Please join us for our last meeting of the Money, Markets, and Governance Workshop on Tuesday, November 28, at 5 – 6:30 PM, in the Social Science Research Building, room 401. This meeting will be held as a joint session with the Historical Capitalisms Workshop, and we are honored to have a special guest and an old friend of the workshop, Prof. Bob Meister, who will present a chapter from his new book (in print)
Robert Meister
Professor of Social and Political Thought, History of Consciousness, UCSC
Justice as an Option
Discussant: Yaniv Ron-El
PhD Student, Sociology, University of Chicago
Abstract: This chapter proposes that we consider historical justice dynamically as, itself, an option that has a present value even when it can’t be exercised. In describing historical justice as an option, I’m saying that past injustice confers what financial economists would call a conditional (or “state-contingent”) right to “put” the past injustice back to its present beneficiaries at a price above its market value at the time the put is exercised. Drawing on deliberately politicized interpretations of financial theory and technologies, and of the U.S. government’s interventions during and following the financial crisis of a decade ago, the paper argues that advocates for greater justice should not dismiss technologies of finance merely because they notice their dependence on the government, but rather leverage this to fact to political advantage. The question of historical justice can be reanimated for our time by focusing attention on the social machinery by which unequal wealth is preserved and accumulated.
For accessibility or other concerns, please contact the workshop administrator: yanivr {at} uchicago {dot} edu