Employment is in transition; the platform economy has enforced more independent entrepreneurship and flexible contracts than we have ever seen. Income inequality is growing as taxation systems reward those with capital, resulting in a loop of the rich getting richer and the poor remaining poor. Simultaneously, housing markets are increasingly under pressure. Subsidised housing seems to no longer suffice in ensuring affordable housing for everyone. How to overcome the insecurities for people that come along with these developments? How can contemporary capitalism ensure happy workers and thriving communities? What actions could and/or should firms take? And what role do governance and democracy have to play in all this?
About the speakers
Isabelle Ferreras is a senior tenured fellow (Maître de recherches) of the Belgian National Science Foundation (F.N.R.S., Brussels). She is professor of sociology at the Université catholique de Louvain (Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium) where she teaches at the Department of Social and Political Sciences, at the Institut des sciences du travail and at the Economics School of Louvain. Since 2004, she has been an associate of the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School (Cambridge, MA) where she is now a Senior Research Associate. Ferreras’s last two books are “Firms as Political Entities. Saving Democracy through Economic Bicameralism,” Cambridge University Press (2018) and “Le Manifeste Travail. Démocratiser, démarchandiser, dépolluer“, co-authored with Julie Battilana and Dominique Méda, Paris: Le Seuil (2020).
Josh Ryan-Collins is Head of Finance and Macroeconomics and Senior Research Fellow at the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose and an economist with interests in finance and banking, land and housing, economic rent and climate change. Josh is the author of three books, two co-authored, of which Why Can’t you Afford a Home (2018, Polity) is the most recent. His work on the interaction between the financial sector and housing markets has received international press coverage and led to invitations to provide guest lectures and advisory work from governments, public agencies, academics and civil society groups from across Europe, including the European Commission.
About the series
Democracy has been disrupted by capitalism to the point of near extinction. Isabelle Ferreras proposes a simple, yet revolutionary solution: democratizing capitalism.
Why is it that you can't afford a home in Amsterdam anymore? British economist Josh Ryan-Collins will answer these question presenting his latest book. Dutch politicians and economists will discuss how relevant his analysis is for the Netherlands, the country with one of the highest mortgage debts of the world. What is needed to make living in Amsterdam affordable again? Is it building of houses? Or do we need more fundamental financial and economic reform? And if so, which ones exactly?
Towards a new market economy in Europe for future generations.
