Yale Professor to Talk to DFA Meeting Wednesday

Yale Professor Jacob Hacker will discuss his new book American Amnesia: How the War on Government Led Us to Forget What Made America Prosper at the Democracy For America meeting on June 22 at the Silver Star Diner in Norwalk at 7:00 pm.

Like every other prospering democracy, the United States developed a mixed economy that channeled the spirit of capitalism into strong growth and healthy social development. In this bargain, government and business were as much partners as rivals. Public investments in education, science, transportation, and technology laid the foundation for broadly based prosperity. Programs of economic security and progressive taxation provided a floor of protection and business focused on the pursuit of profit—and government addressed needs business could not.



The mixed economy was the most important social innovation of the twentieth century. It spread a previously unimaginable level of broad prosperity. It enabled steep increases in education, health, longevity, and economic security. And yet, extraordinarily, it is anathema to many current economic and political elites. And as the advocates of anti-government free market fundamentalism have gained power, they are hell-bent on scrapping the very instrument of nearly a century of unprecedented economic and social progress. Professor Hacker will discuss how we stop this and how we return our nation to prosperity once more.

Hacker is a Professor of Political Science and Director of the Institution for Social and Policy Studies. He is a member of the OECD’s High-Level Expert Group on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress, the director of the Economic Security Index Project, and also the co-author, with Paul Pierson, of Winner-Take-All Politics.

Democracy for America (DFA) is a member-driven, people-powered political action committee founded by former presidential candidate and DNC chair Governor Howard Dean. Our mission is to build and empower the progressive grassroots to take our democracy back from corporations and the wealthy few and aggressively combat growing income inequality.