One of the most enduring ideas in economics is that unemployment is both unavoidable and necessary for the smooth functioning of the economy. This assumption has provided cover for the devastating social and economic costs of job insecurity. It is also false. In this book, leading expert Pavlina R. Tcherneva challenges us to imagine a world where the phantom of unemployment is banished and anyone who seeks decent, living-wage work can find it - guaranteed. This is the aim of the Job Guarantee proposal: to provide a voluntary employment opportunity in public service to anyone who needs it. Tcherneva enumerates the many advantages of the Job Guarantee over the status quo and proposes a blueprint for its implementation within the wider context of the need for a Green New Deal. This compact primer is the ultimate guide to the benefits of one of the most transformative public policies being discussed today. It is essential reading for all citizens and activists who are passionate about social justice and building a fairer economy.

After leading the world economy for a century, the United States faces the first real challenge to its supremacy in the rise of China. Is economic (or broader) conflict, well beyond the trade war that has already erupted, inevitable between the world’s two superpowers? Will their clash produce a new economic leadership vacuum akin to the 1930s when Great Britain abandoned its leadership role and a rising United States was unwilling to step in to save the global order? In this sweeping and authoritative analysis of the competition for global economic leadership between China and the United States, C. Fred Bergsten warns of the disastrous consequences of hostile confrontation between these two superpowers. He paints a frightening picture of a world economy adopting Chinese characteristics in which the United States, after Trump abdicated much of its role, engages in a self-defeating attempt to “decouple” from its rival. Drawing on more than 50 years of active participation as a policymaker and close observation as a scholar, Bergsten calls on China to exercise constructive global leadership and on the United States to reject a policy of containment, avoid a new Cold War and instead pursue “conditional competitive cooperation” to work with its allies and China to lead, rather than destroy, the world economy.