An urgent and galvanizing argument for an Economic Bill of
Rights—and its potential to confer true freedom on all Americans.
Since the Founding, Americans have debated the true meaning of
freedom. For some, freedom meant the provision of life’s
necessities, those basic conditions for the “pursuit of
happiness.” For others, freedom meant the civil and political rights
enumerated in the Bill of Rights and unfettered access to the
marketplace—nothing more. As Mark Paul explains, the latter
interpretation—thanks in large part to a particularly influential
cadre of economists—has all but won out among policymakers, with
dire repercussions for American society: rampant inequality, endemic
poverty, and an economy built to benefit the few at the expense of the
many. In this book, Paul shows how economic rights—rights to
necessities like housing, employment, and health care—have been a
part of the American conversation since the Revolutionary War and were
a cornerstone of both the New Deal and the Civil Rights Movement.
Their recuperation, he argues, would at long last make good on the
promise of America’s founding documents. By drawing on FDR’s
proposed Economic Bill of Rights, Paul outlines a comprehensive policy
program to achieve a more capacious and enduring version of American
freedom. Among the rights he enumerates are the right to a good job,
the right to an education, the right to banking and financial
services, and the right to a healthy environment. Replete with
discussions of some of today’s most influential policy ideas—from
Medicare for All to a federal job guarantee to the Green New
Deal—The Ends of Freedom is a timely and urgent call to reclaim the
idea of freedom from its captors on the political right—to ground
America’s next era in the country’s progressive history and carve
a path toward a more economically dynamic and equitable nation.
Les mer
Reclaiming America's Lost Promise of Economic Rights
Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9780226826295
Publisert
2023
Utgiver
University of Chicago Press
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter