The Age of Insecurity

Larry Elliott & Dan Atkinson

ISBN 10: 1859848435 / ISBN 13: 9781859848432

Editore: Verso Books/An Imprint of the New Left Books, London & New York, 1998

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312 pp. Book and dj in pristine state. Synopsis: This visionary leftist critique of the "new world order" argues that notwithstanding the apparent triumph of big business values from the late 1970s to the present, the resulting free-market, globalized economic system is a failure, producing ever-increasing insecurity and marginalization for the average worker. Elliott, economics editor for the Guardian, and Atkinson, a Guardian reporter, forcefully document the extent to which the middle class has been ravaged by downsizing, vanishing career ladders, growing consolidation of economic power by large firms and low-paid, part-time or home-based work. In their assessment, both Clinton's Democratic centrism and Tony Blair's Labour Party program in Britain offer largely cosmetic reforms but leave essentially intact a laissez-faire capitalism that primarily serves the needs of multinational corporations and a privileged technocratic elite. Calling for a "green Keynesianism," the authors boldly advocate fairer distribution of income both within and between countries; reinvestment in community services; price controls on essential goods and services to benefit the poor at the expense of wealthier consumers; restraints on transnational capital flows; and development of technologies to heal environmental wounds. They weave in a freewheeling cultural history of postwar Britain. Despite the mostly British frame of reference, their study will engage American readers. An acerbic and very funny critique of the culture of modern Britain on which conservatives would do well to reflect.

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Dati bibliografici

• Titolo: The Age of Insecurity
• Editore: Verso Books/An Imprint of the New Left Books, London & New York
• Data di pubblicazione: 1998
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 1859848435
• ISBN 13: 9781859848432
• Rilegatura: Hardcover
• Disegnatore: Lisa Billard Design, NY (Jacket Design), Do Diligence, NY (Front Jacket Photo)
• Edizione: 1st Published by Verso 1998
• Condizione: Brand New
• Condizione della sovraccoperta: Brand New
• Cataloghi dei venditori:
  • Academic, Scholarly, Research
  • Current Affairs, Current Events, Politics
  • Social Studies & Sciences, Sociology, Social Work

Descrizione articolo

Riassunto

If the economy is booming, why is Britain increasingly a nation in therapy? Unemployment is falling. House prices are on the rise. Inflation remains low. But despite the continuing bright news from the economic front, a tangible uneasiness hangs over the British and American public. People remain anxious about their job security, mistrustful of the apparent rising value of their assets, skeptical of government blandishments about the bad times being firmly in the past. Welcome to the age of insecurity. It's not difficult to trace the origins of the acute wariness in the public's mood. The world -- pulled out of shape by the culture and values of big business and finance -- has become a volatile place. The 1987 stock market crash, the early nineties collapse in house price, Norman Lamont's panicked withdrawal of sterling from the ERM, these memories are all still fresh. Riptides of capital swirling around the globe can ruin entire economies overnight as any Malaysian or Mexican will testify. Companies set loose by free trade agreements can relocated their businesses at a whim, ask any downsized worker. The customary corollary of declining unemployment -- rising wages -- seems to apply only to directors and chief executives cashing in stock options for unimaginable fortunes. In the face of these by-products of a planetwide takeover by untrammeled finance, voters have turned increasingly away from the political champions of the free market to those whose social democratic traditions might seem to offer some sense of protection and order. Hitherto they have been sorely disappointed. Traditionally left-leaning parties now in power have directed their regulatory enthusiasm not at the behemoths of finance and industry, but at individual liberty and public morals. Nowhere is this more in evidence than in the first year of Tony Blair's Labour government. In The Age of Insecurity, Larry Elliott and Dan Atkinson provide a coruscating argument for government to turn rapidly developing surveillance technology and strictures concerning ethics away from the citizen and on to a financial system that is making society ever more precarious. The relevance of The Age of Insecurity sparkles brighter for its stunning originality. Here is a book of our times, for our times -- a blueprint for a world where tomorrow is a word without associations of fear.

Recensione

“A visionary leftist critique of the new world order.”—Publishers Weekly

“An acerbic and very funny critique of the culture of modern Britain on which conservatives would do well to reflect.”—Wall Street Journal