#  Public Lecture with Chiara Cordelli: The Wrong of Capitalism and the Scope of Economic Democracy 

 



    ![Chiara Cordelli Thumbnail](/sites/g/files/omnuum9911/files/styles/hwp_5_4__480x385/public/2025-09/Chiara%20Cordelli%20Thumbnail.png?itok=K9ImxKxi) 

 



 

####  calendar\_today Date and Time 

 **September 24, 2025** 

 04:30PM - 06:00PM EDT 

####  pin\_drop Location 

 **Thompson Room, Barker Center**  

 [12 Quincy St  
Cambridge, MA 02138  
United States



 ](<https://www.google.com/maps?q=US MA Cambridge 02138 12 Quincy St>) 



 

 [ Register here arrow\_circle\_right ](https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/ev/reg/gahpxye) 

 



 

 ![Chiara Cordelli Public Lecture Poster](/sites/g/files/omnuum9911/files/2025-09/Chiara%20Cordelli%20Poster.png)

 

The Edmond &amp; Lily Safra Center for Ethics invites you to our [first Public Lecture of the year](https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/ev/reg/gahpxye/lp/1c4e41b2-1d6a-4520-ba92-79e0c68f1e0b)! Join us as Chiara Cordelli delves into "The Wrong of Capitalism and the Scope of Economic Democracy."

The lecture is open to all. Registration is required for in-person attendance. [Register here.](https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/ev/reg/gahpxye)

This event is also available via [livestream](https://youtube.com/live/EAiLBAJXn0k?feature=share).

**About the lecture:**

Recently, political philosophy has witnessed a revival of debates about the wrong of capitalism and the point of socialism. Some argue that capitalism is unjustly exploitative, but only contingently on unjust distributions. The point of socialism is thus to achieve distributive justice. Others have objected that capitalism is intrinsically unjust, because dominating, regardless of the presence of distributive injustice. The point of socialism is to overcome the injustice of domination through workers’ collective control of the labor process. Professor Cordelli argues that both views provide an insufficient critique of capitalism, with regards to their site of analysis, as well as their account of the distinctive wrong of capitalism, the point of socialism, and its institutional demands. She proposes a normative critique of capitalism that (i) focuses on capitalism’s mode of investment and valuation, beyond the labor process, as its core site of analysis, (ii) reconceptualizes capitalism’s distinctive ill as one of social alienation, rather than exploitation or domination, and its wrong as a matter of legitimacy rather than justice, (iii) understands the point of socialism, beyond redistribution and nondomination, as one of reconciliation and, (iv) argues for a broader account of economic democracy, which includes the democratic planning of investment.

**About Chiara Cordelli:**

Chiara Cordelli is Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, and affiliated faculty in Philosophy. Starting this September, she will also be Directrice de Recherche at the Centre for History and Economics at Sciences Po. Beyond several articles, she is the author of *The Privatized State* (Princeton University Press, 2020), which was awarded the 2021 ECPR Political Theory Prize for best first book in political theory, and of *Privatocrazia* (Mondadori 2022), as well as the editor of *NOMOS* and the co-editor of *Philanthropy in Democratic Societies* (University of Chicago Press, 2016). Cordelli has held visiting positions at Stanford, Princeton, Harvard and at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales. Her current book project develops an alienation-centered critique of capitalism and a normative case for financial democracy.



 

 



 

 

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