"Journalist and business leader Barnes offers new understanding of why our middle class is withering and a powerful new solution for how to restore the middle class, reduce inequality, and make our economy more fair, prosperous, and sustainable"--
America's economy does not currently live up to our country's core values. We are a nation founded on the ideals of coming together across differences to forge a common future. Yet over the past fifty years, our economy has been pulling us apart at unprecedented rates. By allowing top income earners and the wealthiest Americans to hoard wealth like almost never before, we belie what makes our country great. This is a threat to our well-being, our democracy, and our values. Brian C. Johnson combines accessible scholarship on wealth and income inequality in America with deeply personal accounts of six Americans of diverse backgrounds who are each wrestling with what it means to survive and thrive in this new economic world. In so doing, he offers a solution that is as visionary as it is practical. Dubbed the Citizen Dividend, this revolutionary model assumes that economic growth is built off of the wealth we have created together as a country, and together we all reap its benefits. In Our Fair Share, Johnson lays the groundwork for implementing this solution, detailing what the Citizen Dividend is, offering examples of similar existing models, outlining the benefits of such systems, tackling some of the common concerns that arise, and offering a path toward making it a reality. Ultimately, Our Fair Share calls on each of us to claim what is uniquely American, building a common future that embraces and celebrates our differences. This is our revolutionary inheritance. May we all benefit from it.
The supreme challenge of our time is tackling climate change. We urgently need to curtail our use of fossil fuels – but how can we do so in a just and feasible way? In this compelling book, leading economist James Boyce shows that the key to solving this conundrum is to put a limit on carbon emissions, thereby raising the price of fossil fuels and generating strong incentives for clean energy. But there is a formidable hurdle: how do we secure broad public support for a policy that increases fuel costs for consumers? Boyce powerfully argues that carbon pricing can be made just and politically durable only if linked to returning the revenue to the public as carbon dividends. Founded on the principle that the gifts of nature belong to us all, not to corporations or governments, this bold reform could spark a twenty-first-century clean energy revolution. Essential reading for all concerned citizens, policy-makers, and students of public policy and environmental economics, this book will be a transformative contribution to one of the most important policy debates of our era.
Dividends would be paid annually, in much the same way that residents of Alaska today receive cash benefits from oil companies that drill in their state."--BOOK JACKET.
Climate change is one of the most pressing problems facing the global community. Although most states agree that climate change is occurring and is at least partly the result of humans’ reliance on fossil fuels, managing a changing global climate is a formidable challenge. Underlying this challenge is the fact that states are sovereign, governed by their own laws and regulations. Sovereignty requires that states address global problems such as climate change on a voluntary basis, by negotiating international agreements. Despite a consensus on the need for global action, many questions remain concerning how a meaningful international climate agreement can be realized. This book brings together leading experts to speak to such questions and to offer promising ideas for the path toward a new climate agreement. Organized in three main parts, it examines the potential for meaningful climate cooperation. Part 1 explores sources of conflict that lead to barriers to an effective climate agreement. Part 2 investigates how different processes influence states’ prospects of resolving their differences and of reaching a climate agreement that is more effective than the current Kyoto Protocol. Finally, part 3 focuses on governance issues, including lessons learned from existing institutional structures. The book is unique in that it brings together the voices of experts from many disciplines, such as economics, political science, international law, and natural science. The authors are academics, practitioners, consultants and advisors. Contributions draw on a variety of methods, and include both theoretical and empirical studies. The book should be of interest to scholars and graduate students in the fields of economics, political science, environmental law, natural resources, earth sciences, sustainability, and many others. It is directly relevant for policy makers, stakeholders and climate change negotiators, offering insights into the role of uncertainty, fairness, policy linkage, burden sharing and alternative institutional designs.
"Originally delivered as a lecture at Princeton University, October 1958, at the 9th meeting of the Mont Pelerin Society"--Page 7. Includes bibliographical references.
"Never before have so many Americans been more frustrated with our economic system, more fearful that it is failing, or more open to fresh ideas about a new one. The seeds of a new economy--and, if we act upon it, a new system--are forming. What is that next system? It's not corporate capitalism, not state socialism, but something else--something entirely American. In What Then Must We Do?, Gar Alperovitz speaks directly to the reader about why the time is right for a revolutionary new economy movement, what it means to democratize the ownership of wealth, what it will take to build a new system to replace the decaying one--and how to strengthen our communities through cooperatives, worker-owned companies, neighborhood corporations, small and medium-size independent businesses, and publicly owned enterprises. For the growing group of Americans pacing at the edge of confidence in the old system, or already among its detractors, What Then Must We Do? offers an evolutionary, common-sense solution for moving from despair and anger to strategy and action."--Publisher's website.
What if we lived in a world where everyone had enough? A world where everyone mattered and where people lived in harmony with nature? What if the solution to our economic, social, and ecological problems was right underneath our feet? Land has been sought after throughout human history. Even today, people struggle to get onto the property ladder and view real estate as an important way to build wealth. Yet, as the reader will discover through this book, the act of owning land—and our urge to profit from it—causes economic booms and busts, social and cultural decline, and environmental devastation. Land: A New Paradigm for a Thriving World introduces a radically new economic model that ensures a more fair and abundant reality for everyone. It is a book for those who dream of a better world, for themselves and future generations. Table of Contents Introduction Part I: The Cost of Ignorance 1. The Production of Wealth 2. The Value of Location 3. The Free Market 4. Social Decline 5. Business Recessions 6. Ecocide 7. Earth, Our Home Part II: A New Paradigm for a Thriving World 8. Restoring Communities 9. Keep What You Earn, Pay for What You Use 10. Local Autonomy 11. Affordable Housing 12. Thriving Cities 13. Sustainable Farming 14. The Price of Peace 15. A New Paradigm Epilogue: A Personal Note Appendix: The Math Behind the Science References & Suggestions for Further Reading Endnotes Index