"How Unleashed Capitalism Produces Economic Crises: What is to be done?": A presentation by Robert Pollin February 23, 2009

The collapse of the U.S. financial system, and subsequent severe recession, demonstrate, yet again, the simple point that unleashed capitalism-operating without tight regulations on financial markets, among other public policy interventions-promotes financial instability, mass unemployment and sharp social inequalities. The lecture will examine the specific origins of the current financial crisis, as well the longer-term economic patterns that it reflects. We will also pose the political question: How can U.S. capitalism be put back on a leash, as it was during the New Deal, to promote financial stability, full employment and social equality?

Robert Pollin is Professor of Economics and founding Co-director of the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. His research centers on macroeconomics, conditions for low-wage workers in the U.S. and globally, the analysis of financial markets, and the economics of building a clear-energy economy in the U.S. His recent works include A Measure of Fairness: The Economics of Living Wages and Minimum Wages in the United States (co-authored, 2008); An Employment-Targeted Economic Program for Kenya (co-authored, 2008); and Contours of Descent: U.S. Economic Fractures and the Landscape of Global Austerity (2003); as well as the edited volume Human Development in the Era of Globalization (co-edited 2006).

Most recently, he co-authored "Job Opportunities for the Green Economy," (June 2008) and "Green Recovery," (September 2008), exploring the broader economic benefits from large-scale investments to build a clean-energy economy in the United States. He has worked with the United Nations Development Program and the United Nations Economic Commission on Africa on policies to promote to promote decent employment expansion and poverty reduction in Latin America and more recently, sub-Saharan Africa.

Official Website: http://www.ias.umn.edu