Brecht Forum 122 West 27th Street, New York, NY 10001 - info at brechtforum.org Suggested donation: $6/$8/$10
BOOK PARTY/FORUM Post-mortems on the Boom Doug Henwood & Robert Pollin
During the 1990s boom, we heard constantly about the "New Economy"--a technological and organizational revolution that precipitated an unprecedented era of rapid productivity growth and rendered recessions as obsolete as rotary-dial phones. Mass participation in the stock market transformed workers into owners; the freewheeling US economy became the envy of the world; and "globalization," whatever that is exactly, had rendered national borders obsolete.
Tonight we welcome the publication of two new books-- After the New Economy by Doug Henwood and Contours of Descent: U.S. Economic Fractures and the Landscape of Global Austerity by Robert Pollin. The authors will share their views on what happened in the neoliberal revolution of the 1990s. What were the economic policies that have brought us to the serious recession that we are experiencing today? Why did the stock market go on an eighteen-year tear? Was there really a technological revolution? Was corporate malfeasance really a matter of a few bad apples or was the rot far more pervasive than that? And what does the future hold in store?
Doug Henwood edits the Left Business Observer, hosts a weekly radio show on WBAI, and is the author of The State of the U.S.A. Atlas: The Changing Face of American Life in Maps and Graphics and Wall Street: How It Works and for Whom.
Robert Pollin is a professor of economics and founding co-director of the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. He is the author, with Stephanie Luce of The Living Wage and a co-editor of Transforming the US Financial System. He has worked with the Joint Economic Committee of the US Congress and the United Nations Development Program.