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This edited collection investigates how full employment programs can sustain the economy and the environment, promote social justice, and reinvigorate local communities. The contributing authors focus on the formation of institutions to eliminate the opportunity gap for marginalized populations, enact environmentally sustainable methods of production and consumption, and rebuild local economies through education, training, and community redevelopment programs. They argue that the formation and implementation of a federally funded, locally operated Job Guarantee program is a vital component to address a variety of complex and interweaving concerns. Through the formation of alternative institutions and encouraging local economies, the Job Guarantee approach has the potential to alter economic, social, and political structures away from an exploitative market-oriented structure toward one that is refocused on humanity and the sustainability of the earth and its peoples, cultures, and communities.
List of contents
1. Introduction.- 2. Unemployment and Transformational Growth in the Long Run.- 3. The Job Guarantee and Transformational Degrowth.- 4. Getting Serious about the Limits to Growth: ELR and Economic Restructuring under Decroissance.- 5. Public Works Programs as a Strong Means for Land and Water Conservation in Iran.- 6. Can Capitalist Modes of Production be Biophysically Sustainable?.- 7. Complementary Currencies in the Solidarity Economy: The Local Job Guarantee.- 8. On the Reservation: Toward a Job Guarantee Program for American Indian Nations.- 9. Full Employment and the Job Guarantee: An All-American Idea.- 10. Employment Guarantee Programs as Automatic Stabilizers: Stylized Facts on a Macro Context and Micro Structure for Argentina.- 11. An Institutional Adjustment towards an Inclusive Provisioning Process.
About the author
Michael J. Murray is Associate Professor of Economics at Bemidji State University, USA, and a Research Scholar at the Binzagr Institute for Sustainable Prosperity. He co-edits the
American Review of Political Economy and is co-editor of multiple volumes on the Job Guarantee. Murray's research focuses on public policies targeting the dual problems of unemployment and poverty. He also studies production theory, structural and technological change, and its impacts on employment.
Mathew Forstater is Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, USA; Research Director at the Binzagr Institute for Sustainable Prosperity; and Research Associate at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, USA. He is engaged in projects on employment and federal budget policy, using a historical, interdisciplinary approach to examine the potential role of full employment policies in the face of deficit reduction and continuous technological change.
Summary
This edited collection investigates how full employment programs can sustain the economy and the environment, promote social justice, and reinvigorate local communities. The contributing authors focus on the formation of institutions to eliminate the opportunity gap for marginalized populations, enact environmentally sustainable methods of production and consumption, and rebuild local economies through education, training, and community redevelopment programs. They argue that the formation and implementation of a federally funded, locally operated Job Guarantee program is a vital component to address a variety of complex and interweaving concerns. Through the formation of alternative institutions and encouraging local economies, the Job Guarantee approach has the potential to alter economic, social, and political structures away from an exploitative market-oriented structure toward one that is refocused on humanity and the sustainability of the earth and its peoples, cultures, and communities.
