11/03/2023
Farewell to the Center on Capitalism and Society
The Center on Capitalism and Society, as you may have heard, will close down – and I will leave Columbia – on May 31, 2024.
I want first to thank everyone who worked with me at the Center these past 22 years to make the Center a great success: Miranda Featherstone, Lydia Conklin, Francesca Mari, Jeff Nagy, Karen Lee and – in the present day – the Administrative Manager Lizzie Feidelson, and my Executive Assistant Catherine Pikula. I want to thank all the Center members, the advisory board, and all the supporters for their participation and contributions to Center activities.
On this occasion, I want also to recall the Center’s history: The Center was imagined by Roman Frydman of NYU and me. It was conceived in the course of discussions that I had with several colleagues at Columbia. (I recall meetings with Glenn Hubbard, Bruce Greenwald, Andrzej Rapaczynski and Richard Nelson.) It was founded in September 2001 when I won the support of the Provost, Jonathan Cole, and Jonathan obtained the approval of the then-President George Rupp. (He later commented to me that he was a theologian interested in capitalism and Luther).
I found myself the Director, though I continued to teach my usual set of courses. Pentti Kouri and Richard Robb formed our Advisory Board in 2005, which soon grew to include such luminaries as Philip Howard, Richard Sennett, Harold Evans and Edmond Alphandery. The many foreign members included Ian Goldin, Partha Dasgupta, and Esa Saarinen.
The Center started operating in a tiny space on Broadway Jeffery Sachs that the Earth Institute was able to provide. After a meeting with me following his visit here, Peter Jungen brought these conditions to the attention of the Administration. After a year or two, President Lee Bollinger was able to provide the Center with grand space for its research at 1126 in the International Affairs Building. He and Peter provided funding too for a number of years.
I am proud of the Center’s many achievements over these past 22 years beginning with its annual conferences. Paul Samuelson was one of our first speakers, Paul Volcker was the main speaker on three occasions, and there were many other exciting conferences – one of them climaxing in Joyce DiDonato’s moving rendition of ‘Climb Every Mountain.’
But – central to our own work –books came out ranging from Harold Evan’s They Made America (2004); my Mass Flourishing (2006); Roman Frydman’s Imperfect Knowledge Economics (2007); Phillip Howard’s The Rule of Nobody (2014); Richard Sennett’s Building and Dwelling (2018); Richard Robb’s Willful (2019); Dynamism (2020) by Phelps, Bojilov, Hoon and Zoega; Glenn Hubbard’s The Wall and the Bridge (2022); and most recently Hoon and Zoega’s The Great Economic Slowdown (2023).
Some Center members who had been busy in other pursuits or away at time from Columbia became more engaged in Center activities in the last decade or so, Saskia Sassen held a seminar in 2011 on social exclusion and Joseph Stiglitz made presentations at several of the annual conferences. And in 2020 Tunku Varadarajan, taking on the role of its editor in chief. elevated our journal, Capitalism and Society.
The Center has been a stage for debate over social matters: individualism, inclusion, poverty, satisfying work, women at work, the financial system, the environment, dynamism, capitalism, flourishing, and the good life. It has also been a hotbed for new ideas and their tests, such as a theory of indigenous innovation and a model of the main effects from the slowdown of innovation.
The Center’s mission was meaningful to many of us and will be greatly missed, as some members and supporters said in their reflections on its coming closing:
“In the midst of the sectored, divisionized and isolated organization of the life of the intellect, the Center for Capitalism and Society at Columbia University has highlighted the original idea of Plato’s Academy in its belief in rationality that is open and driven to dialogue. The annual Conference has highlighted this spirit, so vital to everything I hold dear…” Esa Saarinen, Finnish philosopher
“I am profoundly disheartened by the news of the closure of Columbia’s Center on Capitalism and Society. It is a great loss and marks the end of an era. [It has been] a beacon for unconventional thinking, creative stimulation and cross-fertilization.” -- Sandra Navidi, CEO of BeyondGlobal and bestselling author of $uperHubs, Future IQ and Die DNA der USA
“Every time I attended an event of the Center, I was impressed by the level of the discussion and the quality of the speakers. Over these last 22 years, the Center has done … wonderful work we can be proud of.” Edmond Alphandéry, former Finance Minister of France
“The Center has made remarkable contributions … In my time at Columbia I know of no other Center or Institute that has had such a consistently distinguished program. This is a bittersweet fall.” Mark C Taylor, Professor of Religion, Columbia University
“When it comes to contemporary athenaeums of academic dialogue, the Center has stood out like a ray of sunlight on a murky day, consistently fostering fresh ideas and diverse viewpoints of the highest caliber.” – Lauri Pietinalho, Visiting Scholar at NYU Stern
Although the time to close the Center has been chosen by the University, the Center is going out on top – like Ted Williams and Maria Callas.
Edmund Phelps, Director
