Erik M. Conway, Historian, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology – https://www.erikmconway.com/
Title: The Big Myth: How General Electric Helped Sell Americans the Myth of the Free Market
Abstract: In our recent book, The Big Myth, Naomi Oreskes and I trace the efforts of big business to fight economic reform by promoting the myth of the free market. To be an American meant to believe that free markets were indivisible from religious and political freedoms–a “tripod of freedom.” In that view, banning child labor would lead straight down a slippery slope into totalitarianism. In this talk, I’ll trace one thread of that story, the role of the General Electric Corporation in spreading the gospel of the market.
Thursday, November 9, 2023
5:00 to 6:30 PM
Buchanan Tower 1112
