Nhà Xuất Bản Public Affairs

The Alternative - How To Build A Just Economy

Winners Take All meets Nickel and Dimed in this provocative debunking of accepted wisdom, providing the pathway to a sustainable, survivable economy.

Confronted by the terrifying trends of the early twenty-first century – widening inequality, environmental destruction, and the immiseration of millions of workers around the world – many economists and business leaders still preach dogmas that lack evidence and create political catastrophe: Private markets are always more efficient than public ones; investment capital flows efficiently to necessary projects; massive inequality is the unavoidable side effect of economic growth; people are selfish and will only behave well with the right incentives.

But a growing number of people – academic economists, business owners, policy entrepreneurs, and ordinary people – are rejecting these myths and reshaping economies around the world to reflect ethical and social values. Though they differ in approach, all share a vision of the economy as a place of moral action and accountability. Journalist Nick Romeo has spent years covering the world’s most innovative economic and policy ideas for The New Yorker. Romeo takes us on an extraordinary journey through the unforgettable stories and successes of people working to build economies that are more equal, just, and livable. Combining original, in-depth reporting with expert analysis, Romeo explores:

The successful business owners organizing their companies as purpose trusts (as Patagonia recently did) to fulfill a higher mission, such as sharing profits with workers or protecting the environment

The growing deployment of new models by venture capital funds to promote wealth creation for the poorest Americans and address climate change.

How Oslo’s climate budgeting program is achieving the emission reduction targets the rest of the world continues to miss, creating a model that will soon be emulated by governments around the world

How Portugal strengths democratic culture by letting citizens make crucial budget decisions

The way worker ownership and cooperatives foster innovation, share wealth, and improve the quality of jobs, offering an increasingly popular model superior to the traditional corporation

The public-sector marketplace that offers decent work and real protections to gig workers in California

The job guarantee program in southern Austria that offers high-quality meaningful jobs to every citizen

Many books have exposed what’s not working in our current system. Romeo reveals something even more essential: the structure of a system that could actually work for everyone. Margaret Thatcher was wrong: there is an alternative. This is what it looks like.

World On The Brink

A leading national security expert lays out how the U. S. can keep its place as the world’s top superpower in the face of a rising China.

Over the past few decades, China has climbed the ranks of the global powers with staggering speed. Its vast economy and growing regional aggression make it a threat to supersede the United States as the world’s dominant power.

But this outcome is far from inevitable.

Like neighboring Russia—which harbors global ambitions of its own—right now China is at a turning point. Whereas international sanctions and a turn away from fossil fuels are steadily smothering Russia, China’s downfall will be its shrinking population. Its chance to achieve global hegemony will soon disappear, making its quest for power both less certain and more dangerous.

In World on the Brink , security expert Dmitri Alperovitch breaks down not only the significant weaknesses that have so far prevented China from surpassing the United States, but also the key strategies that will enable the U. S. to maintain primacy even as China ramps up its efforts. The US must cultivate crucial alliances, foster domestic innovation in emerging tech fields, and stabilize international relations with adversarial nations in anticipation of a new cold war that seems more likely every day.

As Alperovitch explains, we must play to our strengths and address our weaknesses, using our leverage as the strongest nation on the planet to tactfully navigate the next cold war. This sharp, timely book is the essential blueprint for doing just that.