[URPE] [NYC] Full Employment Seminar - Special Night and Place

[urpe-moderator at lists.econ.utah.edu]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2005 17:06:29 -0400 (EDT)
From: Matthew S Winters <msw22 at columbia.edu>
To: undisclosed-recipients:  ;
Subject: Full Employment Seminar - Special Night and Place

Dear Seminar Participant:  

Welcome to the first Seminar on Full Employment, Social Welfare and 
Equity for
fall 2005.  This first seminar is on an UNUSUAL DAY--Tuesday 27 
September--and
is in an UNUSUAL PLACE--the Kellogg Center, Room 1512 on the 15th floor 
of the
International Affairs Building.  If you do not have Columbia ID, please 
try to
arrive early, as the building will be locked at 7:00. Matt Winters, our
rapporteur, will check for stragglers just before the seminar begins.

Next month, the seminar will return to Monday night.

Hope to see you there,

Helen Ginsburg, Co-chair 
Sheila Collins, Co-chair
Trudy Goldberg, Co-chair

----------

DATE: TUESDAY 27 September - 7:15 p.m. - 1512 IAB
   (Optional buffet dinner at 6:00 p.m. at Faculty House)

SPEAKER: Sam Pizzigati, author of _Greed and Good_

TOPIC: Greed, Good and the 'Maximum Wage'

A century ago, Americans with a 'social conscience' saw the campaign for
economic justice as a two-front struggle.  A good and decent society 
would only
emerge, they believed, if more wealth accumulated at the bottom of the 
social
order, less at the top.  These progressives fought tirelessly to both 
'level
up' the poor and 'level down' the rich--and they succeeded, to a remarkable
extent.  By the end of the mid 20th century, the United States had
significantly reduced poverty, nurtured the world's first mass middle 
class,
and flattened the plutocracy that had once so dominated American life.  

Today, that plutocracy is back.  But contemporary political leaders 
don't seem
to mind.  Efforts to 'level down' the top, they argue, amount to a divisive
distraction from the real task at hand: ensuring decency for the poor.  Are
they right?  Or does success in the struggle to 'level down' remain a 
social
and political prerequisite for ensuring decency to all? And if we do 
need to
resurrect a level-down politics, what strategic approach, here in the early
21st century, offers progressives the best shot at success?

Sam Pizzigati has written widely on economic inequality, with op-eds and
articles appearing in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the 
Baltimore
Sun, the Futurist, and a host of other newspapers, magazines, and 
journals.  A
long-time labor movement journalist, Pizzigati has edited publications 
for four
different national unions and directed, for twenty years, the publishing
operations of America's largest union, the 2.7 million-member National
Education Association.  Pizzigati currently edits Too Much, an online 
weekly on
capping excessive income and wealth, and serves on the boards of 
directors of
two groups active in economic justice education and organizing, the
Boston-based United for a Fair Economy and Progressive Maryland.  He 
also sits
on the editorial board of the Labor Studies Journal, a leading academic
periodical on workplace issues. Pizzigati's recently published third book,
_Greed and Good: Understanding and Overcoming the Inequality That Limits 
Our
Lives_ (The Apex Press) explores the dangers to society that concentrated
wealth poses and advances an inoovative strategy for a more equal 
America.  A
native New Yorker, Pizzigati has lived in Maryland, just outside 
Washington,
D.C., since 1975.

Please RSVP to Matt Winters (msw22 at columbia.edu) by Friday 23 September.

Dinner is at 6:00 p.m. at Faculty House, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY.  Enter via 
the
gate on the east side of Broadway at 116TH STREET; go through campus and 
cross
AMSTERDAM AVE.  Continue on West 116th past the Law School and turn left
through the gate, turn right beyond Wein Hall on the right and go down 
the ramp
to Faculty House.  Purchase a ticket for dinner ($19) at the ticket 
window on
the first floor, and then the dinner buffet is in the DeWitt Clinton Dining
Room on the fourth floor.

The seminar is at 7:15 p.m. in the KELLOGG CENTER on the 15th floor of the
INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS BUILDING.  The street entrance for the International
Affairs Building is on Amsterdam Avenue at the corner of 118th Street 
across
from St. Paul's Chapel.

--------------

University Seminar on Full Employment #613

____ I will     ____ I will not attend the meeting on TUESDAY 27
  			September.
____ I will     ____ I will not join the group for dinner ($19).

NAME:
_______________________________________________________________________

DAYTIME PHONE:
________________________________________________________________

Chaired by Helen Lachs Ginsburg, helenginsburg at yahoo.com, Sheila Collins,
sheila.collins3 at verizon.net, and Trudy Goldberg, trudygoldberg at msn.com.