Anne Case, Ph.D. and Angus Deaton, Ph.D.
Princeton University economists and co-authors, Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism
David Leonhardt
Pulitzer Prize-winning senior writer for The New York Times
Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism
BONUS AFTER-HOURS EVENT: Attendees who purchase a copy of Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism from FAN’s partner bookseller The Book Stall are invited to attend an AFTER-HOURS event hosted by Case, Deaton, and Leonhardt that will start immediately after the webinar. Details on the webinar registration page.
Life expectancy in the United States has recently fallen for several years in a row—a reversal not seen since 1918 or in any other wealthy nation in modern times. In the past two decades, “deaths of despair” from suicide, drug overdose, and alcoholism have risen dramatically, and now claim hundreds of thousands of American lives each year—and they’re still rising. Princeton economists Anne Case, Ph.D. and Nobel Prize-winner Angus Deaton, Ph.D., known for first sounding the alarm about deaths of despair, explain the overwhelming surge in these deaths and shed light on the social and economic forces that are making life harder for the working class. Their New York Times bestselling book Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism paints a troubling portrait of the American dream in decline.
For the white working class, today’s America has become a land of broken families and few prospects. As the college educated become healthier and wealthier, adults without a degree are literally dying from pain and despair. In this critically important book, Case and Deaton tie the crisis to the weakening position of labor, the growing power of corporations, and, above all, to a rapacious health-care sector that redistributes working-class wages into the pockets of the wealthy. Capitalism, which over two centuries lifted countless people out of poverty, is now destroying the lives of blue-collar America.
Case is the Alexander Stewart 1886 Professor of Economics and Public Affairs Emeritus at Princeton University. Deaton, winner of the 2015 Nobel Prize in economics, is the Dwight D. Eisenhower Professor of Economics and International Affairs Emeritus at Princeton University and Presidential Professor of Economics at the University of Southern California.
Case and Deaton will be in conversation with David Leonhardt, award-winning senior writer for The New York Times, where he writes The Morning, The Times’s flagship daily newsletter. He has worked at The Times since 1999 and has previously been an Op-Ed columnist, Washington bureau chief, Magazine staff writer, co-host of The Argument podcast and founding editor of The Upshot section. Leonhardt has received the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for commentary.
This event suitable for youth 12+. It will be recorded and available on our website and YouTube channel.
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