Thursday 20 September 2012 9.00 hrs - Plenary Opening
Is there life after the Information Society, or is it a Dream? - Johan Peter Paludan, presents an image of the future where there is no lack of products but a lack of customers. From the Agricultural and Industrial Societies of the past into today’s Information Society, the world, according to his scenario, is moving into the Dream Society, where feelings, emotions and perceptions associated with a product rather than rationality determine its success. Will the Dream Society be a fantasy come true or is it already there?
Johan Peter Paludan, Futurist and Director of the Copenhagen Institute for Future Studies (DK), is widely renowned for his skills on futures studies themes and methods. He also plays an active role in the so-called scenario-process developed by the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies. Johan Peter is always on the move, offering more than 100 world-wide presentations a year. His specialization lies in labour market issues, education, The Dream Society and social trends.
Thursday 20 September 2012 14.30 hrs - SESSION I
The Crises in Europe - Marc de Vos, author of the book “After the meltdown. The Future of Capitalism and Globalization in The Age of the Twin Crises” asserts that the global trauma generated by the Twin Crisis has changed the way of thinking about economics. He specifies that a “wrong” capitalism, neither a “wrong” globalization exists. Empirical and statistic data demonstrate that in the last two decades capitalism and globalization have been extremely successful in improving living standards of people around the world lifting an estimated 1 billion people out of poverty. So according to Marc de Vos the current crisis has not to be thought like a failure of capitalism or globalization but rather a sum of wrong decisions and “non-regulation” of the financial markets by governments.
Will the Green economy stimulated by non-market forces replace the existing “black” economic model based on fossil fuels, and will it offer us a sustainable solution and way out of this crisis?
Marc de Vos, Director Itinera Institute (B), holds a Licentiate and Doctorate in Law (University of Gent), a Master in Social Law (Université Libre de Bruxelles), and a Master of Laws (Harvard University). He is the director of the Itinera Institute and teaches Belgian, European and international employment and labour law, as well as American law, at Ghent University and the University of Brussels (VUB). He frequently publishes, lectures and debates on issues of labour and employment law, European integration, labour market reform, pensions, healthcare, ageing and the welfare state, both nationally and internationally, and in academic, professional and policy circles, as well as in the media.
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