"A brilliant and beautiful book, the mature work of a lifetime, must reading for students of the globalization debate."
---Tom Hayden

"Slaves to Fashion is a remarkable achievement, several books in one: a gripping history of sweatshops, explaining their decline, fall, and return; a study of how the media portray them; an analysis of the fortunes of the current anti-sweatshop movement; an anatomy of the global traffic in apparel, in particular the South-South competition that sends wages and working conditions plummeting toward the bottom; and not least, a passionate declaration of faith that humanity can find a way to get its work done without sweatshops. This is engaged sociology at its most stimulating."
---Todd Gitlin

". . . unflinchingly portrays the reemergence of the sweatshop in our dog-eat-dog economy."
---Los Angeles Times


Just as Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed uncovered the plight of the working poor in America, Robert J. S. Ross's Slaves to Fashion exposes the dark side of the apparel industry and its exploited workers at home and abroad. It's both a lesson in American business history and a warning about one of the most important issues facing the global capital economy-the reappearance of the sweatshop.

Vividly detailing the decline and tragic rebirth of sweatshop conditions in the American apparel industry of the twentieth century, Ross explains the new sweatshops as a product of unregulated global capitalism and associated deregulation, union erosion, and exploitation of undocumented workers. Using historical material and economic and social data, the author shows that after a brief thirty-five years of fair practices, the U.S. apparel business has once again sunk to shameful abuse and exploitation.

Refreshingly jargon-free but documented in depth, Slaves to Fashion is the only work to estimate the size of the sweatshop problem and to systematically show its impact on apparel workers' wages. It is also unique in its analysis of the budgets and personnel used in enforcing the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Anyone who is concerned about this urgent social and economic topic and wants to go beyond the headlines should read this important and timely contribution to the rising debate on low-wage factory labor.

Ruttan advances a model of institutional change, which creates an environment where resource and cultural endowments and technical change can take place. The disequilibria resulting from such changes create opportunities for the design of more efficient institutional arrangements. The design perspective employed in the book stands in sharp contrast to organic or evolutionary perspectives.
With its emphasis on interdisciplinarity, Social Science Knowledge and Economics Developmentis important reading for social scientists, development economists, and in the development studies classroom.
Vernon W. Ruttan is Regents Professor Emeritus in the Department of Applied Economics at the University of Minnesota.

Is it true that the Social Security system is in serious trouble and must be repaired? As baby boomers begin to retire, will they inevitably, by force of their sheer numbers, bankrupt the system? Is Social Security a big Ponzi scheme that will leave future generations with little to show for their lifetime of contributions? Is the only way to solve the Social Security crisis through radical changes like privatization or bolstering it with massive new taxes?

According to the authors of this important new study, the answer to these questions is a resounding no. In Social Security: The Phony Crisis, economists Dean Baker and Mark Weisbrot argue that there is no economic, demographic, or actuarial basis for the widespread belief that the program needs to be fixed.

As the authors emphasize, there is virtually no disagreement about the facts of Social Security's finances, or even the projections for its future. Rather, the Social Security debate has been foundering on misconceptions, confusion, and lack of agreement on the meaning of crucial terms.

The authors also take on related issues: that privatization would help save Social Security, that America has a pressing need to increase its national savings, and that future generations will suffer from the costs—especially for health care—of supporting a growing elderly population.

As New York Times columnist Fred Brock recently wrote, "So-called reform of the Social Security system is looking more and more like a solution in search of a problem." In this accessible and insightful work, Baker and Weisbrot seek to cut through some of the myths and fallacies surrounding this crucial policy issue.

"Dean Baker and Mark Weisbrot have no trouble at all demonstrating that even on highly conservative assumptions about economic growth, the much-forecast insolvency of the Social Security system by about 2030 is most unlikely to happen then, if indeed ever."—The Economist
"The authors challenge basic assumptions with vigor and intelligence. . . . An absolutely relevant and important analysis, presented with force and clarity, that asks, basically, what kind of a nation we really are."—Kirkus Reviews

"Proponents—like George W. Bush—of Social Security privatization . . . typically ignore prospects for a stagnant or falling stock market. In Social Security: The Phony Crisis, [Baker and Weisbrot] show how a falling stock market could place pressure on both future Social Security payments and privatization schemes because earnings from the trust fund could actually fall."—Jeff Madrick, New York Review of Books

South Africa’s Suspended Revolution tells the story of South Africa’s democratic transition and the prospects for the country to develop a truly inclusive political system. Beginning with an account of the transition in the leadership of the African National Congress from Thabo Mbeki to Jacob Zuma, the book then broadens its lens to examine the relationship of South Africa’s political elite to its citizens. It also examines the evolution of economic and social policies through the democratic transition, as well as the development of a postapartheid business community and a foreign policy designed to re-engage South Africa with the world community.

Written by one of South Africa’s leading scholars and political commentators, the book combines historical and contemporary analysis with strategies for an alternative political agenda. Adam Habib connects the lessons of the South African experience with theories of democratic transition, social change, and conflict resolution. Political leaders, scholars, students, and activists will all find material here to deepen their understanding of the challenges and opportunities of contemporary South Africa.

Dr. Nguyen Anh Tuan, former Minister of Finance of the Republic of South Vietnam, addresses a common perception of Vietnam: that South Vietnam was a fragmented society which did not deserve to succeed because of its internal weaknesses. According to Tuan, however, South Vietnam in the last decade of its life developed considerable governmental cohesion and internal social strength. Before the final failure of will, the South and its defenders were well on the way to becoming a viable society that had managed with American assistance to lift itself by its bootstraps to the point to economic take-off. Tuan argues that South Vietnam’s fall was not inevitable. This controversial book will be of great interest to all those concerned with the Vietnamese experience during the period 1954-1975.

Speculate This! is a concise, provocative manifesto advocating practices of "affirmative speculation" over and against contemporary forms of speculation that quantify and contain risk to generate financial profit for a privileged few. This latter mode of speculation is predatory and familiar, its fallout evident in ongoing environmental degradation, in restrictive legal claims on natural resources in distant lands, and in the foreclosures, evictions, and unemployment resulting from the financial collapse of 2007–08. While such exploitive speculation seeks to reduce uncertainty and pin down the future, the affirmative practices championed by the authors of Speculate This! engage uncertainty, contingency, and difference, and they multiply, rather than reduce, possible futures. In these affirmative practices, social relations and the creation of goods and knowledge are not driven by the desire for financial gain or professional status. Whether manifest in open-source software, eco-communes, global activist movements, community credit networks, or experimental art, speculative living affirms our commonality. As a collaborative work coauthored by a group of anonymous scholars, Speculate This! argues for and embodies affirmative speculation.

College students are now regarded as consumers, not students, and nowhere is the growth and exploitation of the university more obvious than in the realm of college sports, where the evidence is in the stadiums built with corporate money, and the crowded sporting events sponsored by large conglomerates. 

The contributors to Sport and the Neoliberal University examine how intercollegiate athletics became a contested terrain of public/private interests. They look at college sports from economic, social, legal, and cultural perspectives to cut through popular mythologies regarding intercollegiate athletics and to advocate for increased clarity about what is going on at a variety of campuses with regard to athletics. Focusing on current issues, including the NCAA, Title IX, recruitment of high school athletes, and the Penn State scandal, among others, Sport and the Neoliberal University shows the different ways institutions, individuals, and corporations are interacting with university athletics in ways that are profoundly shaped by neoliberal ideologies.  

Since the Reagan Revolution of the early 1980s, Republicans have consistently championed tax cuts for individuals and businesses, regardless of whether the economy is booming or in recession or whether the federal budget is in surplus or deficit. In Starving the Beast, sociologist Monica Prasad uncovers the origins of the GOP’s relentless focus on tax cuts and shows how this is a uniquely American phenomenon.

Drawing on never-before seen archival documents, Prasad traces the history of the 1981 tax cut—the famous “supply side” tax cut, which became the cornerstone for the next several decades of Republican domestic economic policy. She demonstrates that the main impetus behind this tax cut was not business group pressure, racial animus, or a belief that tax cuts would pay for themselves. 

Rather, the tax cut emerged because in America--unlike in the rest of the advanced industrial world—progressive policies are not embedded within a larger political economy that is favorable to business.  Since the end of World War II, many European nations have combined strong social protections with policies to stimulate economic growth such as lower taxes on capital and less regulation on businesses than in the United State.  Meanwhile, the United States emerged from World War II with high taxes on capital and some of the strongest regulations on business in the advanced industrial world.  This adversarial political economy could not survive the economic crisis of the 1970s.

Starving the Beast suggests that taking inspiration from the European model of progressive policies embedded in market-promoting political economy could serve to build an American economy that works better for all.

The growth of global finance since 1960 constitutes one of the most important transformations in social relations during the twentieth century. Using historical, statistical, and graphical techniques, State Institutions, Private Incentives, and Global Capital examines three important aspects of this phenomenal shift in the international political economy. First, Andrew Sobel explores the reawakening of the international financial markets, mapping their extraordinary transformation since the early 1960s and discussing the role of politics in that metamorphosis. The author then offers a fresh understanding of the systematic differences in access for borrowers in this rapidly transforming and expanding global capital pool. He then demonstrates the influence of political factors in producing differential access to the global capital pool. Showing how the character and stability of a country's political system affects investors's decisions to invest in that country, Sobel breaks new ground in understanding the basis for the frequent admonitions by the World Bank and others that a stable political and legal system are essential for states to attract significant foreign investment.

With the growing debate about the effect of financial interdependence on the ability of states to conduct economic policy and indeed to preserve their independence in the face of unprecedented economic linkages, this book will be of interest to political scientists and economists as well as policy makers concerned with the impact of financial globalization and the causes of differentials in access to capital.

Andrew C. Sobel is Assistant Professor of Political Science and Resident Fellow, Center in Political Economy, Washington University, St. Louis. He is the author of Domestic Choices, International Markets: Dismantling National Barriers and Liberalizing Securities Markets.

“Keep your government hands off my Medicare!” Such comments spotlight a central question animating Suzanne Mettler’s provocative and timely book: why are many Americans unaware of government social benefits and so hostile to them in principle, even though they receive them? The Obama administration has been roundly criticized for its inability to convey how much it has accomplished for ordinary citizens. Mettler argues that this difficulty is not merely a failure of communication; rather it is endemic to the formidable presence of the “submerged state.”

In recent decades, federal policymakers have increasingly shunned the outright disbursing of benefits to individuals and families and favored instead less visible and more indirect incentives and subsidies, from tax breaks to payments for services to private companies. These submerged policies, Mettler shows, obscure the role of government and exaggerate that of the market. As a result, citizens are unaware not only of the benefits they receive, but of the massive advantages given to powerful interests, such as insurance companies and the financial industry. Neither do they realize that the policies of the submerged state shower their largest benefits on the most affluent Americans, exacerbating inequality. Mettler analyzes three Obama reforms—student aid, tax relief, and health care—to reveal the submerged state and its consequences, demonstrating how structurally difficult it is to enact policy reforms and even to obtain public recognition for achieving them. She concludes with recommendations for reform to help make hidden policies more visible and governance more comprehensible to all Americans.

The sad truth is that many American citizens do not know how major social programs work—or even whether they benefit from them. Suzanne Mettler’s important new book will bring government policies back to the surface and encourage citizens to reclaim their voice in the political process.

What has happened to cities after the global economic recession? Sustaining Cities answers this question by explaining how failed governmental policies contributed to urban problems and offering best practices for solving them.

From social scientists and urban planners to architects and literary and film critics, the authors of this unique collection suggest real responses to this crisis. Could the drastic declines in housing markets have been avoided? Yes, if we reframe our housing values. Do you want to attract corporate investment to your town? You might want to think twice about doing so. The extinction of the “Celtic Tiger” may be charted in statistics, but the response in popular Irish mystery novels is much more compelling. China, while not immune to market vicissitudes, still booms, but at a considerable cost to its urban identities.

Whether constructing a sustainable social framework for Mexican mega-cities or a neighborhood in London, these nine essays consider some strikingly similar strategies. And perhaps, as the contributors suggest, it’s time to look beyond the usual boundaries of urban, suburban, and exurban to forge new links among these communities that will benefit all citizens. Accessible to anyone with an interest in how cities cope today, Sustaining Cities presents a cautionary tale with a hopeful ending.