Aug 05 2017 78 mins
Do people bet on horses when they bet on horses? What does money 'do'? Does money fundamentally deal with the future? Why don't we have a market in people anymore? Isn’t Market an elaborate barter system? How do different things commensurate with each other? Does price make value observable? Is the world created by labour? Can labour be the scale for pricing? Can Market solve ‘all’ problems? Is price always embedded in a broader system of values? Why is Copenhagen's racing different from Delhi’s? Is capitalism also gambling? Does risk, as such, 'produce' profit? Does only the capitalist speculate? Can production itself be speculative? Why is bajra inexpensive? Are mortgages human capital derivatives? Is value objective in a sociological (emergent) kind of way? However, are all of us equal price takers? Could/do price theories incorporate the notion of 'moving' time? How (relatively) large can the non-basic goods economy be? Is a world without speculation likely? Are we always going to misprice? Would everything be free in a super-abundant future? Will we stay inside the machine? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using concepts from political economics (Dr. Anush Kapadia, IIT Bombay, Mumbai), anthropology (Dr. Stine Simonsen Puri, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark), & economic history (Prof. Ajit Sinha, Azim Premji University, Bangalore). Listen in…