A Conversation with James Gustave Speth
Please join the Brennan Center for Justice for a conversation
with
James Gustave Speth
Author of America the Possible: Manifesto for a New Economy
moderated by
Frederick A.O. Schwarz, Jr.
Chief Counsel, Brennan Center for Justice
Thursday, January 24, 2013
6:30 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.
at
The Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law
161 Avenue of the Americas (Sixth Avenue at Spring Street), 12th Floor
New York, New York 10013
Please RSVP to kimberly.lubrano@nyu.edu or by phone at (646) 292-8342.
Light refreshments will be served.
Space is limited.
In his third book on America’s growing crisis, James Gustave Speth begins by presenting an unsparing analysis of the predicament in which the nation finds itself. Not only do we face a multitude of difficulties—polarized politics, an overextended military, widening inequality, and accelerating climate change—but these hastening ills have the potential to reinforce each other. There is an urgent need for a new direction: a new course toward an attractive and plausible future that we can still realize.
America the Possible identifies a dozen features of the American political economy—the country’s basic operating system—where transformative change is essential. It spells out the specific changes that are needed to move toward a new political economy—one in which the true priority is to sustain people and the planet. Supported by a compelling “theory of change” that explains how system change can come to America, the book also presents a vision of political, social, and economic life in a renewed America. Speth envisions a future that will be worth fighting for and argues that we yet have it in ourselves to use our freedom and our democracy in powerful ways to create a reborn America for our children and grandchildren.
James Gustave Speth joined the faculty of the Vermont Law School as Professor of Law in 2010. He also serves as Distinguished Senior Fellow at both Demos and the United Nations Foundation. Professor Speth currently serves on the boards of the Natural Resources Defense Council, New Economics Institute, New Economy Network, Center for a New American Dream, Climate Reality Project, and the Institute for Sustainable Communities. He graduated from Yale University in 1964 with a BA in Political Science, and subsequently earned an M.Litt. in Economics from Oxford University in 1966 as a Rhodes Scholar and his JD from the Yale Law School in 1969. After law school, he served as law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Hugo L. Black.
