In this groundbreaking pamphlet, Juliet Schor, author of The Overworked American, examines how Americans can begin making the shift away from a resource-destructive society to one that values the environment, community, and quality of life above business and profit. She a traces back how after W.W.II, Americans had hoped that technology and social investment would yield shorter work weeks, more pay, and complete healthcare. Instead, we work more, get paid less, and maintain an indecent adult minimum wage. Where did we go wrong?
Schor's pamphlet charts an economic vision based that aims to reduce work hours, increase leisure, create new work schedules that are not operating on a "male" model of employment, create green quotas and industry-wide environmental standards, alternative housing and transportation, raise minimum wage, restructure labor relations, change corporate culture, and promote social accountability. The pamphlet "sets the guideposts," writes Noam Chomsky, "for constructive thinking and action to save our country from becoming a plaything for investors and transnational corporations, and to place its fate in the hands of its citizens."
A groundbreaking statement about ecological decline, suggesting a radical change in how we think about consumer goods, value, and ways to live.
In True Wealth , economist Juliet B. Schor rejects the sacrifice message, with the insight that social innovations and new technology can simultaneously enhance our lives and protect the planet. Schor shares examples of urban farmers, DIY renovators, and others working outside the conventional market to illuminate the path away from the work-and-spend cycle and toward a new world rich in time, creativity, information, and community.
Un spectre hante le monde occidental, le spectre du chômage. Et pourtant, nous n'avons jamais produit autant de biens de consommation et de services. Quand on perd son emploi, on perd tout : l'argent, le statut social, l'identité. Dominique Méda, philosophe et auteur d'un ouvrage remarqué, Le Travail, une valeur en voie de disparition, nous rappelle que l'organisation de la société autour du travail est très récente, un modèle transitoire qu'il est peut-être nécessaire de dépasser. Pour Juliet Schor, économiste et professeur à Harvard, des alternatives existent, mais les forces du capitalisme résistent. Comment vaincre ces résistances, et pour quelle société ?