Michael McCarthy

Dr. Michael McCarthy collaborated on 2023’s Municipal Public Banking project from JFI and the Berggruen Institute. He authored a report, “Municipal Bank of LA: Democratic Governance Frameworks,” that explores how a municipally-owned financial institution could directly incorporate citizens’ input into investment decisions.

Michael is an economic democracy activist and Associate Professor of Sociology at Marquette University. He holds a PhD and MA from New York University and a BA from the University of California, Los Angeles. Much of his work concerns power and finance. He is the author of the award-winning book, Dismantling Solidarity: Capitalist Politics and American Pensions since the New Deal (Cornell University Press, 2017), which explains the marketization of old-age income in the US. He is co-editor of the volume Rethinking Class and Social Difference (Emerald, 2020) through the Political Power and Social Theory book series and has written for several peer-reviewed journals, including Annual Review of Sociology, Critical Historical Studies, Labor Studies Journal, Mobilization, Politics & Society and Socio-Economic Review. View his full biography here.