Debate Over Immigration, The
Professor of American studies and history Matthew Frye Jacobson explains that the debate over immigration is really two debates--one focusing on economics and the other on civic belonging. Professor Jacobson adds that what political figures like Pet...
Investment and Productivity
Former Secretary of Labor and university professor Robert Reich talks about what the United States can do to be more successful competing on the world economic stage. He says that rather than reducing wages to be more competitive internationally, th...
Race, Ethnicity and Family: Economics of the African-American Family
Poverty has long been a fact of life in many African-American communities. In part this has been due to discrimination but, more recently, broad-based structural changes in the American economy have also played a part. The financial challenge fac...
Globalization: Winners and Losers (Part Two)
Professor of Sociology and History Craig Calhoun states that there is no truly level playing field on which global commerce can play out, because every country in the world imposes some form of restrictions on trade.
Science, Race and Immigration
Professor of American studies and history Matthew Frye Jacobson talks about the ascendancy of science in the latter part of the nineteenth century, and the use of science to classify people into racial types and racial hierarchies. This gave rise to...
Economics, Public Policy and the Environment
Zoologist and World Wildlife Fund senior scientist Theo Colborn observes that economic concerns often trump environmental issues in the public policy arena.
Dealing With Global Economic Issues
Director of the National Economic Council and former Secretary of the Treasury Lawrence Summers talks about the growing importance of what he calls "international economic dialogue." Secretary Summers points out that, "...we export nearly twice as m...
Greed
Philosopher Martha Nussbaum talks about the theory of rational self-interest. She observes that one good thing about greed is that it "sometimes tends to distract people from even worse things, like militant ethnocentric nationalism, racism..."
Coming to America: Portrait of Colonial Life: Indentured Servants
The United States has been a magnet for immigrants throughout its history. In the colonial period, many who embarked on the journey found it necessary to indenture themselves just to pay for the passage. As we hear a first-hand account of the diffic...