A dialogue between William Mitchell (kuvassa) and Heikki Patomäki:
”How to overcome the polycrisis? – Debating capitalism, economic growth, and the nation-state-centric order”
Moderator: Konsta Kotilainen
Time: Thursday 1.2.2024 at 16.15–17.45
Venue: Main building of the University of Helsinki, Old side, Karolina Eskelin (U3032)
The world is in a polycrisis. Multiple global problems from the climate emergency to the staggering wealth inequalities are closely intertwined and feed into each other. It is increasingly evident that the polycrisis cannot be overcome without seeing and tackling the interconnections between the problems. For instance, stopping the climate from heating up can hardly be achieved without stopping the rich and super-rich from overconsuming. In other words, a systemic change of one kind or another is needed.
But what kind of a systemic change? William Mitchell, one of the founders of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), argues in his upcoming book that we (may) need to move beyond global capitalism and economic growth as such. Heikki Patomäki, a leading cosmopolitan Keynesian, sees more room to reform the global system, the dynamics of which stem from the interactions of territorial state reasoning and global capitalist profit-seeking. For Mitchell, the appropriate scale of reform has tended to be national. By contrast, Patomäki’s latest book makes a case for taking further steps into the direction of (what he calls) world statehood.
In this very timely dialogue, Mitchell and Patomäki discuss, and at times perhaps debate, the similarities and differences between their systemic approaches to the polycrisis. Is either of the approaches more feasible, viable, and/or desirable? In which way and on what grounds?
Speakers
William Mitchell is Professor of Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity at the University of Newcastle. He is also a Visiting Fellow at Kyoto University and Docent in Helsinki. His most recent books are Reclaiming the State: A Progressive Vision of Sovereignty for a Post-Neoliberal World (2017) and Macroeconomics (2018, with L. Randall Wray and Martin Watts).
Heikki Patomäki is Professor of World Politics and Global Political Economy in Helsinki, Docent in Lappland and Turku, and Life Member of Clare Hall, University of Cambridge. His most recent books are The Three Fields of Global Political Economy (2022) and World Statehood: The Future of World Politics (2023).