Dr. Michael McCarthy, associate professor of social and cultural sciences in the Klingler College of Arts and Sciences, has been named Economic Institutions Fellow with DemocracyNext, an international nonprofit, nonpartisan research and action institute based in Paris, France.
McCarthy is one of three fellows DemocracyNext has brought together for the 2023-24 academic year to collaborate on workshops and policy papers with the institute.
“This is a great recognition of Dr. McCarthy’s research and his work on democratizing finance to better work for all citizens,” said Dr. Heidi Bostic, dean of the Klingler College of Arts and Sciences. “His research and public-facing work are examples of living the Marquette mission by actively entering into the struggle for a more just society. This fellowship is a wonderful opportunity for him to expand his research in Europe and develop his own proposals for economic democracy.”
This fellowship builds on McCarthy’s recent research and writings on democratizing finance. His work has contributed to a series of reports on municipal banking. This work has been used and cited in recent debates about public banking and articles featured on CBS News and in the Los Angeles Times. He has also collaborated with lawmakers on banking legislation that is expected to be introduced into Congress.
McCarthy joined the Marquette faculty in 2014. He is the author of the award-winning book “Dismantling Solidarity: Capitalist Politics and American Pensions since the New Deal,” which explains the marketization of old-age income in the U.S. He is also a regular contributor to Jacobin magazine and has advanced public debates about economic democracy in venues such as the Washington Post, Boston Review, Renewal and Tribune Magazine.
In 2021, McCarthy received a fellowship from the Berggruen Institute to research ideas for shaping society that reimagine foundational systems and grow from interdisciplinary symbiosis and exchange. He is also finalizing a manuscript on democratizing finance, tentatively titled “The Master’s Tools: Using Finance Against Capitalism,” which is under contract with Verso Books.
DemocracyNext believes in a more just, joyful and collaborative future where everyone has meaningful power to shape their societies. It is an international nonprofit, nonpartisan research and action institute with a mission to shift political and legislative power to people. It advocates for, designs, embeds and empowers Citizens’ Assemblies as defining institutions of a new paradigm of citizen-led democracy.
