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CEP 21st Birthday Event: The Price of Civilization: Economics and Ethics After the Fall

Jeffrey Sachs (Columbia University)


Monday 05 December 2011 18:30 - 20:00

Old Theatre, Ground Floor, Old Building, LSE, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE

About this event

The world economy remains in a precarious state after the global recession - where quick fixes were implemented instead of sustainable solutions to systemic problems. Jeffrey Sachs will discuss why we must - and how we can - change our entire economic culture in the time of crisis.

Listen to a recording of the event:

CEP 21st Birthday Lecture Series

The Price of Civilization: Economics and Ethics After the Fall

Speaker: Professor Jeffrey Sachs, Director of The Earth Institute, Columbia University

Chair: Professor Lord Richard Layard, Director of Wellbeing Programme, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE

This event took place on Monday 5 December 2011


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Overview: The world economy remains in a precarious state after the global recession - where quick fixes were implemented instead of sustainable solutions to systemic problems. Jeffrey Sachs will discuss why we must - and how we can - change our entire economic culture in the time of crisis.

About the Speaker: Jeffrey Sachs is Director of The Earth Institute, Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development, and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University. He is also Special Advisor to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.


More about the book:

Setting out a bold and provocative, yet responsible and achievable, plan, THE PRICE OF CIVILIZATION reveals why we must - and how we can - change our entire economic culture in this time of crisis.

The world economy remains in a precarious state after the recent global recession - where quick fixes were implemented instead of sustainable solutions to systemic problems. Jeffrey Sachs argues powerfully for a new co-operative, common-sense political economy, one that stresses practical partnership between government and the private sector, demands competence in both arenas and occasionally insists on carefully chosen public and private sacrifices. In this new era of global capitalism, Sachs believes that we have to forget partisanship and solve these enormous problems together, clinically and holistically, just as one would approach the eradication of a disease.

Sachs

Jeffrey Sachs’ latest book, The Price of Civilization, is published by The Bodley Head and is available now in hardback priced £20.


THE PRICE OF CIVILIZATION explains how government can be made to reform corporate culture by fairly policing compensation but not stifling competition and forced to improve our energy infrastructure by both taxing emissions and providing market incentives for innovation. Sachs shows how government, business and citizens can find common ground - on bank accountability, the decentralising of social services and taxing the super-rich - as a way to achieve our shared goals of efficiency, equity and sustainability.

Sparing no-one but potentially benefiting us all, THE PRICE OF CIVILIZATION is a masterful roadmap, a programme designed to bridge seemingly impossible divides in our society and a way forward that we - and our leaders - ignore at our peril.

For information on future lectures in this series, please visit the CEP 21st Birthday Lecture Series webpage

 



Participants are expected to adhere to the CEP Events Code of Conduct.


Directions

This event will take place in Old Theatre, Ground Floor, Old Building, LSE, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE.

The building is labelled OLD on the LSE campus map. You can also find us on Google Maps. For further information, go to contact us.