It’s been more than seven years since the great financial crisis of 2008, which exposed some of the fundamental weaknesses of the global economy. Despite the apparent recovery in corporate profits and financial markets, those underlying weaknesses have only grown more intense. That strain is starting to show itself with the widespread concern about declining prices for oil and other basic commodities, which the export-oriented “emerging economies” rely on for growth, employment, and paying back their substantial debts.
The giants of global finance continue to struggle to find safe, profit-earning investments, putting pressure on corporations and governments to squeeze as much as possible out of poor and dispossessed people around the world: through pushing people off of their land and exploiting it with a new intensity; lowering wages; speeding up production and decreasing payrolls through robots and software; and defunding government programs and support for public goods like education and health care. As more and more people are forced to fight for their lives in the face of these on-going trends, and with the threat of another global economic crisis looming, there’s a deep and growing need for poverty scholarship – the engaged and grounded intellectualism of the poor and dispossessed – aimed at understanding the workings of the global economy, and the relationship between economic crisis and political strategy and tactics.
Join us on February 25th at noon for an online seminar with Chris Caruso, who comes out of the history of the National Union of the Homeless, as well as the Kensington Welfare Rights Union, and is currently a student at the City University of New York Graduate Center under David Harvey. Chris will talk with us about the present state of the global economy, major trends and developments, and the very real possibility of another major, world-wide economic crisis. Please register using the form below, and we’ll send along information about how to join the seminar soon.
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