Political Activist, Nonviolence Advocate to Speak at Lehigh University – Mar 23

March 17, 2017 The Valley Ledger

George Lakey, author of Viking Economics: How the Scandinavians Got It Right – and How We Can, Too, will speak at Lehigh University on Thursday, March 23, 2017, at 7 p.m. in the Neviille Auditorium III (Neville Hall, Room 103), 6A E. Packer Ave., Bethlehem.

Lakey’s lecture, “From Divided Nation to Shared Prosperity? Learning from Scandinavia,” will be followed by a question-and-answer period. Lakey is a political activist and nonviolence advocate and trainer. Lakey recently retired as the Eugene M. Lang Professor for Issues in Social Change at Swarthmore College, where he managed the Global Nonviolent Direct Action Database. He is co-founder of EQAT, the Earth Quaker Action Team.

His lecture will share insights from his Viking Economics book and talk about similarities between Scandinavia and the United States: “Like the U.S. today, the Scandinavian nations once had sharp inequality with significant poverty, a ‘pretend democracy,’ and highly polarized politics. By the 1950s they’d achieved consensus and reached the top tier of international rankings for equality, freedom, and shared abundance, where they have ranked ever since.”

The event is free and open to the public. It is sponsored by Lehigh University’s College of Arts and Sciences and Department of Political Science.