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It's halftime America! Ay Yi Yai Yi! Den Nye Verdensorden er ankommet! Imperier opstår, falmer og forgår. Historien har vist denne cyklus mange gange, både med romerne, osmannerne og briterne. De falmede alle, og hvis vi ikke passer på, bliver USA det næste imperium der falder. Mange af nutidens virksomheder er ikke andet end en flok ekstreme, gældsafhængige og finansmanipulerende frøer, der vrider og snoer sig i lunken slangeolie. Desværre vil mange af dem finde deres endeligt i kløerne på IP-gribbe. Hvis vi ikke spiller vores trumfkort rigtigt, vil det næste glubske imperium - Riget i Midten, Kina - fortære os; de vil sende deres stikirenddrenge afsted for at indkassere regningerne fra USA og de over hundrede andre lande, som Kina har koloniseret økonomisk og digitalt siden den økonomiske tsunami i 2008, gennem deres'Belt and Road Initiative'(BRI) og deres'Digital Silk Road'(DSR).'Genopbyg vores enterprises'graver i kapitalismens grundlag og sporer Roosevelt-årenes idealer, triumfer og tidsånd for at'Genopbygge bedre'- og redde os fra det forestående Fjerde Rige. Yeah! It's halftime, America!

We zijn halverwege de wedstrijd, Amerika! Ay Yi Yai Yi! We zitten midden in de Nieuwe Wereld Orde! Rijken komen op, raken in verval en vallen. De geschiedenis is getuige geweest van deze cyclus met de Romeinen, de Ottomanen en de Britten. Ze zijn allemaal omgevallen en als we niet oppassen, zullen de VS de volgende zijn. Veel van de ondernemingen van vandaag zijn een stelletje schuldenverslaafde, extreme financiële ingenieurs-kikkers die spartelen in lauwe slangenolie. Helaas zullen velen hun ondergang vinden in de klauwen van de aasgieren van het intellectueel eigendom. Als we onze troefkaarten niet goed uitspelen, zal het volgende vraatzuchtige rijk - het Middenrijk van China - ons verteren; ze zullen hun loopjongens sturen om de rekeningen te innen van de VS en meer dan honderd andere landen, die ze economisch en digitaal hebben gekoloniseerd sinds de economische tsunami van 2008 door middel van de'Belt and Road Initiative'(BRI) en de opvolger, de'Digital Silk Road'(DSR).'Make Enterprise Great Again'graaft in de fundamenten van het kapitalisme enonderzoekt de idealen, triomfen en tijdgeest van de Roosevelt-jaren om'Beter terug te bouwen'- en om ons te redden van het naderende Vierde Rijk.

How corporations used mass media to teach Americans that capitalism was natural and patriotic, exposing the porous line between propaganda and public service. Business as Usual reveals how American capitalism has been promoted in the most ephemeral of materials: public service announcements, pamphlets, educational films, and games—what Caroline Jack calls “sponsored economic education media.” These items, which were funded by corporations and trade groups who aimed to “sell America to Americans,” found their way into communities, classrooms, and workplaces, and onto the airwaves, where they promoted ideals of “free enterprise” under the cloaks of public service and civic education. They offered an idealized vision of US industrial development as a source of patriotic optimism, framed business management imperatives as economic principles, and conflated the privileges granted to corporations by the law with foundational political rights held by individuals. This rhetoric remains dominant—a harbinger of the power of disinformation that so besets us today. Jack reveals the funding, production, and distribution that together entrenched a particular vision of corporate responsibility—and, in the process, shut out other hierarchies of value and common care.

Uncovers the inherently religious structure of the criminalization of Black, Indigenous, and dispossessed peoplesMost popular critical accounts of mass criminalization interpret police and prisons as purely social or political phenomena. While such accounts have been indispensable in moving millions into collective action and resistance, the carceral state remains as pervasive as ever.White Property, Black Trespass argues that understanding why we have police and prisons, and building a world of safety and abundance beyond them, requires that we acknowledge the inherently religious function that criminalization fulfills for a colonial and racial capitalist order that puts its faith in cops and cages to save it from the existential threat of disorder that its own structural violence creates.The story of criminalization, Krinks shows, begins with the eurochristian aspiration to become God at the expense of all others—an aspiration that gives rise to the pseudo-sacred powers of whiteness and property, and, by extension, the police power that exists to serve and protect them. Tracing the historical continuity and religiosity of the color line, the property line, and the thin blue line, Krinks reveals police power as the pseudo-divine power to exile nonwhite and dispossessed trespassers to carceral hell. At once incisive and expansive, this groundbreaking work deepens understanding of racial capitalism and mass criminalization by illuminating the religious mythologies that animate them. It concludes with thoughts on what might be entailed in a religion rooted in rejection of the religious idolatry of mass criminalization—a religion of abolition.

Offering a unique, comprehensive, and critical introduction to increasingly visible social inequalities, this textbook examines the political and economic causes and cultural consequences of a stratifying system that allocates material resources and human dignity on the basis of private profit and labor exploitation.Mapping Inequality in an Era of Neoliberalism foregrounds capitalism as the major source of the power relations in the United States, as a class system that serves the dominant vector of inequality and sets the parameters of social mobility. The book starts with racialized capitalist power and shows how this power is constituted in structures of opportunity and constraint. It also uses ethnographic accounts to “flip the script” to show how individuals in the class structure construct identities.Providing students with tools for understanding, Valocchi engagingly introduces many of the crucial concepts in this area of sociology – power, opportunity structures, ideology, social and cultural capitals, and intersectional class identities – connecting them as part of a uniquely critical approach.

Née au Texas, sans doute de parents esclaves d'origine africaine, Lucy Parsons (1853-1942) est une grande oubliée de l'histoire des mouvements anarchiste et ouvrier. Pourtant, cette révolutionnaire fut de toutes les luttes contre l'exploitation des classes laborieuses de son époque. Veuve d'Albert Parsons, l'un des cinq martyrs du massacre de Haymarket à Chicago en 1886, elle est l'une des fondatrices des Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). Celle que l'on surnomma la «prêtresse de l'anarchie» consacra sa vie à dénoncer les injustices du système capitaliste et à promouvoir son abolition. Cette anthologie, la plus complète à ce jour, rassemble une quarantaine de ses textes, discours et conférences, qui abordent les sujets qui ont marqué son combat: la destruction du capitalisme et la violence révolutionnaire, la liberté d'expression, l'égalité entre les hommes et les femmes, le racisme et le travail des enfants. Aux côtés de Louise Michel, à qui elle rend d'ailleurs hommage, de Voltairine de Cleyre et d'Emma Goldman, Lucy Parsons est un exemple flamboyant de cette lignée de femmes qui ont dédié leur existence à la cause anarchiste ainsi qu'à la défense de la classe ouvrière et des plus vulnérables.

Discover what sets a fair and just economy apart from the rest In Un-Civilizing America – How Win-Win Deals Made Us Rich, bestselling author William Bonner delivers an incisive and engrossing account of the American economy, the four simple steps to earning money the honest way, and why many choose the dishonest way instead. He also discusses the shadow groups that influence America behind the scenes and how their power grew so large they lost the need to remain hidden, and what really drives the government's phony wars—including the War on Drugs and the US-China trade war. In the book, you'll learn why the best kinds of economies run on “win-win” deals and how companies and individuals use market-set prices to maximize their utility. You'll also discover: Why the “Sermon on the Mount” was the best economic and social advice ever given How civilization developed and the one thing that sets it apart from barbarity How “win-lose” deals inevitably force one side or the other to accept the terms of the “agreement” Why allowing only one side to profit in an arrangement is a recipe for disaster in the long run Why capitalism favors “win-win” deals while socialism prefers the “win-lose” varietyA can't-miss resource for anyone interested in American or global economics and finance, Un-Civilizing America will also earn a place on the bookshelves of business leaders, entrepreneurs, policy and lawmakers, and regulators.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A progressive takedown of the uber-capitalist status quo that has enriched millionaires and billionaires at the expense of the working class, and a blueprint for what transformational change would actually look like“A clarion call against the American oligarchs... powerful.”—The GuardianIt's OK to be angry about capitalism. Reflecting on our turbulent times, Senator Bernie Sanders takes on the billionaire class and speaks blunt truths about our country's failure to address the destructive nature of a system that is fueled by uncontrolled greed and rigidly committed to prioritizing corporate profits over the needs of ordinary Americans.Sanders argues that unfettered capitalism is to blame for an unprecedented level of income and wealth inequality, is undermining our democracy, and is destroying our planet. How can we accept an economic order that allows three billionaires to control more wealth than the bottom half of our society? How can we accept a political system that allows the super rich to buy politicians and swing elections? How can we accept an energy system that rewards the fossil fuel corporations causing the climate crisis? Sanders believes that, in the face of these overwhelming challenges, the American people must ask tough questions about the systems that have failed us and demand fundamental economic and political change. This is where the path forward begins.It's OK to Be Angry About Capitalism presents a vision that extends beyond the promises of past campaigns to reveal what would be possible if the political revolution took place, if we would finally recognize that economic rights are human rights, and if we would work to create a society that provides a decent standard of living for all. This isn't some utopian fantasy; this is democracy as we should know it.

This powerful analysis explains how the bias toward wealth that is woven into the very fabric of American capitalism is damaging people, the economy, and the planet and explores what the foundations of a new economy could be.This bold manifesto exposes seven myths underlying wealth supremacy—the bias that institutionalizes infinite extraction of wealth by and for the wealthy and is the hidden force behind economic injustice, the climate crisis, and so many other problems of our day:The Myth of Maximizing—No amount of wealth is ever enough. The Myth of Fiduciary Duty—Corporate managers'most sacred duty is to expand capital.The Myth of Corporate Governance—Corporate membership must be reserved for capital alone. The Myth of the Income Statement—Income to capital must always be increased, while income to labor must always be decreased. The Myth of Materiality—Profit—that is, material gain-alone is real, while social and environmental damages are not.The Myth of Takings—The first duty of government must be the protection of private property. The Myth of the Free Market—There should be no limits on the sphere of influence of corporations and capital. Kelly argues instead for the democratization of ownership: public ownership of vital services, worker-owned businesses, and more. And she sketches the outlines of a nonextractive capitalism that would be subordinate to the public interest. This is an ambitious reimagining of the very foundations of our economy and society.

The first critical analysis of how Whiteness drove the opioid crisis. In the past two decades, media images of the surprisingly white “new face” of the US opioid crisis abounded. But why was the crisis so white? Some argued that skyrocketing overdoses were “deaths of despair” signaling deeper socioeconomic anguish in white communities. Whiteout makes the counterintuitive case that the opioid crisis was the product of white racial privilege as well as despair. Anchored by interviews, data, and riveting firsthand narratives from three leading experts—an addiction psychiatrist, a policy advocate, and a drug historian—Whiteout reveals how a century of structural racism in drug policy, and in profit-oriented medical industries led to mass white overdose deaths. The authors implicate racially segregated health care systems, the racial assumptions of addiction scientists, and relaxed regulation of pharmaceutical marketing to white consumers. Whiteout is an unflinching account of how racial capitalism is toxic for all Americans.

In the second edition of Zombie Politics and Culture in the Age of Casino Capitalism, Henry A. Giroux uses the metaphor of the zombie to highlight how America has embraced a machinery of social and civil death that chills any vestige of a robust democracy. He charts the various ways in which the political, corporate, and intellectual zombies that rule America embrace death-dealing institutions such as a bloated military, the punishing state, a form of predatory capitalism, and an authoritarian, death-driven set of policies that sanction torture, targeted assassinations, and a permanent war psychology. The author argues that government and corporate paranoia runs deep in America. While maintaining a massive security state, the ruling forces promote the internalization of their ideology, modes of governance, and policies by either seducing citizens with the decadent pleasures of a celebrity-loving consumer culture or by beating them into submission. Giroux calls for a systemic alternative to zombie capitalism through a political and pedagogical imperative to address and inform a new cultural vision, mode of individual subjectivity, and understanding of critical agency. As part of a larger effort to build a broad-based social movement, he argues for a new political language capable of placing education at the center of politics. Connecting the language of critique to the discourse of educated hope he calls for the reclaiming of public spaces and institutions where formative cultures can flourish that nourish the radical imagination, and the ongoing search for justice, equality, and the promise of a democracy to come.

'A carefully researched work of intellectual history, and an urgently needed political analysis.'--Jane Mayer“[A] scorching indictment of free market fundamentalism … and how we can change, before it's too late.”-Esquire, Best Books of Winter 2023The bestselling authors of Merchants of Doubt offer a profound, startling history of one of America's most tenacious--and destructive--false ideas: the myth of the'free market.'In their bestselling book Merchants of Doubt, Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway revealed the origins of climate change denial. Now, they unfold the truth about another disastrous dogma: the “magic of the marketplace.” In the early 20th century, business elites, trade associations, wealthy powerbrokers, and media allies set out to build a new American orthodoxy: down with “big government” and up with unfettered markets. With startling archival evidence, Oreskes and Conway document campaigns to rewrite textbooks, combat unions, and defend child labor. They detail the ploys that turned hardline economists Friedrich von Hayek and Milton Friedman into household names; recount the libertarian roots of the Little House on the Prairie books; and tune into the General Electric-sponsored TV show that beamed free-market doctrine to millions and launched Ronald Reagan's political career. By the 1970s, this propaganda was succeeding. Free market ideology would define the next half-century across Republican and Democratic administrations, giving us a housing crisis, the opioid scourge, climate destruction, and a baleful response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Only by understanding this history can we imagine a future where markets will serve, not stifle, democracy.

Since the 1980s, the United States has regressed to a level of economic inequality not seen since the Gilded Age in the late nineteenth century. At the same time, technological innovation has transformed society, and a core priority of public policy has been promoting innovation. What is the relationship between economic inequality and technological change?Mordecai Kurz develops a comprehensive integrated theory of the dynamics of market power and income inequality. He shows that technological innovations are not simply sources of growth and progress: they sow the seeds of market power. In a free market economy with intellectual property rights, firms'control over technology enables them to expand, attain monopoly power, and earn exorbitant profits. Competition among innovators does not eliminate market power because technological competition is different from standard competition; it results in only one or two winners. Kurz provides a pioneering analysis grounded on quantifying technological market power and its effects on inequality, innovation, and economic growth. He outlines what causes market power to rise and fall and details its macroeconomic and distributional consequences.Kurz demonstrates that technological market power tends to rise, increasing inequality of income and wealth. Unchecked inequality threatens the foundations of democracy: public policy is the only counterbalancing force that can restrain corporate power, attain more egalitarian distribution of wealth, and make democracy compatible with capitalism. Presenting a new paradigm for understanding today's vast inequalities, this book offers detailed proposals to redress them by restricting corporate mergers and acquisitions, reforming patent law, improving the balance of power in the labor market, increasing taxation, promoting upward mobility, and stabilizing the middle class.

The black insurgence movement and experiments in Caribbean socialism, following the work of the committed revolutionary CLR James, have resounding significance for the political struggles of today. This book addresses class struggle and the battle against racialized capitalism, which in turn makes us reconceptualize the idea of revolution, liberation and rebellion by focusing on this great revolutionary theorist.Renowned political theorist Drucilla Cornell argues that the universal heartbeat of the struggle for socialism is a new praxis of being human together beyond the exploitation of colonial-racial capitalism. On this basis, this book's intervention emphasizes the continuous history of revolution, rather than understanding revolutions as “events” that either succeed or fail. In today's moment, with the simultaneity of the collapse of the post-Cold War neoliberal order and climate change, the struggle over what it means to be human on the planet has taken on a new urgency. Cornell argues that the greatest vectors of this revolutionary struggle for a new humanity are Black, decolonial, and queer movements, as they show us ways of being beyond the reign of white economic man. Placing the insights of these struggles in conversation with “traditional” Marxist thought, this book speaks to the pragmatic questions of insurrection, insurgency, rebellion, and revolution in a way that speaks to the politics of our time.

A Wall Street Journal Bestseller Pulitzer Prize­­­–winning and New York Times bestselling financial journalist Gretchen Morgenson and financial policy analyst Joshua Rosner investigate the insidious world of private equity in this “masterpiece of investigative journalism” (Christopher Leonard, bestselling author of Kochland)—revealing how it puts our entire economy and us at risk.Much has been written about the widening gulf between rich and poor and how our style of capitalism has failed to provide a living wage for so many Americans. But nothing has fully detailed the outsized role a small cohort of elite financiers has played in this inequality. Pulitzer Prize­–winning journalist and bestselling author Gretchen Morgenson, with coauthor Joshua Rosner, unmask the small group of celebrated Wall Street financiers, and their government enablers, who use excessive debt and dubious practices to undermine our nation's economy for their own enrichment: private equity. These Are the Plunderers traces the thirty-year history of corporate takeovers in America and private equity's increasing dominance. Morgenson and Rosner investigate some of the biggest names in private equity, exposing how they buy companies, load them with debt, and then bleed them of assets and profits. All while prosecutors and regulators stand idly by. The authors show how companies absorbed by private equity have worse outcomes for everyone but the financiers: employees are more likely to lose their jobs or their benefits; companies are more likely to go bankrupt; patients are more likely to have higher healthcare costs; residents of nursing homes are more likely to die faster; towns struggle when private equity buys their main businesses, crippling the local economy; and school teachers, firefighters, medical technicians, and other public workers are more likely to have lower returns on their pensions because of the fees private equity extracts from their investments. In other words: we are all worse off because of private equity. These Are the Plunderers is a “meticulous and devastating takedown of a powerful force in Western capitalism” (Brad Stone, bestselling author of Amazon Unbound) that exposes the greed and pillaging in private equity, revealing the many ways these billionaires have bled the economy, and, in turn, us.

In A New Capitalism, Frank Altman, a legendary figure in the Community Development Finance industry, offers a systematic argument for why and how American capitalism can be extended to people from every walk of life, including those from low-income census tracks. He explores the history and cultural realities that have created an unequal financial playing field, particularly for BIPOC communities and how innovative approaches can create sound investment devices and exponential growth in minority and women-owned businesses and increase levels of home ownership. Altman exposes the false belief held by many that capitalism operates at greatest efficiency when only focused on increasing the wealth of the richest segments of a population and offers clear evidence how American capitalism has always existed within a regulated system.He expounds upon the myopia, cultural ignorance, and willful prejudice that contribute to entrenched systematic policies and processes that further expand the wealth gap.By identifying the current moment as transformative for capital markets due to the financial disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the murder of George Floyd, Altman offers pragmatic alterations to existing investment programs, expands on historically successful examples of innovative investment approaches, and outlines next steps that can ensure more people will benefit from the wealth capitalist systems produce.In a time of extreme financial market uncertainty, Altman designs a roadmap for navigating precarious investment conditions and increasing the impact of investment to benefit those historically locked out of financial opportunity. Through numerous examples, including those developed by the nonprofit community finance organization he founded, Community Reinvestment Fund, USA, Altman offers clear evidence how lives can be bettered, futures altered, and entire communities transformed through the creation of ESG - minded investment strategies. Among the programs elucidated within A New Capitalism, are the New Markets Tax Credits, The Detroit Home Mortgage, Small Business Administration loans, the Payroll Protection Program, and the Bond Guarantee Program. As the book also demonstrates, the kinds of approaches and strategies on which Altman focuses now extend into all financial and investment institutions and have critically important applications for those far beyond Community Development Financial Institutions.

The Hungarian artist-designer László Moholy-Nagy, the Austrian sociologist Paul Lazarsfeld, and his fellow Viennese Victor Gruen—an architect and urban planner—made careers in different fields. Yet they shared common socialist politics, Jewish backgrounds, and experience as refugees from the Nazis. This book tells the story of their intellectual migration from Central Europe to the United States, beginning with the collapse of the Habsburg Empire, and moving through the heady years of newly independent social-democratic republics before the descent into fascism. It follows their experience of exile and adaptation in a new country, and culminates with a surprising outcome of socialist thinking: the opening of the first fully enclosed, air-conditioned suburban shopping center in the United States. Although the American culture they encountered ostensibly celebrated entrepreneurial individualism and capitalistic “free enterprise,” Moholy-Nagy, Lazarsfeld, and Gruen arrived at a time of the progressive economic reforms of the New Deal and an extraordinary open-mindedness about social democracy. This period of unprecedented economic experimentation nurtured a business climate that, for the most part, did not stifle the émigrés'socialist idealism but rather channeled it as the source of creative solutions to the practical problems of industrial design, urban planning, and consumer behavior. Based on a vast array of original sources, Malherek interweaves the biographies of these three remarkable personalities and those of their wives, colleagues, and friends with whom they collaborated on innovative projects that would shape the material environment and consumer culture of their adopted home. The result is a narrative of immigration and adaptation that challenges the crude binary of capitalism and socialism with a story of creative economic hybridization.

Throughout its history, the U.S. military has worked in close connection to market-based institutions and structures. It has run systems of free and unfree labor, taken over private sector firms, and both spurred and snuffed out economic development. It has created new markets—for consumer products, for sex work, and for new technologies. It has operated as a regulator of industries and firms and an arbitrator of labor practices. And in recent decades it has gone so far as to refashion itself from the inside, so as to become more similar to a for-profit corporation.The Military and the Market covers two centuries of history of the U.S. military's vast and varied economic operations, including its often tense relationships with capitalist markets. Collecting new scholarship at the intersection of the fields of military history, business history, policy history, and the history of capitalism, the nine chapters feature important new research on subjects ranging from Civil War soldier-entrepreneurs, to the business of the construction of housing and overseas bases for the Cold War, to the U.S. military's troubled relationships with markets for sex. The volume enriches scholars'understandings of the depth and complexity of military-market relations in U.S. history and offers today's military policymakers novel insights about the origins of current arrangements and how they might be reimagined.Contributors: Jessica L. Adler, Timothy Barker, Patrick Chung, Gretchen Heefner, Jennifer Mittelstadt, A. Junn Murphy, Kara Dixon Vuic, Sarah Jones Weicksel, Mark R. Wilson, Daniel Wirls.

This book provides a concise and accessible history of the relationship between the individual and capitalism in the United States. The text is devoted to tracking the historical development of important themes, whilst addressing key episodes in the progress of American capitalism within these, such as the Great Depression and New Deal. The book will introduce students to the key philosophical principles that have been the most influential in the history of free enterprise in the United States as well as exploring the ways in which these ideas have been popularly understood by Americans from the late eighteenth century to the present. Liberalism and Neoliberalism, entrepreneurialism, slavery and racial capitalism, and business and gender are all assessed. The material in this volume is complimented by a set of primary source documents that bring the subject to life. It will be of interest to students of American history, business and labor history.

Political journalist Michael Tomasky tracks an exciting change among progressive economists who are overturning decades of conservative dogma and offering an alternative version of capitalism that can serve broadly shared prosperity to all.'Engaging, briskly paced... On balance, history appears to be on Tomasky's side.'—The New York Times Book ReviewIn the first half of the twentieth century the Keynesian brand of economics, which saw government spending as a necessary spur to economic growth, prevailed. Then in the 1970s, conservatives fought back. Once they got people to believe a few simple ideas instead—that only the free market could produce growth, that taxes and regulation stifle growth—the battle was won. The era of conservative dogma, often called neoliberal economics, had begun. It ushered in increasing inequality, a shrinking middle class, and declining public investment. For fifty years, liberals have not been able to make a dent in it. Until now. In The Middle Out, journalist Michael Tomasky narrates this history and reports on the work of today's progressive economists, who are using mountains of historical evidence to contradict neoliberal claims. Their research reveals conservative dogma to be unfounded and shows how concentrated wealth has been built on the exploitation of women, minorities, and the politically powerless. Middle-out economics, in contrast, is the belief that prosperity comes from a thriving middle class, and therefore government plays a role in supporting families and communities. This version of capitalism--more just, more equal, and in which prosperity is shared--could be the American future.

The second edition of Inequality and Violence in the United States: Casualties of Capitalism (2004) won the Best Book of the Year award from the Marxist Section of the American Sociological Association. In the third edition, Dr. Chasin updates and expands the previous material, discussing the significance of the COVID-19 pandemic, the opioid crisis, access to firearms, and white supremacist movements. Written in a readable, accessible style, this book is a thoroughly documented account of the importance of connecting economic and political inequalities to dangers people face. The book emphasizes the importance of recognizing both structural and organizational violence, as well as discussing forms of interpersonal violence. Chasin analyzes relationships between social class, race/ethnicity, gender, and the three forms of violence.

This book of selected essays presents constructive analyses of vital economic problems confronting the United States since the 1970s, giving special attention to challenges facing working families. The analyses, produced by Charles Whalen over three decades, address the causes and consequences of macroeconomic instability, job offshoring, community economic dislocation, financialization, and income inequality. They also explore the various dimensions of worker insecurity and underscore the dynamics of an ever-changing economy. The result is a compelling case for reforming capitalism by addressing workers'interests as an integral part of the common good, and for reconstructing economics in the direction of post-Keynesian institutionalism.Whalen's reformist approach builds not only on the institutional economics of John R. Commons, but also on the post-Keynesianism of Hyman Minsky, who stressed that society should be democratic and humane. To that end, the book gives attention to policy-making processes as well as policy details.Scholars and students of economics and labor studies will appreciate the incisive analyses and real-world focus. Historians and economic sociologists will be interested in the book's attention to the evolution of US capitalism; and policy analysts and concerned citizens will welcome its emphasis on economic reform and optimistic vision for our economic future.

»Das Bemerkenswerte an dieser atemberaubend geschriebenen Analyse der amerikanischen Gegenwart: Man begreift nicht nur die USA viel besser – sondern auch Deutschland.« Samira El Ouassil Die Vereinigten Staaten, ein Ort der linken Inspiration? Aus der Ferne betrachtet mag das absurd klingen. Bei genauem Blick erkennt man, dass die neuen Bewegungen, Allianzen und Ideen, die sich entwickelt haben, radikaler und visionärer sind als je zuvor. Ausgerechnet in diesem Land wachsen post-kapitalistische Alternativen - oder gerade dort. Was ist in den USA passiert, dass dort immer vehementer der Kapitalismus in Frage gestellt wird? Wie kommt es, dass der Ruf nach einer Gesellschaft ohne Polizei und Gefängnisse lauter wird, dass visionäre Ideen wie der Green New Deal näher rücken? Und warum schließen sich junge Amerikaner•innen in Massen dem demokratischen Sozialismus an? In den Vereinigten Staaten hat sich in den vergangenen zehn Jahren eine ideologische Blockade gelöst. Es ist eine Generation gewachsen, die andere Ansprüche an Politik hat, die direktere Formen der Demokratie verfolgt. Und zwar innerhalb, aber vor allem außerhalb der Parlamente. Der Journalist Lukas Hermsmeier spürt den Bewegungen von Occupy über Black Lives Matter bis zum Klima-Widerstand nach, ergründet so die Wiedergeburt der amerikanischen Linken und zeigt, was wir von ihren Ideen, Allianzen und Strategien lernen können. »Vor knapp zweihundert Jahren begründete Alexis de Tocqueville die Politikwissenschaft, indem er die Eindrücke seiner USA-Reisen für das europäische Publikum niederschrieb. Lukas Hermsmeiers packender Bericht führt die Leser•innen nun abermals an Orte, an denen der Quell der transatlantischen Revolutionen noch sprudelt. Das Buch ist unerlässlich, um die Gegenwart zu verstehen. Wer mag, dem wird es auch helfen, von der Zukunft zu träumen.« Eva von Redecker

Defining a just economy in a tenuous social-political time. If we can agree that our current social-political moment is tenuous and unsustainable—and indeed, that may be the only thing we can agree on right now—then how do markets, governments, and people interact in this next era of the world? A Political Economy of Justice considers the strained state of our political economy in terms of where it can go from here. The contributors to this timely and essential volume look squarely at how normative and positive questions about political economy interact with each other—and from that beginning, how to chart a way forward to a just economy. A Political Economy of Justice collects fourteen essays from prominent scholars across the social sciences, each writing in one of three lanes: the measures of a just political economy; the role of firms; and the roles of institutions and governments. The result is a wholly original and urgent new benchmark for the next stage of our democracy.

This book explores the nexus of corruption, late capitalism, and illiberal politics in the Trump era. Through deep, contextualized analysis and careful critique, it offers valuable perspectives on how corruption is defined and understood in the current historical moment. The book asks: Is today's corruption something new, or is it a continuation of prior patterns of illiberalism?Chapters in this collection consider how corruption is practiced, mobilized, or invoked in a range of cases, each of which is embedded within larger concerns about what citizenship, social belonging, honesty, and justice mean in the United States today. The authors examine a constellation of unscrupulous actors and questionable actions, with topics ranging from sex scandals and shady real estate deals to the Trump administration's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Several essays directly address the increasingly violent rhetoric and the deliberately anti-democratic policies that have flourished during the Trump era. The book draws on anthropological insights and comparative analysis to place the policies and practices of Trump and his supporters in a wider global context.Corruption and Illiberal Politics in the Trump Era will be of great interest to readers from anthropology, sociology, political science, discourse studies, media studies, linguistics, and American studies.

New York Times Bestseller New York Times reporter and “Corner Office” columnist David Gelles reveals legendary GE CEO Jack Welch to be the root of all that's wrong with capitalism today and offers advice on how we might right those wrongs.In 1981, Jack Welch took over General Electric and quickly rose to fame as the first celebrity CEO. He golfed with presidents, mingled with movie stars, and was idolized for growing GE into the most valuable company in the world. But Welch's achievements didn't stem from some greater intelligence or business prowess. Rather, they were the result of a sustained effort to push GE's stock price ever higher, often at the expense of workers, consumers, and innovation. In this captivating, revelatory book, David Gelles argues that Welch single-handedly ushered in a new, cutthroat era of American capitalism that continues to this day. Gelles chronicles Welch's campaign to vaporize hundreds of thousands of jobs in a bid to boost profits, eviscerating the country's manufacturing base, and destabilizing the middle class. Welch's obsession with downsizing—he eliminated 10% of employees every year—fundamentally altered GE and inspired generations of imitators who have employed his strategies at other companies around the globe. In his day, Welch was corporate America's leading proponent of mergers and acquisitions, using deals to gobble up competitors and giving rise to an economy that is more concentrated and less dynamic. And Welch pioneered the dark arts of “financialization,” transforming GE from an admired industrial manufacturer into what was effectively an unregulated bank. The finance business was hugely profitable in the short term and helped Welch keep GE's stock price ticking up. But ultimately, financialization undermined GE and dozens of other Fortune 500 companies. Gelles shows how Welch's celebrated emphasis on increasing shareholder value by any means necessary (layoffs, outsourcing, offshoring, acquisitions, and buybacks, to name but a few tactics) became the norm in American business generally. He demonstrates how that approach has led to the greatest socioeconomic inequality since the Great Depression and harmed many of the very companies that have embraced it. And he shows how a generation of Welch acolytes radically transformed companies like Boeing, Home Depot, Kraft Heinz, and more. Finally, Gelles chronicles the change that is now afoot in corporate America, highlighting companies and leaders who have abandoned Welchism and are proving that it is still possible to excel in the business world without destroying livelihoods, gutting communities, and spurning regulation.

The aggressive exploitation of labor on both sides of the US-Mexico border has become a prominent feature of capitalism in North America. Kids in cages, violent ICE raids, and anti-immigrant racist rhetoric characterize our political reality and are everyday shaping how people intersect at the US-Mexico border. As activist-scholar Justin Akers Chacón carefully demonstrates, however, this vicious model of capitalist transnationalization has also created its own grave-diggers. Contemporary North American capitalism relies heavily on an inter-connected working class which extends across the border. Cross-border production and supply chains, logistics networks, and retail and service firms have aligned and fused a growing number of workers into one common class, whether they live in the US or Mexico. While money moves without restriction, the movement of displaced migrant workers across borders is restricted and punished. Transborder people face walls, armed agents, detention camps, and a growing regime of repressive laws that criminalize them. Despite the growth and violence of the police state dedicated to the repression of transborder populations—the migra-state—migrant workers have been at the forefront of class struggle in the United States. This timely book persuasively argues that labor and migrant solidarity movements are already showing how and why, in order to fight for justice and re-build the international union movement, we must open the border.

In Defense of Liberal Democracy is a clarion call for today's divided time: a bold reaffirmation of the liberal democratic principles that have carried America through each crisis in its history--and can do so again.Merging expert historical, political, and economic analysis, In Defense of Liberal Democracy shows how our recent technological revolution--what high-profile economist Manuel Hinds calls the Connectivity Revolution--has led to a crisis of divisiveness. Assessing the angry rhetoric and polarization of current political and social discourse in the US, Hinds considers the dangers of seeking populist solutions to our current upheaval and shows how the traditions and institutions of liberal democracy restored prosperity, freedom, and social equity during the Industrial Revolution, the Great Depression, and other periods of political instability. Hinds examines our national past and present (up to and including the 2020 presidential election) to illustrate how current events can be as dramatic as any historical legacy in warning us of the danger of abandoning our democratic principles.

The progressive economics writer redefines the national conversation about American freedom “Mike Konczal [is] one of our most powerful advocates of financial reform‚ [a] heroic critic of austerity‚ and a huge resource for progressives.”—Paul KrugmanHealth insurance, student loan debt, retirement security, child care, work-life balance, access to home ownership—these are the issues driving America's current political debates. And they are all linked, as this brilliant and timely book reveals, by a single question: should we allow the free market to determine our lives? In the tradition of Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine, noted economic commentator Mike Konczal answers this question with a resounding no. Freedom from the Market blends passionate political argument and a bold new take on American history to reveal that, from the earliest days of the republic, Americans have defined freedom as what we keep free from the control of the market. With chapters on the history of the Homestead Act and land ownership, the eight-hour work day and free time, social insurance and Social Security, World War II day cares, Medicare and desegregation, free public colleges, intellectual property, and the public corporation, Konczal shows how citizens have fought to ensure that everyone has access to the conditions that make us free. At a time when millions of Americans—and more and more politicians—are questioning the unregulated free market, Freedom from the Market offers a new narrative, and new intellectual ammunition, for the fight that lies ahead.

This book offers a broad and deep examination of the dynamics of US imperialism. Petras analyzes imperialism not only as economic domination, showing that its impact in the world takes many forms, including cultural, political and historical. He points to the disruptive effects it has on other world regional economies and cultures. Capitalism and imperialism take diverse forms but both are intimately tied to the projection of state power in the service of capital—a strategy designed to advance the geopolitical and economic interests of the US economic elite and ruling class—interests that are equated with the'US national interest'.

What configuration of institutions and policies is most conducive to human flourishing? The historical and comparative evidence suggests that the answer is social democratic capitalism - a democratic political system, a capitalist economy, good elementary and secondary schooling, a big welfare state, pro-employment public services, and moderate regulation of product and labor markets. In Social Democratic Capitalism, Lane Kenworthy shows that this system improves living standards for the least well-off, enhances economic security, and boosts equality of opportunity. And it does so without sacrificing other things we want in a good society, from liberty to economic growth to health and happiness. Its chief practitioners have been the Nordic nations. The Nordics have gone farther than other rich democratic countries in coupling a big welfare state with public services that promote high employment and modest product- and labor-market regulations. Many believe this system isn't transferable beyond Scandinavia, but Kenworthy shows that social democratic capitalism and its successes can be replicated in other affluent nations, including the United States. Today, the U.S. lags behind other countries in economic security, opportunity, and shared prosperity. If the U.S. were to expand its existing social programs and add some additional ones, many ordinary Americans would have better lives. Kenworthy argues that, despite formidable political obstacles, the U.S. is likely to move toward social democratic capitalism in coming decades. As a country gets richer, he explains, it becomes more willing to spend more in order to safeguard against risk and enhance fairness. With social democratic capitalism as his blueprint, he lays out a detailed policy agenda that could alleviate many of America's problems.

This book is a generalisation from the whole span of modern history. It gives an account of economic growth, based on a dynamic theory of production and interpreted in terms of actual societies. It helps to explain historical changes and to predict major political and economic trends: and it provides the significant links between economic and non-economic behaviour which Karl Marx failed to discern.Professor Rostow distinguishes five basic stages of economic growth. He explains each stage in detail, and gives illustrative examples. In particular, he takes two superficially very different economies—those of the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R.—and exhibits in their history the same five stages of growth. He shows, further, the relationship between, military aggression and economic growth. Turning to current problems, he considers how far the concept of stages of growth may help us to cope with the nuclear arms race, and the problems of organising a world which will soon contain many new economically mature nations.Professor Rostow does not subscribe to the Marxist view that history is uniquely determined by economic forces and motives; instead he offers a comprehensive, realistic and soundly based alternative to Marx's theory of how societies evolve.

American opportunity is not dead. Bestselling author and entrepreneur John Hope Bryant outlines the mindset and practices that will allow us to achieve the American Dream, no matter what our current circumstances are.Americans have lost faith in their country. With job security disappearing and fewer glimpses of a better future, it can feel like we are barely surviving, much less thriving, in today's problematic economy. Americans want the'old'America back-- the America where opportunity comes knocking at the front door. But the real problem, John Hope Bryant says, is that we're forgetting that this is still the Land of Opportunity--a site of upward mobility, a place teeming with different ways to create and grow wealth. The opportunities of today are not only greater than the obstacles, but they are greater than they have ever been. What we need, he says, is a mindset shift--a way of recalibrating to recognize that there is still a bounty of resources for establishing entrepreneurship and success in this country. The first step for us, for America, is to remember our storyline--how, coming up from nothing, we established and harnessed the invincible American Dream.

American democratic capitalism is in danger. How can we save it?For its first two hundred years, the American economy exhibited truly impressive performance. The combination of democratically elected governments and a capitalist system worked, with ever-increasing levels of efficiency spurred by division of labor, international trade, and scientific management of companies. By the nation's bicentennial celebration in 1976, the American economy was the envy of the world.But since then, outcomes have changed dramatically. Growth in the economic prosperity of the average American family has slowed to a crawl, while the wealth of the richest Americans has skyrocketed. This imbalance threatens the American democratic capitalist system and our way of life.In this bracing yet constructive book, world-renowned business thinker Roger Martin starkly outlines the fundamental problem: We have treated the economy as a machine, pursuing ever-greater efficiency as an inherent good. But efficiency has become too much of a good thing. Our obsession with it has inadvertently shifted the shape of our economy, from a large middle class and smaller numbers of rich and poor (think of a bell-shaped curve) to a greater share of benefits accruing to a thin tail of already-rich Americans (a Pareto distribution).With lucid analysis and engaging anecdotes, Martin argues that we must stop treating the economy as a perfectible machine and shift toward viewing it as a complex adaptive system in which we seek a fundamental balance of efficiency with resilience. To achieve this, we need to keep in mind the whole while working on the component parts; pursue improvement, not perfection; and relentlessly tweak instead of attempting to find permanent solutions.Filled with keen economic insight and advice for citizens, executives, policy makers, and educators, When More Is Not Better is the must-read guide for saving democratic capitalism.

'La difesa è molto più importante della ricchezza'. Adam Smith segna così i confini dell'economia politica, nel momento della sua nascita. Anche oggi il mercato ha il suo unico limite nella sicurezza nazionale, dominio arcano dei grandi contendenti dell'arena globale, gli Stati Uniti e la Cina. Le due potenze fondono l'ambito economico e quello politico, attraverso le decisioni del Partito comunista cinese e degli apparati di difesa e sicurezza nazionale degli Stati Uniti. Pechino e Washington vivono un acceso conflitto di geodiritto: una guerra giuridica e tecnologica combattuta attraverso sanzioni, uso politico delle istituzioni internazionali, blocchi agli investimenti esteri. Partendo dalla filosofia, Alessandro Aresu traccia un percorso chiaro che porta il lettore fino alla più recente attualità, descrivendo in dettaglio il conflitto tra diritto ed economia in atto tra Stati Uniti e Cina.

Across the globe politics as usual are being rejected and faith in neoliberalism is fracturing beyond repair. Leading political theorist Nancy Fraser, in conversation with Jacobin publisher Bhaskar Sunkara, dissects neoliberalism's current crisis and argues that we might wrest new futures from its ruins.The global political, ecological, economic, and social breakdown-symbolized, but not caused, by Trump's election-has destroyed faith that neoliberal capitalism is beneficial to the majority. Fraser explores how this faith was built through the late twentieth century by balancing two central tenets: recognition (who deserves rights) and distribution (who deserves income). When these began to fray, new forms of outsider populist politics emerged on the left and the right. These, Fraser argues, are symptoms of the larger crisis of hegemony for neoliberalism, a moment when, as Gramsci had it,'the old is dying and the new cannot be born.'Explored further in an accompanying interview with Jacobin publisher Bhaskar Sunkara, Fraser argues that we now have the opportunity to build progressive populism into an emancipatory social force, one that can claim a new hegemony.

This book, an analysis of American society, explores the nature of social change since the 1960s as reflected in the'theming'of America from Graceland to Dollywood, from Las Vegas to Disneyworld, from the Mall of America to local mall.

The Myth of Capitalism tells the story of how America has gone from an open, competitive marketplace to an economy where a few very powerful companies dominate key industries that affect our daily lives. Digital monopolies like Google, Facebook and Amazon act as gatekeepers to the digital world. Amazon is capturing almost all online shopping dollars. We have the illusion of choice, but for most critical decisions, we have only one or two companies, when it comes to high speed Internet, health insurance, medical care, mortgage title insurance, social networks, Internet searches, or even consumer goods like toothpaste. Every day, the average American transfers a little of their pay check to monopolists and oligopolists. The solution is vigorous anti-trust enforcement to return America to a period where competition created higher economic growth, more jobs, higher wages and a level playing field for all. The Myth of Capitalism is the story of industrial concentration, but it matters to everyone, because the stakes could not be higher. It tackles the big questions of: why is the US becoming a more unequal society, why is economic growth anemic despite trillions of dollars of federal debt and money printing, why the number of start-ups has declined, and why are workers losing out.

When Captain Christopher Newport and his crew landed on the muddy banks of the James River in 1607, after four months at sea, they aimed to establish a new colony not for God, or the greater good of humanity—but for the sake of profit. The Pilgrims who settled in Cape Cod in 1620 as agents of Plymouth Company found evidence of divine election in the fortunes they accumulated from a lucrative system of town-founding in the New World. The innovative and often ruthless entrepreneurs who followed these colonists carved out the immense North American frontier wilderness from the Atlantic Ocean to the golden sands of the California coast, and they forged industrial and technological revolutions that shook the world. New Seeds of Profit examines the role of business leaders, from George Washington to Donald Trump, in shaping the United States into a business nation unlike any other in world history. By tracing the influence of industry and commerce on American society through portraits of successful entrepreneurs, this book sheds light on the esteemed place Americans reserve for their wealthiest business leaders—and it measures the true cost of that adulation by demonstrating how enterprise driven solely by the bottom line imperils people and the environment.In a story teeming with the heroes and villains of enterprise, New Seeds of Profit offers an innovative business model that provides meaningful work to employees and socially responsible returns to investors, while encouraging sustainable stewardship of the earth and advancing the common good.

The New York Times–bestselling economist “mounts a compelling defense of big business, finance, and the tech industry” in this timely book (Walter Frick, Harvard Business Review).We love to hate the 800-pound gorilla. Walmart and Amazon destroy communities and small businesses. Facebook turns us into addicts while putting our personal data at risk. Across the board, it seems that belief in big business is at an all-time low. But are big companies inherently evil? Economist and bestselling author Tyler Cowen says our biggest problem is that we don't love business enough.In Big Business, Cowen puts forth an impassioned defense of corporations and their essential role in a balanced, productive, and progressive society. He dismantles common misconceptions, illuminating the crucial role businesses play in spurring innovation, rewarding talent and hard work, and creating the bounty on which we've all come to depend.

From broken-window policing in Detroit to prison-building in Appalachia, exploring the expansion of the carceral state and its oppressive social relations into everyday lifePrison Land offers a geographic excavation of the prison as a set of social relations—including property, work, gender, and race—enacted across various landscapes of American life. Prisons, Brett Story shows, are more than just buildings of incarceration bound to cycles of crime and punishment. Instead, she investigates the production of carceral power at a range of sites, from buses to coalfields and from blighted cities to urban financial hubs, to demonstrate how the organization of carceral space is ideologically and materially grounded in racial capitalism.Story's critically acclaimed film The Prison in Twelve Landscapes is based on the same research that informs this book. In both, Story takes an expansive view of what constitutes contemporary carceral space, interrogating the ways in which racial capitalism is reproduced and for which police technologies of containment and control are employed. By framing the prison as a set of social relations, Prison Land forces us to confront the production of new carceral forms that go well beyond the prison system. In doing so, it profoundly undermines both conventional ideas of prisons as logical responses to the problem of crime and attachment to punishment as the relevant measure of a transformed criminal justice system.

Freedom First is a collection of 118 nonfiction readings focused on simplified stories that convey practical economic insights. Most of the readings explain how free markets drive economic prosperity and how market prices communicate signals to coordinate cooperation. The book clarifies the concept of natural rights and the role of natural rights and other institutions in promoting freedom and prosperity. Some of the readings discuss the causes of economic growth and evaluate the role of wealth in meeting the goals of the participants of economies. The book examines the core beliefs and goals of the progressive left and defends traditional American values regarding economics. The book's many varied discussions focus on applying evidence and logic to ascertain the relative merits of economic freedom and authoritarianism. A moderate number of the readings have a'college professor memoir'aspect that includes recollection of classroom discussions or activities. The readings are independent of each other and therefore can be read in any order and at any pace.

In the years since 2007 the U.S. economy has endured a severe financial crisis, a Great Recession, and continuing heavy unemployment. These events have led to increasing discontent among many people contributing to a substantial vote for Bernie Sanders and the election of Donald Trump. Meanwhile, Europe has witnessed the rise of nationalist parties and Brexit. In the face of these problems and events, economics must change.Principles of Macroeconomics: Activist vs. Austerity Policies provides an antidote to the standard macro texts offering multiple points of view instead of one standard line, a fact-based focus on the causes and cures of instability in economics, and an examination of inequality in the United States.Readers are introduced to both the Classical view, which takes the conservative approach and argues for an austerity program to reduce the size of the government; and the Progressive view, which argues for government intervention to create a strong recovery. These ideas are applied to all the key macroeconomic topics including economic growth, business cycles, and monetary policy. Using the methodology of Wesley Mitchell and drawing on the work of Keynes, the authors also explore topics such as unemployment, the human cost of economic crashes, increasing inequality of income, and the history of capitalism. This second edition includes new material on the Obama recovery, the crisis in the Eurozone, the rise of populism, and the current state of healthcare, education, and environmental issues in America to bring the text fully up to date. It will be of great interest to undergraduate students and particularly those studying the economics of the United States.

First published in 1998, this volume explores the connections between the rises in consumerism and the number of married women in paid work in light of the centrality of shopping and consumerism to the modern world. David R. Wells argues for women's incomplete gains from consumerism through an analysis of married women's employment, the structure of capitalism and the contradictory requirements of consumerism, the homemaker ideal and gender identity. Through this, Wells demonstrates how the gendered expectations of consumerism became motivating factors for women to join the workforce, resulting in higher standards of living and greater marital power.

Andy Puzder, the former CEO of Carl's Jr. and Hardee's, says that'capitalism'is not a dirty word, and thankfully President Trump understands this; his pro-business policies will bring back economic growth and secure our future.As a successful CEO in the restaurant industry, Andy Puzder uniquely understands how important the profit motive is to our country's ultimate prosperity. Furthermore, as the grandson of immigrants, the son of a car salesman, and someone who worked his way up from earning minimum wage to running an international business, he has a first-hand view of how America's exceptional capitalist spirit can lift everyone to success.In 2016, the American people faced a stark choice between two very different presidential candidates. Hillary Clinton spent most of her adult life involved in politics and promised to uphold and advance the progressive legacy of President Barack Obama who had first won the White House on promises to'spread the wealth around.'Donald Trump, on the other hand, came from the business world, was an unapologetic capitalist, used his own personal wealth as inspiration, and promised simply to'Make America Great Again.'By choosing Trump over Clinton, the American people put a stop to decades of government expansion under progressive leadership, and they might just have saved our economy by doing so. America was once a land where everyone was encouraged to seek their fortune - the more prosperous our citizens, the more our whole society could in turn prosper. But leftist forces in the United States have been seeking to tarnish the pursuit of prosperity and to paint profit as an evil motivation fit only for greedy plutocrats. Andrew Puzder understands this first-hand after a progressive smear campaign stopped him from joining President Trump's cabinet. As Puzder explains in his new book, The Capitalist Comeback, this was an act of desperation from a left wing facing irrelevance with a pro-business president in the White House. From its roots in the Progressive Era to labor unions to education to entertainment to its political resurgence with avowed socialist candidates such as Bernie Sanders, Puzder traces the development of the anti-profit forces in the United States and shows how, under President Trump, they can be vanquished for good.

Virtually everyone—left, right, and center—believes that capitalist economies are autonomous, coherent, and regulated by their own internal laws. This view is an illusion. The reality is that economies organized around the pursuit of private profit are contradictory, incoherent, and heavily shaped by politics and governmental action. But the illusion remains hugely consequential because it has been embraced by political and economic elites who are convinced that they are powerless to change this system. The result is cycles of raised hopes followed by disappointment as elected officials discover they have no legitimate policy tools that can deliver what the public wants. In Capitalism, leading economic sociologist Fred L. Block argues that restoring the vitality of the United States and the world economy can be accomplished only with major reforms on the scale of the New Deal and the post–World War II building of new global institutions.

From industrialisation to the present day, Overripe Economy is a genealogy of the emergence of a finance-ridden, authoritarian, austerity-plagued American capitalism. This panoramic political-economic history of the country, surveys the ruthlessly competitive capitalism of the nineteenth century, the maturation of industrial capitalism in the 1920s, the rise and fall of capitalism's Golden Age and the ensuing decline towards the modern era. Alan Nasser shows why the emergence of the persistent austerity of financialised neoliberal capitalism is the natural outcome of mature capitalism's evolution, revealing both the key structural and political vulnerabilities of capitalism itself and points towards the kind of system that can transcend it. At the centre of the argument, is capitalism's ultimatum: either a'new normal'of persistent austerity, declining democracy and a privatised state, or a polity and economy characterised by an economic democracy that can ensure both higher wages and a shorter working week.

A guide to making the U.S. economy work for everyone, by a leading advocate of asset development The majority of Americans do not have a few thousand dollars to weather an unexpected illness, job loss, or accident. Most Americans, including 80 percent of people of color, are locked out of the mainstream economy, unable to add their talents, work, and dreams, unable to share in the bounty of this economy. Without a nest egg most Americans cannot invest in their future—and the future of our country—through saving, entrepreneurship, education, and homeownership. We can—and we should—do better. Longtime leader in the field of asset-building Robert E. Friedman demonstrates how a few simple policy changes would address wealth inequality—and build a better economy and a stronger country for us all. In six sharp, compelling chapters, accented by sixteen original black-and-white illustrations by Rohan Eason that present the realities of income and asset inequality and explain the needed policy interventions, Friedman addresses savings, business, education, home, and prosperity to articulate a vision for making inclusive investments without spending an additional dollar, just by transforming tax subsidies for the wealthy few into seeds for prosperity for everyone. This is an investment with a huge return: the redemption of the American promise of prosperity for all.

This book offers a critical analysis of the rise of the US to global hegemony against a background of increased erosion of democracy and rule of law, and a rising linear pattern of near-absolute capitalist development. The author argues that the significant shrinkage of the ideological spectrum globally, as a result of worrisome levels of business and government interpenetration, has created a dangerous'prefascist configuration'whereby unthinkable levels of violence have been normalized through the use of technologies such as drones, increasingly condoned even by'liberal'groups and the so-called political left. Using the example of the Obama administration and its increased reliance on drone assassinations, the volume makes a case for the dangers that lie in today's unique convergence of lack of transparency in government, business-government interpenetration, informal social regimentation, and militarization of capitalism.