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What’s “Neo” about Neoliberalism? Texas and the Road to High Tech in the Long 1970s

6 PM lecture followed by Q&A
McCord Auditorium, Dallas Hall, 3225 University Blvd., SMU

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Historians often view the 1970s and 1980s as a period of deep structural change in the United States, where Reagan’s administration ended an era of limits on business by reducing taxes, ending cumbersome regulations, defunding social programs, and creating a better business climate. Yet this narrative hides the concomitant building of a new development state, one designed to increase American productivity by funding high technology and defense-oriented research. Looking at how the process unfolded in Texas, under a system of New Federalism, helps to illuminate the role played by public institutions in economic development offers a more fine-grained approach to explore how capitalism is shaped by diverse actors at subnational levels.

Andrew M. Busch an associate professor of history at Coastal Carolina University and is this year's Clements Senior Fellow for the Study of Southwestern America. He is an interdisciplinary historian who studies cities, environmental planning, knowledge production, and political economy. He is also an oral historian. Busch received a PhD in American Studies from the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of City in a Garden: Environmental Transformations and Racial Justice in Twentieth Century Austin, Texas (University of North Carolina Press, 2017) and co-author of Republic of Barbecue: Stories beyond the Brisket (University of Texas Press, 2009). His book project which he will further during his year at the Clements Center, High Tech Texas: Public Institutions, Regional Economic Development, and the Myth of Free Markets, is under contract with the University of Texas Press.

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Free and open to the public.