160. Economy 2.0 - The Problem of Centralization and Business beyond Profit

For today’s episode, host Josh Sidman sat down with Willem Buiter to discuss the dynamics of monetary systems. Our conversation was held and recorded in June of 2025.Dr. Buiter is an economist, commentator, author, and consultant. Formerly, he was Chief Economist and Special Counsel to the President of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, a European multilateral development institution similar to the World Bank. Dr. Buiter also served as an External Member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee. From 2010 to 2018, he was the Chief Global Economist at Citigroup, and remained an economic advisor until 2019. Being an expert in Economics, he has held numerous teaching positions at esteemed universities, such as Yale and the London School of Economics. He briefly served as a consultant for the IMF’s Research Department in the 70s, and has written extensively on economic issues for publications such as the Center for Economic Policy Research, Project Syndicate, Jackson Hole Economics, as well as his books and blogs. I’d love to cover more of his impressive positions, but there are too many for this introduction alone. Dr. Buiter earned his bachelor’s from the University of Cambridge, and his master’s and Ph.D. from Yale, all in economics. Together, we discussed Dr. Buiter’s critique of fiat currencies, his thoughts on Central Bank Digital Currencies, and why monetary policy is so important to maintaining economic stability.To check out more of our content, including our research and policy tools, visit our website: https://www.hgsss.org/

Our talk is hosted by Ed Dodson, a long-time faculty member here at the Henry George School and was recorded in May of 2025.Today’s episode is part one of a two-part series on the state of the US economy. This is a long-running series Ed does here at the school to inform listeners of the status of everyday Americans.Mr. Dodson attended Shippensburg University and Temple University, where he received an economics degree. Ed worked for Fannie Mae, a public-private partnership to help distribute home mortgage loans. During his time at Fannie Mae, Mr. Dodson held numerous management and analyst positions within the Housing & Community Development group, helping revitalize neighborhoods and local communities. This gives him an interesting perspective on land use and reform, and how it can reduce inequality. He also has extensive experience as a history lecturer at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute and the Learning is For Everyone program at Burlington County College. Edward has written many papers on history and the political economy and is the author of a three-volume book series titled The Discovery of First Principles.Ed joined the Henry George School to discuss monetary policy, why public policy has been ineffective in tackling homelessness, and why the Trump administration’s tariffs could cause stagflation. To check out more of our content, including our research and policy tools, visit our website: https://www.hgsss.org/

Our talk is hosted by Ed Dodson, a long-time faculty member here at the Henry George School, and was recorded in May of 2025.Mr. Dodson attended Shippensburg University and Temple University where he received an economics degree. Ed worked for Fannie Mae, a public-private partnership to help distribute home mortgage loans. During his time at Fannie Mae, Mr. Dodson held numerous management and analyst positions within the Housing & Community Development group, helping revitalize neighborhoods and local communities. This gives him an interesting perspective on land use and reform, and how it can reduce inequality. He also has extensive experience as a history lecturer at the Osher Life Long Learning Institute and the Learning is For Everyone program at Burlington County College. Edward has written many papers on history and the political economy and is the author of a three-volume book series titled The Discovery of First Principles.Together, we discussed the criticisms of mainstream economics, why countries go through economic cycles, and the housing unaffordability crisis.To check out more of our content, including our research and policy tools, visit our website: https://www.hgsss.org/

“Show me the incentives and I’ll show you the outcome”. These were the wise words of the late Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett’s former business partner. What he meant by that was that if you incentivize good and productive business behavior, your business will grow. If you reward bad and unproductive behavior, your business and, ultimately, the consumer, will suffer. Since the 1980s, the economic and legal frameworks we’ve used have incentivized bad behavior. Today, we’ll discuss Shareholder Primacy, which is the idea that a firm’s primary responsibility is to maximize value for its shareholders. Its proponents believe that by maximizing value for shareholders, there is greater accountability, more incentives to invest in productive capabilities, and a higher likelihood of risk-taking leading to innovation. From the 80s to the 2000s, these ideas reigned supreme across economic and legal circles. They helped shape law and policy to create the highly corporatized economy we see today. But now, some of the flaws of this framework are beginning to manifest. Corporate profits as a percentage of GDP remain high relative to prior decades. Corporate profits now make up 12% of GDP, down from its peak of 12.8% in 2021, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. This is at a time when most Americans are still reeling from inflation earlier in the 2020s. A recent report from the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity found that the bottom 60% of households are out of reach of a minimal quality of life. Using the framework of shareholder primacy, a time of high corporate profits should translate to a high standard of living. But we just aren’t seeing that.Why? Well, it depends on who you ask. I sat down with Harrison Karlewicz, a P.hD candidate at UMass Amherst, whose work shows that investing in equities doesn’t always translate to investment in productive assets that will help companies grow. Instead of efficiently channeling savings to companies that need resources, like we’re taught financial markets are for, they have become a place where speculation can lead to rent-seeking. There was a lot of nuance to the conversation. Financial markets weren’t all good or all bad. But, I think we have to be realistic about the role financial markets and assets play in the economy. Our conversation touched a lot upon how businesses can be better structured to invest in assets that will help the company grow and provide good-quality products to consumers.Mr. Karlewicz is wrapping up his dissertation at UMass Amherst, where he works with Lenore Palladino, a Political Economist, on projects about corporate governance, industrial organization, and financialization. He is a research assistant at UMass’s Political Economy Research Institute and a Fellow at McClave and Associates, an economic consulting firm. He has taught economics and math at Springfield College and Berkshire Community College. His work has been published by multiple outlets such as the Roosevelt Institute and Jacobin. Harrison earned his bachelor’s degree in economics and political science from Seattle Pacific University and his master’s from Bard College in Economic Theory and Policy. Together, we discussed the Robinhood-Gamestop debacle, the differences between public and private financial markets, and how policy can better incentivize investment in productive capabilities. To check out more of our content, including our research and policy tools, visit our website: https://www.hgsss.org/

For today’s episode, host Josh Sidman is joined by Phillip Ullmann. Our conversation was held and recorded in May of 2025.Mr. Ullman is a social entrepreneur known for founding businesses that are beneficial to local communities. He is the Chief Energizer of Cordant Group, a recruiting company that takes a holistic approach to sourcing executives. In 2017, Phillip restructured the company to become a social business, capping executive salaries and putting a limit on dividend distributions. The Cordant Group was subsequently sold in 2020 to the Recruitment Company, where Mr. Ullman still remains involved. He is also the founder of Covenant Advisory, a consultancy that helps businesses and governments align their operational strategy with societal goals. Phillip’s views are informed by his scriptural research, giving him an interesting perspective on how the business community should interact with the rest of society. Mr. Ullman earned his master’s in business administration from Brunel University of London and a master’s in engineering from the University of Cambridge.Phillip joined the Henry George School to discuss how a moneyless economy could work, why it is good to avoid centralization within monetary systems, and why the sole responsibility of corporations should not be profit.To check out more of our content, including our research and policy tools, visit our website: https://www.hgsss.org/

For today’s episode, host Josh Sidman is joined by Clive Menzies. Our conversation took place, and was recorded in May of 2025.Mr. Menzies is a political economist and former business executive. He has established multiple companies and led many projects to implement his philosophy of distributed, autonomous, codependent self-organisation (DACSO). Many of these endeavors focus on making information and resources open-sourced, similar to software and coding. Clive is currently a Polymathic Explorer for InvisibleUniverse, a website that promotes DASCO philosophy via writings and video.Together, we discussed Clive’s experiments with DASCO, the distinction between leadership and hierarchy, and Clive's perspective on the role of money within society.To check out more of our content, including our research and policy tools, visit our website: https://www.hgsss.org/

Part of the reason why we wanted to start the Rethinking Economics series is that I think many aspects of economics, economic thinking, and economic institutions need reforming. And one of the main areas where this reform needs to happen is antitrust. Antitrust has become a popular and, as of late, bipartisan issue. Antitrust laws give the government power to regulate, manage competition, prevent monopolies, and stop harm to consumers. Antitrust powers were first vested with the government with the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, when businesses first began to reach their “giant” status. After 1890, there were some pretty substantive reforms to antitrust power that at times strengthened the government’s ability to intervene in the economy, and at other times weakened it. I will let you, the listeners, determine whether you think the government has too much or too little power to intervene in markets, but what is undeniable is the growth of gargantuan companies like Google and Amazon, while the gap between the rich and the impoverished widens. And I’m sure many of you listening think these two phenomena are inextricably linked. So, how can the state better shape markets and market structures to shrink this gap?My guest today helps us reimagine the goals of antitrust and how it can be used to form innovation ecosystems to the benefit of society. Mr. Ahuja is a lawyer, researcher, and political organizer. He initially began his career as an antitrust lawyer at Latham and Watkins, where he mainly worked on competition and market structure cases. After a brief stint working for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, Mr. Ahuja became a Fellow with the Department of Energy, where he worked on reducing market barriers in solar energy. Mr. Ahuja is currently an affiliate of the University of Oxford and a Fellow at Harvard University’s Growth Lab, where he researches and teaches antitrust and green development. He has written numerous publications that have appeared in newspapers and journals such as the Financial Times, Promarket, the Roosevelt Institute, and the Cambridge University Press. Mr. Ahuja earned his master’s from Harvard in Public Policy and Oxford University in Law, and is currently a Ph.D candidate at Oxford.Together, we discussed Mr. Ahuja's innovation-as-capabilities approach to antitrust, green industrial policy, and how the state can shape markets and go beyond simply correcting market failures.To check out more of our content, including our research and policy tools, visit our website: https://www.hgsss.org/

For today’s episode, host Josh Sidman is joined by Michael Linton. Today’s episode was recorded in April of 2025.Mr. Linton is the inventor of the Local Exchange Trade System (LETS) model, an alternative exchange system controlled by communities. Michael created LETS in the 1980s in Comex Valley, in British Columbia. Ever since then, he has focused on system design for community economics, having started other systems in British Columbia and in other places around the world. In the LETS system, information and transactions are recorded by a centralized body within the community. In theory, this gives communities more control over their economy, as resources are more likely to circulate within the community than flow out of it.Mr Linton joined the Henry George School to discuss the shortcomings of conventional currency, what it means to be middle-class, and why governments don’t like having alternative currency systems.To check out more of our content, including our research and policy tools, visit our website: https://www.hgsss.org/

Today's discussion is hosted by Ibrahima Drame,  our Director of Education, who is joined by Oriane Roty. Our conversation was recorded on April of 2025.Ms. Roty is a Ph.D candidate at the Cultural and Discursive Interactions department of the University of Tours in France. She is part of a French Research agency-funded project called the Trust Issues Project, which brings together a multidisciplinary group of researchers to study community land trusts (CLTs) and how they can be adopted in France. Much of her research analyzes the evolution of law around CLTs in response to housing crises. Her research homes in on CLT frameworks in the context of social, historical, and legal events going on at the time. Oriane received her bachelor’s degree from Maastricht University in European Law and the University of Paris Sorbonne in Law, her master’s in Philosophy and Society Research from the University of Paris Sorbonne, and is currently completing her Ph.D at the University of Tours in France.Together, we discussed the origins of community land trusts, compared the French and American land-trust systems, and the causes and impacts of the housing crisis in the western world.To check out more of our content, including our research and policy tools, visit our website: https://www.hgsss.org/

For today’s episode, host Josh Sidman is joined by Teun van Sambeek. Our conversation took place, and was recorded in, April of 2025.Mr. van Sambeek is an IT professional and entrepreneur. After founding multiple companies, he decided to move to Africa to begin building affordable housing. This led to the founding of Bentoniq, a real estate development company that mass produces affordable housing in Sub-Saharan Africa. Teun is also the founder of the 1coinH system, an alternative monetary system. He received two master’s: one in real estate development from the University of Amsterdam and the other in Construction Engineering Technologies from the Eindhoven University of Technology. Mr. van Sambeek joined Economy 2.0 to discuss the security and privacy of blockchain technology, how alternative monetary systems can avoid inflation via money printing, and how his monetary system can replicate UBI without spiking inflation. To check out more of our content, including our research and policy tools, visit our website: https://www.hgsss.org/