Food is undervalued in our society. Two centuries of industrial revolutions and technological progress have radically transformed our economy. Along with this, our personal interests, occupations, and priorities have also shifted. In the eighteenth century, agriculture was deemed the essential means of subsistence; nowadays, it ranks in the bottom sectors of our economy. In our
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Follow-up article for the Room for Discussion interview of Google’s chief economist Hal Varian
Google is not a simple company. To some extent, it rather looks like a state. By controlling the way we use the Internet, it seems to rule the state of the digital world. Indeed, Hal Varian, Google’s chief economist, holds as much credibility as a politician nowadays. While he publicly defends open access to Internet,
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Does studying economics transform young economists into advocates of liberalism? From Nobel Prize winners in Economics to your own teachers, many influential economists have shifted from socialist perspectives in their youth to embrace liberal ideas.
“There are no possible rules of a just distribution in a system where the distribution is not deliberately the result of people bringing it about. Justice is an attribute of individual action. I can be just or unjust towards my fellow men; but the conception of social justice to expect from an impersonal process, which
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Last Friday on 15th February, Brexit was placed in the spotlight at the E-hall of UvA. Kicking off the cycle Understanding Brexit: the British Perspective, Room for Discussion invited the UK editor for NRC John Hoogerwaard to shed light on this hot topic. Brexit is ahead of us. Within only six weeks, the deadline for
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In these times where Islamophobia roars through the western world, some voices state that Islam is incompatible with our society. This view, propped up by rising far-right movements, stresses how sharply clash some values embedded in this religion with our democratic principles. Therefore, either Islam must be soon contained, or, otherwise, we will have to
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This week, on Thursday 13 December, Room for Discussion will host an interview under the title “Zorg: een gezonde markt?” – Healthcare: a healthy market? The interview will be held in Dutch and the guests are Georgette Fijneman, CEO of the insurer Zilveren Kruis, and Ernst van Koesveld, director of Healthcare Insurances at the Ministry
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It’s Friday night at the Sotheby’s hall in London. Just another day in the busy marketplace. The auction house is dispatching artwork after artwork. Frenetic bids are made, deals are agreed, and businesses prosper. In a few seconds, million-dollar trades are being conducted. As a result, new owners will amass new artworks, expecting to turn
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