[act-ma] 2/24 Migration and the New Austeriat with Jeffrey Sommers and Charles Woolfson (Tues)

[John Trumpbour]

Migration and the New Austeriat: The Baltic Model and the Socioeconomic Costs of the New Austerity


When

Tue., Feb. 24, 2015, 4:30 p.m.

Where

Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, 124 Mt. Auburn Street, Room 226, Cambridge, MA 02138





Organization/Sponsor


Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, Harvard Kennedy School; Workshop on Race, Immigration, and Ethnicity (WIRE)

Speaker(s)


Jeffrey Sommers, senior fellow, Institute of World Affairs, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee;
Charles Woolfson, professor of labor studies, Linkoping University, Sweden

Contact Info

john_trumpbour at harvard.edu




The Great Recession has led to accelerating emigration from several parts of Eastern Europe. Following their recent book The Contradictions of Austerity, social scientists Jeffrey Sommers and Charles Woolfson deliver a critique of the Baltic model of austerity that has been promoted by many neoliberals.
Noam Chomsky reflects on their work:
This book promises to become the defining study on the impact of austerity in the Baltics, otherwise known as the 'Baltic miracle.' The Baltic miracle has been heralded by partisans of neoliberal austerity as demonstrating the success of their economic therapy, despite the pain for the affected populations.  As these carefully argued and well-documented studies reveal, if this 'miracle' counts as success, one would hate to imagine what failure might be.  As the editors rightly argue, the import of these incisive inquiries is also "a stark warning" to the European Union, and the world, as the neoliberal assault steadily demolishes the social model that was Europe's great contribution to modern civilization.