I am 65 years old, a professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. During ages 15 to 28 (1958-1971) I was more or less a full-time activist in various movements (while also being a student most of the time): civil rights, antiwar, student movement (SDS), working class organizing. I did this in several places: suburban Long Island where I grew up, Harvard, Mississippi, Yale, UC Berkeley, and the East Bay Area of California. In 1971 I went back to graduate school to finish a PhD and became a professor. Since that time my main political work has been educational (through teaching in universities or in popular economics settings) and writing articles and books, although I have continued to participate in demonstrations on various issues. During 2002-05 I was an elected member of the Northampton School Board where I fought for progressive educational policies. Currently I teach and write about Marxist economics, neoliberalism, socialist economies, and recently the current economic crisis. I am an editorial Board member of the Review of Radical Political Economics. I often give lectures in Russia and China. I hope to be able to participate in efforts to form a new broad left political organization in the USA and to work on visions of a future socialism. I hope this project can produce ideas for an alternative society to capitalist society that can appeal to the majority of the population and to disseminate such a vision widely. I also hope the project can come up with ideas about how to move from here to there.