Friends,
I’m having a party with the pope’s favorite economist, and you’re all invited.
Join my Zoom conversation today with the brilliant Mariana Mazzucato. It’s at 12:30 p.m. New York time, 9:30 a.m. West Coast time, 5:30 p.m. London time. No word at present on whether the pope will join us.
ICYMI, this was my interview of Mariana late last year.
Your free ticket to today’s event can be found here.
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Just exited the webinar with Mariana Mazzucato - feeling giddy with delight over the clarity and relevance of the topics discussed! Thank you Anand for the opportunity! As soon as its published on YouTube I want to share it as widely as possible!
During the zoom conversation, there was discussion of terms of conditionality given to corporations who receive patents, in this instance, for pharmaceuticals - the reasoning is that patents are essentially a contract between government and corporations granting them exclusive rights (including sizable profits), and that there is rightness to quid pro quo expectations that the government is not currently applying.
Anand used the analogy of the need for the state to act something akin to a benevolent mobster, who reminds the corporations the benefits that they receive from the government's influence on the neighborhood, and a menu choice of actions that they can choose from if they are to receive the favor.
One of those great benefits in the U.S. is the court system.
It is a very good court system, 8 billion yearly in overhead fees, (And most of the actions of the court in the U.S. involve business litigation: involving the environment that corporations operate in, settling disputes so that they can function - and benefit).
So yes, the U.S. court system.
There is a very good article in Politico, available online "They Just Launched a War", a very good read regarding an opening in the ways that racial justice cases with respect to addressing structural abuses.
And....some explanation of the combination posted yesterday might be in order.
The theme "same as it ever was". The implicit thread was us-versus-them,, what I think of (and belabor upon) as our species design flow. Just comes up again and again, manifesting in different contexts. It acts at a level that is pre-verbal, and collective. We get so involved in the specific forms, I think, that we fail to sufficiently recognize - and therefor fail to include it in consideration while seeking to address the problems that arise.
I wonder at times if it is in fact possible.
I think and hope that it is.
But I just don't know.
(I hope that it's okay to link the article...)
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/05/09/protesters-police-violence-ohio-court-485435
(Uh oh..."I just don't know", triggered an association...."Heroin", but I won't link.)