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Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2001 21:30:30 -0400 (EDT)
From: Spoon Collective <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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To: spoon-admin list <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: One-day conference on The Great Transformation (fwd)
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Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 15:08:49 -0400 (EDT)
From: Web Server <web14>
Reply-To: Amy Caldwell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: One-day conference on The Great Transformation
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Amy Caldwell) sent the following
Spoon-Announcement:
STIGLITZ, SOROS TO SPEAK AT CONFERENCE DEBATING GLOBALIZATION
NEW YORKXThe anti-WTO demonstrations that erupted in Seattle in November
1999 starkly revealed the concern a broad cross-section of peopleXunion
members, environmentalists, and student activistsXhave with globalization.
The next demonstrations, in Davos, Switzerland, revealed the protestors
strength of purpose. Activists are again preparing for a major
confrontation April 20 in Quebec City, site of the Hemispheric Summit,
designed to expand free trade across the Americas.
One of the most pertinent books to these contemporary conflicts was
written more than a half century ago by the Hungarian refugee scholar Karl
Polanyi. The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of
Our Times, first published in 1944, will be the subject of a conference
sponsored by The Center for Historical Social Science at Columbia
University.
The Great Transformation in a New Century, will focus on the current
relevance of Polanyis thought. Speakers will include financier and
philanthropist George Soros, the former chief economist at the World Bank
and current professor at Stanford Joseph Stiglitz, and McGill University
political economist Kari Polanyi-Levitt. The event is April 27, 2001 from
1:30 to 6:30 p.m. at 1501 International Affairs Building, 420 W. 118th St.
This is an academic conference, but its subject is as urgent as the daily
headlines. It will ask: h What are the dangers and risks of the
Washington consensus favoring the freeing of global trade and capital
flows? Why has it dominated policymaking in the last decade? h Must we
deregulate our economies and shrink welfare state spending to accommodate
to the logic of the global market? h What does historical social science
teach us about how the global economy should be organized?
The conference coincides with Beacon Presss publication of a new edition
of The Great Transformation Xthe first since 1957Xwith a new preface by
Joseph Stiglitz and a scholarly introduction by Fred Block. The Great
Transformation provides a powerful theoretical argument for understanding
the current struggle between free market globalizers and their many
opponents this new edition and the conference are intended to bring
Polanyis insights to bear on the current debates over the nature of
globalization.
The conference will bring together highly regarded public intellectuals,
including Soros and Stiglitz, whose work focuses on these important
questions and have raised urgent questions about the stability and justice
of current international economic arrangements. Soros was a successful
international currency speculator before producing a series of books and
articles that are deeply critical of the market fundamentalism that he
sees guiding U.S. foreign economic policy, the World Bank, and the
International Monetary Fund. Joseph Stiglitz served as Chair of President
Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers before becoming Chief Economist at
the World Bank. However, when demonstrators marched on Washington in
April 2000 to protest meetings of the International Monetary Fund,
Stiglitz wrote a powerful critique of the IMF's role in the East Asian
economic crisis (1997-1998) in The New Republic (April 17 and 24, 2000).
The full list of participants follows: Fred Block, Professor of Sociology,
University of California, Davis; Ira Katznelson, Professor of Political
Science, Columbia University; Kari Polanyi-Levitt, Professor Emeritus of
Economics, McGill University; Mahmood Mamdani, Professor of Anthropology,
Columbia University; Anthony Marx, Professor of Political Science,
Columbia University; Frances Fox Piven, Professor of Political Science,
CUNY Graduate Center; Margaret Somers, Professor of Sociology, University
of Michigan; George Soros, Philanthropist and author of Open Society:
Reforming Global Capitalism; and Joseph Stiglitz, Professor of Economics,
Stanford University.
For more information, or to arrange an interview with conference
organizers, please contact Kathy Daneman, Publicist, at
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (617) 948-6584.
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