The Holland Lecture Series

Sponsored by the First Unitarian Church of Omaha

Established by Mary and Richard Holland

Lecture Series Email Address

7:30 p.m. Tuesday, October 20, 2009 at the Holland Performing Arts Center
Directions and Parking and Ticket Information

Tickets for this reserved seating event are only available by calling Ticket Omaha (402-345-0606) or by visiting the Ticket Omaha Box Office located inside the Holland Performing Arts Center, 13th and Douglas streets in downtown Omaha. There is a limit of four tickets per request.

The Holland Lecture Series presents a FREE lecture by world-renowned economist and author James K. Galbraith.  His talk, “The Great Crisis and the Predator State” is based on his most recent book The Predator State: How Conservatives Abandoned the Free Market and Why Liberals Should Too.

Galbraith is critical of both conservatives and liberals, believing that neither is capable of addressing the nation’s pressing economic problems.  He finds the current debate is based on the premise the economy is governed by free markets and competition – a premise he finds false.  Instead, he suggests that America is becoming a predator nation that abuses public institutions for private profit and undermines public protections for the benefit of private interests.  As an example he points to Medicare’s drug plan, which legislates monopoly drug pricing for drug companies.  Galbraith also argues against a hands-off approach to markets, suggesting that unregulated markets will lurch forward from one bubble to the next.  He further suggests that crises like global warming will never be dealt with because there is no financial incentive to do so.

James Galbraith teaches at the LBJ School in the University of Texas-Austin Department of Government. He holds degrees from Harvard and Yale (Ph.D. in Economics, 1981).  Visit the University of Texas Inequality Project (UTIP) for current research and archive of published writings.  http://utip.gov.utexas.edu

The Holland Lecture Series seeks to bring timely and important views and ideas to the community. The views represented are the sole responsibility of the guest speaker and do not necessarily reflect the views of the First Unitarian Church of Omaha.

For more information:

James K. Galbraith's University of Texas/LBJ School Web Site

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The Holland Lecture Series

First Unitarian Church has a long history of encouraging free and open discussion of controversial topics. For 10 years, between 1954 and 1964, the church was the home of the Frank R. Hoagland Lectures. As a young man, Dick Holland attended many of those lectures and discussed new ideas and ways of thinking that shaped his world perspective. His current desire to resurrect a speaker series and bring distinguished speakers to Omaha is rooted in his memories of attending those earlier presentations. Dick and Mary Holland believed that the Hoagland Lectures, which also brought well-known national figures to speak in Omaha, was an appropriate model for the new Holland Lecture Series that they established. In June 2006, First Unitarian Church and the Omaha community lost a very good friend with the passing of Mary Holland. 

Email the Holland Lecture Series

Previous Holland Lecture speakers:

March 11, 2009 - "The Purpose of Purpose". Dr. Richard Dawkins, Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science, Oxford University.

Note: We have received many requests to see the video of Dr. Dawkins' talk. We are pleased to announce that it is now available on his web site. The video is a composite of the three lectures that Dawkins gave on his US Midwest tour in Michigan, Oklahoma, and Nebraska.

Updated June 23, 2009  wfr