Past events
THE MORAL UNDERGROUND: A TALK ON ECONOMIC DISOBEDIENCE
DATE: Wednesday, September 15
TIME:
5:30pm
 |
A manager at a chain pizza restaurant pads his minimum-wage employees
paychecks; A supervisor at a big box store secretly sends groceries
home with a worker, who despite having a full-time job, can’t afford
to feed her family; A pediatrician fudges an insurance form to get
care for the uninsured mother of her patient. Is this fraud? Lying?
Stealing? Lisa Dodson, a Professor of Sociology at Boston College,
calls it economic disobedience and in her book The Moral Underground
she profiles the many people who quietly practice it. When low wages
and inadequate public policy leave so many working families without
access to health care, decent education, and sufficient food and
shelter acts of economic disobedience are an inevitable response among
those who believe in a fair society. Dodson will discuss economic
disobedience, take on the moral paradox of breaking rules to do good,
and talk about why she believes it is in the tradition of the
underground railroad and other acts of civil disobedience that have
propelled social justice movements throughout history.
* This event is co-sponsored by the Hull-House Museum, Interfaith Worker Justice, and The Public Square at the Illinois Humanities Council