How can people trade, argue, judge, and decide together? The Examined Society brings economics into conversation with political philosophy, moral philosophy, and the theory of knowledge.
We read thinkers who disagree deeply, treating their arguments seriously and leaving room for participants to make their own connections. The aim is to weigh rival ideas with care, see the trade-offs they reveal, and resist easy answers.
The syllabus
A 34-meeting conversation
The route moves from moral sentiments and commercial society through critiques of capitalism, collective choice, justice, and the growth of knowledge. The final meeting brings the whole conversation to bear on seven current strains.
How Capitalism Lives, Fails, and Reproduces Itself
09The Marginal RevolutionSubjective value and marginal utility
10SchumpeterInnovation and creative destruction
11KeynesUncertainty, demand, and unemployment
12HayekThe knowledge problem and spontaneous order
13PolanyiThe embedded economy and market society
14LachmannExpectations and radical uncertainty
Part IV · Meetings 15–21
Economics Beyond the Market
15ArrowSocial choice and collective rationality
16BeckerRational choice beyond markets
17CoaseTransaction costs, property rights, and the firm
18BuchananPublic choice and constitutional economics
19SowellKnowledge, incentives, and trade-offs
20HirschmanExit, voice, loyalty, and development
21OstromThe commons and self-governance
Part V · Meetings 22–29
Justice, Equality, and the Limits of the State
22HarsanyiImpartial observers and utilitarianism
23RawlsJustice as fairness and the original position
24NozickEntitlement and the minimal state
25CohenSelf-ownership and luck egalitarianism
26SenCapabilities and public reasoning
27BerlinValue pluralism and negative liberty
28ArendtPlurality, action, and the public realm
29PettitLiberty as non-domination
Part VI · Meetings 30–33
How Knowledge Grows and Why It Needs Freedom
30RussellLogic, scientific method, and changing one’s mind
31PopperFalsifiability and the open society
32KuhnParadigms and scientific revolutions
33ProbabilityRisk, uncertainty, and rational belief
Final meeting · 34
Seven Modern Strains
34Democratic erosion; the information commons; inequality; climate; artificial intelligence and concentrated power; geopolitical fragmentation and war; demographic and social recession.
Before each meeting
A guide and an original voice
For meetings 1–33, participants receive a concise note on the thinker and a short excerpt from the original writing. Read them side by side: the note offers orientation; the excerpt lets the author speak. Together they will not exceed 50–60 pages. Meeting 34 uses a longer synthesis note. Read the full syllabus →
Reading materials
Readings by meeting
Guides and original texts are collected here in syllabus order as each meeting’s materials become available.