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2011-2013 Theme of Inquiry:
“From Wall Street to Main Street: Capitalism and the Common Good”
The financial crisis of 2008 brought attention to critiques of 21st century capitalism and our economic future. The recent era of relatively unrestrained capitalism and the resulting financial crisis have spawned critiques of our economic system focused on growing inequality, instability, ecological devastation, and the very values that underlie our economic system. The continuing recession and slow recovery highlights economic insecurity, inequality and a shortage of jobs.
This theme will explore approaches to modifying the U.S. capitalist system to make it more just, stable and sustainable. We seek to discuss fundamental issues as well as particular regulatory reforms. How should markets be constrained? What is needed for an environmentally sustainable system? How can we reduce the risk of future financial crises? What can we learn from other economies regarding a social safety net? What is the role of communities and regions? We want to move beyond a critique of past institutions and examine proposals, experiments, theories and actions that promote new thinking about the economy and economic development, both nationally and regionally.
View Events
Wayne Morse Chair of Law and Politics
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Tribute to Keith Aoki
Former UO law professor Keith Aoki passed away on April 26, 2011 at his home in Sacramento, California. Keith was scheduled to hold the Wayne Morse Chair of Law and Politics in fall 2011. Keith’s passing is a profound loss for the legal and political community. He was a brilliant and creative scholar in intellectual property, local government law and critical race theory. He was a beloved teacher and colleague at the UO, UC Davis, Lewis & Clark, Columbia, and Boston College. The Wayne Morse Center and the School of Law will host a symposium in Keith’s honor in the fall of 2011. |
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Russ Feingold
Longtime politician Russ Feingold will give a public address on Nov. 7, 2011, at 4 p.m. in the Erb Memorial Union Ballroom. Feingold served as a U.S. senator from 1993-2011. In 2001, Feingold was the lone senator who voted against the USA Patriot Act, despite pressure for a unanimous vote, because he felt it infringed on civil liberties. He voted against the Iraq War in 2002, and was the first senator to call for a specific timetable for U.S. exit from Iraq. He served on the Judiciary, Foreign Relations, Budget, and Intelligence committees, and is best known for his work on campaign finance reform.
Feingold is an honors law graduate of Harvard Law School and Oxford University and was a Rhodes Scholar. He teaches at Marquette University School of Law. In 2011 he founded Progressives United, a political action committee dedicated to shining the spotlight on corrupt corporate interests in government. |
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Robert Kuttner
In 2012-13, Robert Kuttner will co-teach a political science class and deliver a series of lectures on Capitalism and the Common Good, including an analysis of the politics of reforming a market system, globalization and the common good, and financial regulatory reform. Kuttner is the author of nine books on the U.S. economic system and the politics of markets. He is currently writing a book on globalization and the common good. |
Distinguished Speaker
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David Korten
David Korten is president and founder of the People-Centered Development Forum and co-founder of YES! Magazine. He is a former professor of the Harvard Business School and also worked as the Asia Regional Advisor on Development Management for the US Agency for International Development. His numerous books include Agenda for a New Economy: From Phantom Wealth to Real Wealth, The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community, When Corporations Rule the World, and The Post-Corporate World: Life After Capitalism.
Read a blog post from David Korten that focuses on the topic of his speech at UO |
Resident Scholars
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Michael Fakhri, Assistant Professor, UO School of Law
Professor Fakhri's academic interests are in international economic law with an emphasis on questions of development. As Morse Resident Scholar, he will continue his historical examination of the sugar trade and its relationship to the creation of multilateral trade institutions. Professor Fakrhi is organizing a conference on Third World Approaches to International Law, to be held October 20-22, 2011, that will focus on globalization and capitalism. |
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Katharine Meehan, Assistant Professor, Department of Geography
Professor Meehan is organizing a keynote session on alternatives to capitalism and diverse economies for the "Gender Equality and Capitalism: The Impact of Capitalist Development on Women’s Economic Status and Rights" conference, which takes place March 8-9, 2012.
Meehan’s dissertation research examined how poor urban dwellers in Tijuana created and maintained informal water provision "commons," and the degree to which these activities fostered new forms of economic development and social organization. |
Visiting Faculty
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Barbara Pocock, University of South Australia
Pocock will be visiting the University of Oregon February-April 2012. She will be completing a book on the meaning of work, in addition to meeting with students and faculty and participating in the Gender Equality and Capitalism symposium (March 8-9, 2012).
Pocock is director of the Centre for Work + Life at the University of South Australia. She has taught and researched labor studies and social science since the mid-1980s. Her books include Living Low Paid: The Dark Side of Prosperous Australia (with Helen Masterman-Smith, 2008); The Labour Market Ate my Babies: Work, Children and a Sustainable Future (2006); The Work/Life Collision (2003); and Strife; Sex and Politics in Labour Unions (1997). |
Dissertation Fellows
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Johanna Luttrell, Philosophy
Luttrell’s dissertation explores the condition of female global poverty, and particularly women who live in the slums of “developing” countries. She departs from a traditional focus on distribution and recognition to explore issues of alienation and the oppression of women that result from the demands of global capitalism. She explores how alienation of women in slums is both created by globalization and supported by the exploitation of women and demands on their time by their roles as caregivers and workers.
Luttrell will organize a panel session for the
Gender Equality and Capitalism symposium (March 8-9, 2012).
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Clinton Sandvick, History
Sandvick examines the passage, enforcement and consolidation of medical licensing laws in the United States in the crucial era of 1865-1915. As part of the Progressive Era regulatory reforms, these laws sought to tame a chaotic medical field comprised of doctors advocating various medical therapies. Doctors worked to purge the medical field of frauds, charlatans and unorganized sectarians with licensing requirements and regulations. State medical boards prosecuted practitioners such as midwives, osteopaths, opticians and other healers. By eliminating unorganized practitioners and ending the medical free market, these actions laid the foundation for the reform of medical education and the framework of modern medicine. |
Project Grants and Cosponsored Events
Common Cause Oregon: Political and Economic Fairness Education Project.
Common Cause will bring Robert Reich to Eugene and Portland to discuss economic inequality and its impact on our democracy. Reich is chair of the national governing board of Common Cause and a respected economist and former U.S. Secretary of Labor. The project includes analysis of inequality in Oregon and statewide public discussions and presentations.
Oregon Student Public Interest Research Group (OSPI RG): Bringing Wall Street to Main Street.
OSPIRG will write a guide to Wall Street reform aimed at students and the general public, and they will convene a symposium at the UO on financial and regulatory reform.
UO International Studies Department: Symposium on Slow Money.
Professor Stephen Wooten and graduate student Lindsey Foltz will bring Woody Tasch to the UO to discuss alternative opportunities for investors to invest in community-based sustainable businesses. The program will include panels of local experts and businesses.
UO Office of Sustainability: UO Green Purchasing Network.
The UO aims to develop a network for UO faculty and staff who want to apply environmental and social considerations to university purchasing. The project uses peer networks and internet technology to create a triple-bottom-line decision making tool that can affect the local economy.
Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noreste (PCUN): Agricultural Wealth in the Mid-Willamette Valley: Who Created it, How I t’s Distributed, and Sustainability.
Student interns will research agricultural wealth in the Willamette Valley and develop popular education curriculum for PCUN’ s new CAPACES Leadership Institute. This project will help the farmworker community understand the ingredients for a just agricultural labor system.
Huerto de la Familia (The Family Garden): Creating Latino Micro Enterprises.
UO student interns will help support the mission of garden access and building food-based micro- enterprises among the local Latino community. Students will help with outreach, marketing, events and creating a mini-documentary.
UO Honors College and Selected Faculty: Textbooks for Honors College Courses for High School Students.
UO faculty are organizing college courses for local students on days that local schools will be closed due to budget cuts. The grant will supply textbooks and other supplies for low-income students. Class content will include topics such as unemployment, financial and regulatory reform, the role of government in the economy, the efficacy of anti-poverty programs and measures of economic well-being.
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