets? How have complementary and…

Responding to the Unemployment Crisis in Greece

Nov 25, 2013

Rania Antonopoulos, Senior Scholar at the Levy Economics Institute, describes her proposal for an “Employer of Last Resort” program in Greece. Part of the MMx seminar “The Disparate Impact of Unemployment: Macroeconomic Policy as a Tool for Race, Gender, and Age Discrimination” hosted by the Modern Money Network.

The Disparate Impact of Unemployment

Nov 25, 2013

This seminar will explore the relationship between macroeconomic policy and the systemic perpetuation of involuntary unemployment, with a particular emphasis on the discriminatory effect of involuntary unemployment on age, race and gender minorities. In Voyage of the Beagle, Charles Darwin said “[i]f the misery of our poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our…

Lincoln’s Greenbacks

Oct 17, 2013

This seminar will explore the political, economic, and legal innovations leading up to, during, and following the Lincoln Administration and the Civil War. In addition, it will examine the relationship between ante- and post-bellum monetary and financial system innovation and the larger currents of constitutional and social transformation of the period. Questions to be addressed include: What impact did Abraham Lincoln’s presidency…

Taking Money for Granted

Oct 8, 2013

This seminar will explore the current state of legal orthodoxy surrounding the social technology known as “money,” and the impact of prevailing beliefs about its functioning on legal education and the law school experience more generally. Questions to be addressed include: How do lawyers think about what money is, and how it functions? What is the current state of legal scholarship around…