Textbook microeconomics' lifeless abstractions of supply/demand, equilibrium and “perfect” markets contradict the common sense of many, and that is because they contradict the most basic principles of the living world. Join us for an exciting discussion with LBJ professor James Galbraith on his latest book, Entropy Economics, which presents a real-world alternative, centered on theories of value and production, consistent with modern science, showing why governments and markets must work together to draw on resources, manage uncertainty and control inequalities. The discussion will be moderated by LBJ professor Raj Patel.
Rated the “Top New Release” in Microeconomics by Amazon, and mentioned in “for further reading” by the Financial Times.
Lunch will be available for all attendees.
About the Speakers
James K. Galbraith holds the Lloyd M. Bentsen Jr. Chair in Government/Business Relations at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs and a professorship in Government at The University of Texas at Austin. He was executive director of the Joint Economic Committee of the United States Congress in the early 1980s, and before that, an economist for the House Banking Committee. He chaired the board of Economists for Peace and Security from 1996 to 2016 and directs The University of Texas Inequality Project. He is a managing editor of Structural Change and Economic Dynamics.
From 1993 to 1997 Galbraith served as chief technical adviser for Macroeconomic Reform to the State Planning Commission of the People's Republic of China. In 2010, he was elected to the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei. In 2014 he was co-winner of the Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economics. In 2020 he received the Veblen-Commons Award of the Association for Evolutionary Economics. In 2022 he was elected to the Russian Academy of Sciences, and in 2023 to the Lisbon Academy of Sciences. He holds degrees from Harvard University (AB, magna cum laude), in economics from Yale University (M.A., M.Phil, Ph.D.), and academic honors from universities in Ecuador, France and the Russian Federation. He is a Marshall Scholar; a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Texas Philosophical Society; and a member of the Free Economic Society, an organization of economists in Russia, chartered by Catherine the Great in 1765.
Raj Patel is a research professor in the LBJ School of Public Affairs at The University of Texas at Austin and a senior research associate at the Unit for the Humanities at Rhodes University. He studies the world food system and alternatives to it, and recently completed a documentary project about the food system. He has testified about hunger and food sovereignty to the U.S., U.K., and E.U. governments, and is a member of the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems.
In addition to publications in journals about economics, philosophy, politics, international development and public health, Dr. Patel writes for a range of newspapers and co-hosts "The Secret Ingredient" podcast. His books include Stuffed and Starved and The Value of Nothing. He co-authored with Jason W. Moore A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things: A Guide to Capitalism, Nature and the Future of the Planet, published by the University of California Press. Dr. Patel's latest book, co-authored with Rupa Marya, is Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021).