Margaret Levi: Political Scientist, Author, & Professor at Stanford University
In our first episode of the year, Matt speaks with Margaret Levi, distinguished political scientist, author, and professor at Stanford University. They delve into Margaret and her team’s groundbreaking work of reimagining property rights. The captivating discussion revolves around their approach's key principles: emphasizing well-being, holistic sustainability encompassing culture and biodiversity, and striving for equality.<br><br>RadicalxChange has been working with Margaret Levi and her team at Stanford, together with Dark Matter Labs, on exploring and reimagining the institutions of ownership.<br><br>This episode is part of a short series exploring the theme of What and How We Own: Building a Politics of Change.
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Transcript
This is a RadicalxChange production. Hello, and welcome to Radical Exchanges. Today's episode is the first in a short series exploring the theme of what and how we own, building a politics of change. To kick things off, Matt Pruitt talks with Margaret Levy, renowned political scientist, author, and professor at Stanford University. The discussion focuses on three desiderata that Margaret and her team are developing as they rethink property rights to create a system that prioritizes well-being, sustainability, and equality. RadicalxChange has been working with Margaret Levy and her team at Stanford, together with Dark Matter Labs, on exploring and expanding the tenets of ownership. This conversation is one of many in laying the foundation for the partnership. Without further ado, here is Matt Pruitt and Margaret Levy.
Professor Margaret Levy, thank you so much for, for for joining me today. Great to talk to you.
As always, Matt. Lovely to be with you.
So my first question is, why does property interest you? What brings you to this topic?
Well, as I think, you know, I've been, when I was director of the Center for Advanced Study and Behavioral Sciences, CASBIS, as it's infelicitously known at Stanford, we had a big project on rethinking the moral political economy. And what we meant by that was the political economic structures that, inform our society and really regulate it. But every political economy since the time of Adam Smith has had several features that I think are quite important to emphasize. One is that they all have some underlying set of values implied in them. And those shift over time as time changes. A lot of the kind of thing you're thinking about in regard to liberalism is the same kind of problem of what are the what are the underlying values here? The other thing is that political economic structures tend to take on a life of their own. And so often a population tends to think of them as natural, when in fact they're socially and humanly constructed and should be, subject to change, as the needs of the population changes and as the populate and who counts as citizens or or voices becomes more inclusive. So you think of the beginning of the, eighteenth century and women, people of color of all kinds, slaves, unpropertied, had no voice. And, now all of us do. So at least to some extent, maybe not equally, but certainly, much more than was true then. And one of the crucial aspects of any political economic structure is who owns property, what kinds of rights does property ownership convey? How does it affect the economic system, but also how does it affect the political system and the social relations? And as we move into the deeper into the twenty first century, we become much more alert about how it affects how those property relationships affect things like sustainability of the earth and the planet and all of its biodiversity and how it affects sustainability, a variety of cultures that seem to be under threat, not just indigenous cultures, though, all cultures in some sense have, you know, those kinds of peoples may have some indigeneity involved, but all kinds of cultures that have been developed over time that are, that have become, part of the way people live.
One thing that stands out, to me and I think to many others, when we're talking about property and ownership is that these institutions sometimes sort of fade into the background and seem like they seem like unchangeable or sort of immovable premises, in the way that our political systems, the way that our economic systems are set up. But I think, and I suspect you, agree that if you look closely, if you look more closely, they actually have evolved quite considerably over time. Quite a lot.
I mean, let's I mean, the most apparent example, of course, is slavery, which was a property right. People had the right to own other people. There are very few places in the world or even people in the world who would think any longer that slavery is legitimate. They may practice it, but they know that it's not either legal or legitimate, anywhere. That was not true two hundred years ago or even a hundred years ago in many places, even fifty years ago in some places. So that's a property right that has changed a lot. If we think about even ownership of land or housing, just think of all the rules and regulations in advanced industrial liberal democracies that affect what we can do with our own land and with our own houses, how they can be built, how they can be sold, how they are managed, what, what, just a whole bunch of things that relate to it. Fire safety, health safety. If we think about, our labor as a form of property that we can buy and sell a very Marxian notion, but a notion that's gone back well beyond that and well into the, into the present that there are certain kinds of controls over our own labor. Our time, the products of our labor, the skills that we bring into the labor process, the use of tools, all of that has evolved in terms of what regulates it, who owns it, what ownership even means of labor. So we no longer are are quite the characters in the Marxian tale of the workers with their heads down going into the factory. You know, we might have to fight and struggle with the employers, but there's a fight and a struggle going on. So that's already a transformation of what we mean by even ownership of labor. So all of those things have evolved and, you know, we go into other forms of ownership and property, and they've they've all evolved, I'd say.
When you think about the evolution of property and ownership over time, there are clear examples where it seems to have taken a good turn, like, some of the examples you just gave. There might be other examples where it has evolved in an unwelcome way where the these institutions have taken wrong turns. I'm curious if you have thoughts about sort of what drives those kinds of historical processes and, and and maybe maybe what, you know, what are some of the wrong turns that you think are the current institutional landscape have taken to get us where we are?
Well, I'm a social scientist. So part of my answer will be that it's a multivariate problem. There's not a single variable that explains all of that. But there are some, I think, very strong factors. One is profit, which has always been at issue in all in the history of property. Who's gonna benefit from its improvement or its ownership or a way to do that. And the way that that takes form in the twenty first century, certainly in a country like The US has to do with all kinds of financial instruments and banks and a complex set of factors that humans like us have very little control over. It's sort of in a set of institutional arrangements, as well as some individuals who were profiting quite largely, but in government rules and regulations that have affected financialization that make housing, for example, almost unaffordable. There's no reason for housing to be unaffordable. Most of the factors that go into housing, the costs have reduced, in terms of building a house. So, and there are all kinds of ways in which we have government insurance that should enable us to afford mortgages and other kinds of things, not everyone, but a lot of us. And there's no reason why social insurance of various kinds should not be providing housing for those who can't afford a mortgage or a rent. But the ways in which those things have evolved and the kinds of profit motives that have evolved around that have made it and the interests, who makes big profit off of real estate, has, has undermined, I think, some fundamental property rights in housing. If you think about most democracies owning a house is like, or having at least the right to shelter is, an incredibly important piece of the rights of citizenship. It gives rights, it gives protections. It is a crucial thing. And yet that has clearly deteriorated. The homelessness problem is immense. The unaffordability problem is immense. The problems that current housing regimes create for sustainability of the planet are immense. So I see that as a a clear deterioration as an example.
Yeah. We you've put forth a, sort of a scheme of desiderata of or of, goals or values that, a scheme of property or ownership, should, should advance. And I wanna get to that in a second. I I'd like to get into some of the details of of of what you're saying there. But before we get to the visitor, Roger, I wonder if you could also say a few things about the, current property regime in the sense of, you know, what does it get right? What, you know, what what are some of the things in the way that we formalize property today that you think are worth preserving?
Well, one of the things that's obviously worth preserving is staying very firm that people are not property. And I think that we're making some progress backwards and forwards and backwards and forwards on the extent to which we define our labor as property and the kinds of protections that we as individuals have over that. And I think those things are good things. They often depend on collective actions, unions, organizations of various kinds, but there's certainly been an advance. And I, I would fight hard to preserve that. You know, human trafficking is a scandal, but it's recognized as a scandal, something that might not have been true, not that long ago. So we're making some advance again on these kinds of ways in which forced labor, are, are being treated. I think those things are all good. The advances, not the scandals. I'm trying to think of other domains in which I think there's been some progress. Well, I think there's been some progress in thinking about not everywhere, but at many, many states in The United States, some countries, around the world have really taken seriously protecting, regions of their countries for protecting biodiversity, for protecting wildlife, for protecting the land, for protecting the water. I think the scandals over water rights right now, and the concern, around the Colorado River and other places all around the world. In fact, there are issues around, you know, how do we, how do we actually create a pro an appropriate property rights regime around resources like water. And there are others, you know, we've got to protect the air. The quality of the air is another one. And that, and that's where certain kinds of property rights and certain kinds of regulations and certain kinds of, rules can really make a positive difference. And whether we've achieved that, I would say no, but we're certainly thinking about that. There's, there's an awareness of indigenous claims. As you know, I spend a lot of time in Australia and, and work very closely, and, involved with a variety of ways in which indigenous people of Australia are making reclaiming, their rightful sovereignty and stewardship over land and water. And that's happening in Canada, as we know from our friends at, dark matter and labs and as we know from many other instances. And that's a positive thing. I mean, we have we solved those problems? No. Are we in the midst of a lot of controversy about the right way to think about it? Do we think about rights of nature? Do we think about indigenous sovereignty in all the regards in which indigenous people are asking for sovereignty? I don't know the answers to those questions, but I'm very happy that those questions are now part of our discussion.
This may be a bit of a tangent, so we can also return to it later. But, I'm also curious what you think about the idea of formalization because it seems to me that one of the major themes in sort of modern property rights is, formalization of of people's, you know, dominion over this or that. And, that is, of course, a double edged sword. Right? Because the, you know, formalization can, can give you security against, undue interference. It can also give you security against, or it can also allow people to exert more dominion than they really ought to have in a way that, you know, prevents larger
My home is my castle when I
Yeah. Yeah. So I'm curious. You know, and I know that a lot of thinkers about property like, DeSoto and others have have viewed formalization of property rights as as a really important, way of securing,
people's interest from undue interference. I'm what I I'm just curious if you have So I think this actually leads us into the desiderata because in order to think about formalization, I'd rather not think about how it's been thought of and what it has done, but rather to think about where it should come in to the equation. And I think that is more of an open question than looking at the history certain things that are great, and it's made created problems that are horrible. I mean, just as you said, it's got it's a double edged sword. But if we go to the desiderata that I and my team are developing, I think that helps us to think about formalization. So as you know, Kristan, Emily, Russell, and I are trying to think through what are the kinds of goals that we wanna achieve and that some kind of property rights regime might help us achieve. And those sitterata, include well-being, which is more than economic growth as, as defined by GDP. It's actually things that we've already talked about. You know, people should have well-being includes a whole variety of things that talks about all the, all the people, not just some abstract, figure of economic growth, but do people have housing? Do they have food security? Do they have, the capacity to get the kind of education or skills that they need in order to, to function in the world? If they're very young or if they're disabled, do they have the kind of protections or very old and frail? Do they have the kind of protections that they need to survive? So well-being is a multi has to do with flourishing in a variety of ways and not just economic growth. So that's Deciderata one. Deciderata two, which is really has two parts is sustainability. And we've talked about that a little already. So it's sustainability of the planet, it's diet, it's biodiversity, all of its species, not just its human species, but sustainability is also about various cultures. Some of them indigenous, some of them, cultures that are fighting for their lives right now in some of the wars that we're seeing around the world, whether we're talking about Ukraine or Gaza and Israel, or we're talking about The Sudan. Those are fights often over cultural survival, that are a little different than the fights over indigenous survival, though sometimes those two merge into wars. So there's cultural sustainability and their sustainability of the earth and its biodiversity. And then the final, deciderata really is a harder one to measure and to describe. I mean, philosophers like Elizabeth Anderson can describe relational equality, or Deborah Sats. But it's it's a complex notion, and it really has to do with a regime of a property that allows us to treat each other as equals to see each other as equals to have respect and dignity. And so we're struggling without a frame that exactly. But that's that seems to us a very important desiderata, for us as as a as a people. And that that is affected by property rights and affects property rights. Okay. So then we get back to formalization. Where does formalization come into all that? Well, some of those things can be formalized. You might wanna formalize the right to education, for example, as a property right in a sense that enables people to develop the capacities they need to be respected, to give respect, and to have the skills that they need in order to, to enable their own well-being and the well-being of those who they are feel responsible for or interconnected with. So all of you know, there are formalizations that can occur in other formalizations that get in the way of those deciderata. And then there are times so there'll be some things that are clearly in a category that is a plus for formalization in order to achieve the desiderata, things that'll be clearly in a negative category to get in the way of achieving this desiderata, like some of the financial instruments that we have developed as societies of the time. And then there'll be things where their trade offs are gonna have to be made, where, you know, the deciderata aren't necessarily always and everywhere in every moment compatible with each other. So where do we wanna make trade offs and how do we wanna do that? And that's where relational equality also becomes quite important because there has to be some kind of political mechanism that respects the the plurality of voices that that are there and often greatly intensely held differences that people have and find solutions to that. So there will be trade offs where formalization may be good for one part of the population achieving one part of its ends and not for another. And you just gotta make some choices there. Try to find the best solution that you can.
I guess one, one question is I'm I'm curious about the decision to, think about this problem through the lens of of Desiderata, which in a way is already almost a formalization, if you will. Right? To to say that, you know, well, there are these sort of three categories of goods or values that we that we want property interests to, to vindicate. You You can correct me if I'm sort of, you know, framing this wrong. But the, what I'm I mean, the way that I understand formalizations and the sort of the the,
That's what I'm waiting for before I correct you, to hear what you mean by formalization.
Well well, I guess what I when when I think about formalizations, the way that I think about them is that they are, they are super valuable until you realize their imperfections. You know, they go as far as they go. Right? And eventually, you realize the limits of of of any formalization. And so I think formalizations are good. But before taking them on board, I like to be persuaded that they're really,
the best we can do. You know? And Yeah. But I think we mean something slightly different by formalization. So what I what I mean and what an economist generally means by formalization, or a political economist would have to do with laws in place that give you certain kinds of rights that can be disputed in court, that give you right to certain kinds of contracts that, I mean, that's what formalization has generally meant in the property rights area, who has a legal right to this. It's a it's a legal formality. I don't think of values as formalizations. I think of them as something that will be constantly debated. You know, not subject to the Supreme Court making a decision about which is right or not. It's gotta be Yeah. Of a collective enterprise in that.
Well, in any case, what what is it that I I guess I'm curious what your, argument is for why these three values then are are comprehensive. What what why why should we be confident that the that these three desiderata sort of capture the territory
of values? Till we should be. I think we throw them out there and have a debate. Gotcha. So we till we feel comfortable or enough of us feel comfortable to proceed on those grounds. But what they do for us analytically and is that they give us a way to rethink and reimagine, and reclaim certain kinds of aspects of property ownership, sovereignty, stewardship, and to think about how to, how to organize those or re, develop those in ways that serve us better. I mean, that's the goal of it. So it's it's by not just accepting the kinds of values of, like, economic growth Mhmm. In a narrow sense, but saying there are other values out there that we need that we might wanna that we might wanna attend to. So this is this is our argument. It doesn't have to, you know, hopefully, it opens a debate, and opens people's minds to the fact that there are alternatives to economic growth.
Well, I I like them. I I think that these I think that the deciderata you've chosen are quite, compelling. And one of the reasons I like them is that I think that they they do a good job, covering what feels to me like set of concerns than, you know, what they had growth.
But now we're not the only people. So, you know, I know we share some values. So I think it's really important that they, be debated. I mean, if we're successful, people will say, one, they'll say, oh, yeah. There are alternatives. Two, what should those alternatives be? Do we like these? Yes? No? Maybe? You know? Let's tweak it this way, that way. Let's have a real conversation.
Well, let me this this is let me just give you my gloss on them. Let me tell you why I like them, and you can tell me why this is a good reason to like them or not a good reason to like them. So when I think of, so when I think about this idea of well-being, sort of human well-being, first, and then second, the idea of sustainability within a within a broader context, and then third, the idea of relational equality, They it strikes me that those those three categories of values sort of map onto this idea of, like, intrahuman values. So well-being is like making sure that human beings are have what they need as individual human beings. Right? Then the sustainability has to do with almost extra human values, like our relationship with nature, our relationship with things that go beyond even human society. And then relational equality is sort of inter human values. So the you know, it is connects to the, concepts that you've written about elsewhere in in, like, political equality. But But relational equality, if I understand it correctly, goes beyond political equality. It has to do with, you know, not just sort of equal enfranchisement of individuals vis a vis the government, but ensuring that individuals are able to relate to each other in a more or less equal way so that they can comprise the polity in a in a in a an undistorted way. Right. And, so I'm just curious whether that resonates with you, whether that sort of intrahuman, interhuman, extrahuman, does that does that track for you? Because for me, that's why I find it so persuasive.
It's interesting. Yeah, that tracks for me. That that may not be the way I I have to think about whether I wanna think about it that way, but that tracks for me. Cool.
And, and so, so maybe we let's get into each of them a little bit more if you'd like to. So, what are the well, I suppose let's start with relational relational quality. Can you say a bit about how you think, property ownership regimes that we find in the real world, don't vindicate that that value? And how, how, taking that on as a as a digital or autism would, would might look?
Well, relational equality so there there's a couple things to say here. One, it is it is, as you stated, a precursor or a necessary condition, for political equality, which is something that, I think is a is I personally and my coauthor, Sinker, is an important value. But as we started to play with that, we realized that we needed something more than just equal votes, and ultimately came back to relational equality as the way to get that. So and and it in turn, relational quality in turn, depends on having the rights to certain things. It means that juridical equality politically, but it also means that there is access to, education and skills, access to the things that allow us to it it does mean access to well-being. It's hard to think about having a voice of any kind or feeling dignified if you're sleeping on the street or you are emaciated and, you know, desperate for food. So it these things interconnect with each other to a certain extent. So how does that affect how would we rethink property rights in that regard? I think one, it broadens our notion of property rights or what we mean by property and ownership or access to the resources over which people have control, which is part of what we mean by property. So it does mean that we think as societies are often attempting to think about what it means to have equity in education. What does it mean to have, ensure that everybody, that all children have housing and some security and some safety, so that they have the capacity to, to develop as citizens and to both respect themselves and respect others. That those are critical notions of what property has to mean in some sense.
And, a follow-up question would be, as you describe it, these things actually start to sound to me a little bit like the kinds of concerns that that one might vindicate through other approaches such as, you know, basic rights or some. So I'm curious how you think about the interplay between, you know, because property interests are usually things that can be, you know, acquired or disposed of, things that can be gained and lost. And and so how do you think about, vindicating how do you think about the sort of complimentary roles of trying to vindicate these sorts of interests through a property scheme versus trying to vindicate them through a rights scheme.
Yeah. No. That's a very interesting question. I'm not sure I've I've fully thought that one through. And I look forward to thinking through that question. I do think that basic rights are probably part of the story, but they're not enough because relational equality really has to do with interactions. And basic rights really has to do with what you're owed. What yet. So you and I do think rights have a kind of property quality to them because you can lose them and you can gain them. Yeah. No. I think it's a deep question, Matt. I think it needs to be thought through more. There's a there's a serious interaction there between basic rights and relational equality, but they aren't the same. And, I guess the the question really then becomes how much is relational equality something that is enhanced by using the concept of property around it or not? And I guess I'm I'm not sure about that either, except that if you look at the work, for example, that Elizabeth Anderson did on private governance, clearly our capacity to own our labor or to control it at least, has a huge effect on relational equality. So there's clearly in her mind, a big interaction. And we're still teasing that out for how to think about that in our kind of terms.
Yeah. I mean, one possibility might be that, that, for one reason or another, there are certain aspects of these values that, they can only be taken so far through a rights scheme and that perhaps, you know, a property scheme might enable them to be vindicated further. Yeah. You know, that there's some sort of a baseline and then, and then, and then, and then, and some a more optimal situation that that, you know, property helps us get to. But, yeah, there's clearly an interesting, interesting question there. I'm looking forward to, thinking about it further. Would you like to dive a little bit deeper into the question of sustainability? So how how do you how do you how would you see, a a better scheme of property or ownership, giving us what we want in the sense of of living in harmony with the environment and not depleting resources and things like that?
Well, I think that our notion of property has rested too much on ownership per se and individual ownership and getting a stream of individual benefits from that ownership. It could be a family who owns, but, you know, basically, it's a set of benefits that go to the owner. And that just undermines a whole set of ways in which land, water, resources can be managed so that they one are protected for perpetuity, can't be just used up, which an individual or a family could do. And two, that they're there for the common use, not just for the individual use and how to protect that common nature of the property. And we have other ways of doing that. There's common property ownership, common ownership of the kind that Lynn Ostrom talks about and the various ways in which that can be governed. They're the kinds of indigenous, models of stewardship, which we're becoming much more alert to these days in which there isn't even that kind of ownership and usage in the same sense. It's really, a way of ensuring that everybody gets use of that, and that in the appropriate way and that certain things are protected. And we know that there are other kinds of models that are beginning to arise like rights of nature, for example, that need to be explored. But we have some historical examples in common property and in, in stewardship, which should be brought back into the equation in a much bigger way and and and take the emphasis off of private ownership. I mean, the whole way we got into the Colorado River situation is a combination of, you know, who owned that original piece of land that the water was on or who bought it up. And then it became a lot of individual property rights. And then government came in with all kinds of regulations that were protecting The United States, but not Mexico. And we're protecting, still allowing certain kinds of property private property rights to flourish. That meant that the water gets totally depleted over time and the common and collective good and nature's protection are forgotten here. So I do think there are other models. And by thinking about it that way, we can begin to move towards something very different if we put sustainability up there and not just individual rights of ownership.
And what do you think about you know, what do you think about proposals that would, for example, give, give ownership style rights to, ecosystems or, you know, nonhuman entities like that. So these this is sometimes put forward as a as a way of of of using a property like scheme to vindicate these kinds of interests. Do you I'm just curious what your thoughts are about that that approach.
I have I think it's interesting and potentially promising. But I think it's far from worked out as a way to do things. So for the moment, I mean, I think it's worth exploring as a possibility if we can figure out a way to do it. But certainly, there are ways even under, I mean, some common property rights regimes and certainly some stewardship regimes think hard about, as it were the ecosystem or the whole ecology. I mean, that's part of what they're doing. I I mentioned the Australian aborigines and when they're protecting, water resources, which is something they do a lot, They're thinking about the whole ecology. It's not just about whether they'll have water when they come back. It's whether the land will have water, whether, you know, the in if we're talking that's in the desert. If we're thinking about, where they're protecting water rights and the water ecology in the Northern part of Australia in the, more tropical part, they're also thinking about the fish and, the algae. You know, so as well as the humans who benefit from that water and what's in that water. So it's it's a complex ecology already in that way of thinking. You know, so I I think there's still a lot to be learned from some of the historical systems that have evolved, as well as thinking through some of these new approaches to, rights of nature and such.
Yeah. I think, it it seems to me sometimes that the what the these approaches that create nonhuman agents within a property scheme, it it's almost like a different starting point for the creation of a polity. Right. Polity is also a nonhuman agent, right, that may or may not, deeply consider the, the, environmental
issue That's where formalization could come in. Right? Because you could formalize a protection Mhmm. Through rules and through laws that make it part of what has to be done. And we've done that to some extent when we create national parks and reserves, for biodiversity. We're taking into account those features.
Yep. And then I guess moving on to the, to the third digitization, of well-being, would love to hear a little bit more about how you think about this. So are you thinking about, how do sort of questions of distributive justice, for example, come in here? When you think about a property a system of property or ownership, advancing this interest, are you do you have in the back of your mind a conception of what well-being entails? So that, for example, you know, the neediest in the society reaching a certain level of well-being is of greater value than the wealthiest, you know, achieving, some sort of extreme, well-being or something? Like, you know, how do you, is your I guess what I'm asking is, is your conception of well-being here, sort of orthogonal to those different sorts of conceptions of distributive justice? Or or does it does it roll in some thinking about that?
Well, I think there are two answers to that question. One is that our schema doesn't. Yes. The desiderata doesn't necessarily, rest on distributing, distributing, distributional justice, in the sense in which you were talking about it. So it means that no one would be homeless, perhaps, but it doesn't mean everybody would have an equally similar home, that nobody would lack food security, but it doesn't mean everybody gets to eat if we're still eating steak. For for other reasons having to do with sustainability that everybody gets steak every night or whatever it is, or cherries or whatever, you know, is considered a high, high, valued food good. But everybody would be nourished. Yeah. So that's not distribute distributional justice so much as, you know, in terms of of equality, at least it's making sure that the base is met for everyone. And then there could be lots of variation. So that's one level. Our schema does is non normative in that particular sense. Now what do I care about? I care about distributive justice, but that's not in our schema necessarily. So if you ask me where I would take this politically, I might take it a different place than say, Chris or Emily might. Or you might, or Jack might, or Indie might, or Jane might.
Gotcha. So I I suppose my final the final area that I'd I'd love to explore is is how you think that these that the that that this way of thinking about property rights could sort of concretely apply to, to the reform of institutions. Do you have any thoughts about, how do you how would you like people to to take up this set of ideas? Are are you are you interested in in seeing this guide the, construction of new property arrangements? Or yeah. I'll I'll I guess I'll Absolutely.
Absolutely. I mean, that's what we're looking to do is to set up a schema that enables people to start thinking differently about what the property arrangement should look like. And the first step in that is debunking the idea that what we have is the only way to achieve whatever goals we have. And then it's natural that we have to keep reminding people that this is socially and politically constructed system, that it serves some things and some interest very well, some goals and some individual interests very well and not so well in others. And if we think about other desiderata than the ones that have been written into it, we can begin to think about what alternative arrangements like might look like. And then we can have the right kinds of political arguments about which goals we wanna achieve and and what the proper means for achieving them are. And that's the kind of that's what I think of as political change is the first step in political change is getting people into that space where they can actually think that there are alternatives and that it's worth debating what those alternatives are. And then you begin to build social movements and actions around those alternatives in order to achieve them.
Amazing. I think that's a great place to, to wrap up. I guess, before we before we end, I'll I'll give you a chance if you'd like to, suggest any any other, readings or or or places people might dig deeper to, to learn more about, about where your ideas are coming from or promising directions that you've been thinking about?
Well, I mean, I I will start with something of my own with Federica Carregati, which is the little book on a moral political economy or the Daedalus issue that, Henry Farrell and I recently edited. Both of them talk about what it means to think about having, creating a new moral political economy and a new political economic framework and making, change possible, how to think about political change and social change. Obviously, I think Elizabeth Anderson's work on relational equality is very important in her little book on private governance is a great, great way to start. There's, there's a lot of other stuff of hers to delve into. I'm a big fan of Danielle Allen's, justice by means of democracy, which I think touches on a lot of this, the same and similar issues. So those are some things that I would think of, as as a sort of beginning. I mean, I have a million I mean, when we finish this piece that we're writing, which is for the annual review of political science, it's gonna have a million things to to read. There's just great work that's been done in on virtually all of those deciderata on the history of all of those forms of historic property rights that exist from the great classical thinkers of the Western canon to the great classical thinkers of the Asian canon, to lots of people, historians, political economists, economists, sociologists, philosophers really tilling as it were the land and the landscape of this subject. Legal scholars, Katarina Pistor, who I know you're a big fan of as well is someone else I would read. I just noticed I had a disproportionate number of women in this and I think that's interesting in and of itself. That's just who came to mind for me because some of them are doing they are doing some of the most, cutting edge thinking on some of these issues.
Amazing. Thank you so much. Appreciate,
you taking the time. Wonderful. Talk to you soon. Alright. Bye. Bye, Matt.
Thanks again to Matt Pruitt and Margaret Levy. The Radical Exchanges podcast is executive produced by g Angela Corpuz and Matt Pruitt and is co produced and audio engineered by myself, Aaron Benavides. This episode was produced by g Angela and recorded by Matt Pruitt. If you would like to learn more about radical exchange, please follow us on Twitter at brad x change or check out our website at radicalxchange.org. And if you'd like to join in the conversation, we'd love to hear from you. So hop on our Discord where we have channels discussing topics like what you heard today, as well as topics like plural voting, community currencies, soulbound tokens, and more. There will be links for all of these in the description. Have a great day and stay radical.
