The Global Class War: How America’s Bipartisan Elite Lost Our Future - And What It Will Take to Win It Back

Class warfare, not economic fate or national interest, best explains why Republican and Democratic leaders have encouraged the outsourcing, trade deficits, and energy dependence that are rushing America toward an inevitable decline in living standards. Jeff Faux breaks through the current stale debate with a compelling case for making globalization responsive to democracy, including an inspiring proposal for a radically revised NAFTA. Full of new insights, political drama, and crisp analysis, The Global Class War argues that only by confronting the realities of the global market will Americans -as well as the citizens of other nations--gain control of their economic future.

Conventional wisdom portrays globalization as competition among countries--America versus Mexico or China or Europe. But today the rich and powerful of every nation have more in common with each other than they do with their fellow citizens who must work for a living. What’s good for General Motors--or Microsoft, Exxon, or Wal-Mart--is no longer good for America.

In The Global Class War, Jeff Faux argues that the politics of the new world market is dominated by a virtual ＂Party of Davos,＂ the globe-trotting network of corporate investor and CEOs and the politicians and journalists who work on their behalf. Clinton and his treasury secretary, Robert Rubin, and Bush and his defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, may use different strategies, but they promote the same globalization agenda in which the benefits go to America’s corporate investors--and the costs are paid by ordinary Americans in outsourced jobs, military casualties, and an unsustainable foreign debt.

JEFF FAUX is the founder and former president of the Economic Policy Institute. His articles and commentary have appeared in the Washington Post, the Nation, the New York Times, USA Today, and Harper’s.