Illusions of Prosperity: America's Working Families in an Age of Economic Insecurity
Author: Joel Blau
Faith in the free market--the idea that, for instance, profit-seeking managed care companies will improve the health care delivery system--has become a basic tenet of public policy debate. But as Joel Blau demonstrates in this eye-opening book, so-called "free market" programs have been a dismal failure, heightening inequality, lowering the median standard of living, and steadily eroding the quality of our social and political life.
In Illusions of Prosperity, Blau launches a far-reaching assault on idea that "the market" knows best. Blau writes that while the share of the national income held by the bottom four fifths of the population (the poor and broad middle class combined) has continued to decline, the top fifth gained 97 percent of the increase in total household income between 1979 and 1994. "Few experiments," Blau comments, "yield such clear outcomes. Although many had hoped to benefit from the new market economy, this affluent fifth is the only segment of the population that truly has." Blau looks at recent reforms in NAFTA, education, job training, welfare, and much more, showing that the new social policies have made matters worse, because reforms that rely on the market can't compensate for the market's deficiencies. Instead, he calls for a stronger, more caring government to counter the debilitating effects of the market, and he urges the development of the broadest possible political alliances to ensure economic security.
Sure to raise controversy, Illusions of Prosperity turns today's conventional wisdom inside out, making a profound case for the importance of a strong government in a world where markets do not have all the answers.
Library Journal
Blau's uneven polemic asserts that the current "market" approach to social ills helps only the top 20 percent of society while the rest suffer. He proposes increased federal government intervention as the solution, championing national healthcare, vastly expanded day care, stronger unions, and worker participation. Blau (social work, SUNY at Stony Brook), who looks at America through a Western European Socialist lens, feels that as long as business controls hiring and investments, education will not help most Americans. He acknowledges that his views are not in the majority but notes correctly that the pendulum could swing. Liberals may like his ideas; conservatives will cringe. Both will find this a tedious, occasionally condescending read--a lonely call for a return to big-government liberalism that most libraries will find more effectively argued in periodicals like the New Republic or the Nation. Neither lively enough to be called a screed nor convincing enough to be recommended.--Patrick J. Brunet, Western Wisconsin Technical Coll. Lib., La Crosse Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.
Interesting book: Administración de recursos Humana
Industrial Revolution
Author: Pat Hudson
The period c. 1760 to 1830 used to be seen as a watershed in the transition to modern industrial society. More recently historians have disputed the existence of fundamental change in economic, social, or political life at this time. The British industrial revolution is quietly disappearing from the history books. Hudson challenges this development, arguing that the process of revision has gone too far: continuity has been emphasized at the expense of change and many historically unique features of the economic and society of the period have been unjustly neglected. This new edition retains the successful structure of the highly praised original but extends the author's defense of the dynamism of the period with greater coverage of social and cultural changes, trust and networks as well as innovation, trading, and financial developments. The text is fullu updated to take account of major new research during the past decade.
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