Instructor: Prof. Gordon Lafer
(glafer@oregon.uoregon.edu, (541) 346-2786)
ULA January 2004
University of Massachusetts at Amherst
1 required book, in addition to the packet:
Larry Mishel, Jared Bernstein and Heather Boushey, The State of Working America, 2002-03, Cornell University Press, 2003. (paper is $24.95 from EPI, or $17.47 from Amazon)
1) Introduction: Public Policy and Economic Interests in The American Political System
Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States, 1492-Present. Chapters 4 and 5.
Charles A. Beard, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States, The Free Press, New York, 1986. Ch. 6, “The Constitution as an Economic Document,” pp. 152-188.
Michael Parenti, Democracy For the Few (7th edition), St. Martin’s Press, New York, 2002. Chapter 4, “A Constitution for the Few,” pp. 42-54.
Michael Moore, Stupid White Men, ch. 1, “A Very American Coup,” pp. 1-28.
2) Economic Inequality in the United States
Michael Parenti, Democracy for the Few. Chapter 2: “Wealth and Want in the United States,” pp. 6-27; Chapter 3: “The Plutocratic Culture: Institutions and Ideologies,” pp. 28-41.
James K. Galbraith, Created Unequal: The Crisis in American Pay, Free Press, New York, 1998. Chapter 1, “The Crisis of Wages and Transfers,” pp. 3-22.
Dinesh D’Souza, The Virtue of Prosperity, The Free Press, New York, 2000. Chapter 3, “Created Unequal,” pp. 62-83.
3) Regulations Governing Minimum Wage and Contingent Work
David Card and Alan Krueger, Myth and Measurement: The New Economics of the Minimum Wage, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1995. Chapter 12, “Conclusions and Implications,” pp. 387-400.
Virginia L. duRivage, et. al., “Making Labor Law Work for Part-Time and Contingent Workers,” in Barker and Christensen, eds., Contingent Work: American Employment Relations in Transition, ILR Press, Ithaca, 1998, pp. 263-280.
David Gordon, Fat and Mean: The Colrporate Squeeze of Working Americans and the Myth of Managerial “Downsizing,” The Free Press, New York, 1996. Introduction, pp. 1-12; Chapter 9, pp. 238-254.
Michael Yates, Naming the System: Inequality and Work in the Global Economy, Monthly Review Press, New York, 2003. Chapter 4: “Bad Jobs, Low pay, and Overwork,” pp. 91-118.
4) The Economic Agenda of National Business Lobbies
Michael Zweig, The Working Class Majority: America’s Best Kept Secret, Cornell University Press, 2000. Ch 1, “The Class Structure of the United States, pp. 9-37.
Kim McQuaid, Uneasy Partners: Big Business in American Politics, 1945-1990. Ch. 7, “The Time of Troubles Begins: From Lyndon Johnson to Gerald Ford, pp. 125-151. Ch. 8, “Corporate Resurgence from Carter to Reagan,” pp. 151-171. Ch. 9, “The Reagan Revolution and Afterward,” pp. 172-185.
Michael Moore, Downsize This! Random Threats from an Unarmed American. Pp. 5-17, 43-55, 108-126, 221-228.
William Greider, Who Will Tell the People: The Betrayal of American Democracy, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1992. Chapter 4, “The Grand Bazaar,” pp. 105-122.
Lance Compa, Unfair Advantage: Workers’ Freedom of Association in the United States Under International Human Rights Standards. Section I, “Summary,” pp. 6-16. Skim Section V, “Case Studies of Violations of Workers’ Freedom of Association,” pp. 71-170.
Kim McQuaid, Uneasy Partners: Big Business in American Politics, 1945-1990. Ch. 1, “Defining Postwar Normalcy: The Fight Over Labor Law,” pp. 18-35.
Roy Adams, “Choice or Voice? Rethinking American Labor Policy in Light of the International Human Rights Consensus,” Employee Rights and Employment Policy Journal 5 (2): 521-548, 2001.
6) Local Politics: Tax Policy and the Logic of Deficits
Fred Block, Revising State Theory: Essays in Politics and Postindustrialism, Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 1987. Ch. 3, “The Ruling Class Does not Rule: Notes on the Marxist Theory of the State,” pp. 51-68.
Todd Swanstrom, The Crisis of Growth Politics: Cleveland, Kucinich, and the Challenge of Urban Populism, Temple University Press, 1985. Chapter 6: “The Politics of Tax Abatement,” pp. 136-153; Chapter 7: “The Politics of Default,” pp. 154-177.
Paul Begala, It’s Still the Economy, Stupid: George W. Bush, the GOP’s CEO, Simon & Schuster, New York, 2002. Chapter 2, “Tax Cuts for the Rich,” pp. 16-32.
Michael Parenti, Democracy for the Few, Chapter 6: “Politics: Who Gets What?,” pp. 67-79.
7) Skills, Education and Job Training
Gordon Lafer, The Job Training Charade, Cornell University Press, 2002. “Introduction,” pp. 1-18; “Conclusion,” pp. 210-224.
D.W. Livingston, The Education-Jobs Gap: Underemployment or Economic Democracy, Garamond Press, Toronto, 1999. Chapter 3: “Voices from the Gap: Underemployment and Lifelong Learning,” pp. 97-132; Chapter 6: “Bridging the Gap: Prospects for Work Reorganization in Advanced Capitalism,” pp. 226-275.
Preston Smith, “Why Political Scientists Should Support Free Public Higher Education,” forthcoming 2003.
8) Welfare and Work
Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward, Regulating the Poor: The Functions of Public Welfare, Vintage Books, New York, 1971. pp. 3-41, 320-330, 341-348.
Gordon Lafer, The Job Training Charade. Ch. 6, “Job Training After Welfare Reform: Training for Discipline,” pp. 190-209.
Adolph Reed, The Myth of the Underclass
9) NAFTA, WTO, IMF and Globalization
Alliance for Sustainable Jobs and the Environment, Trade & Investment in Services: The Stakes for Workers and the Environment, ASJE, Portland, February 2002. 18 pp.
Public Services International, Democracy or Dominance in the Americas: The FTAA vs. Public Services, PSI, Washington, DC, 2002. 20 pp.
Jefferson Cowie, Capital Moves: RCA’s Seventy-Year Quest for Cheap Labor. Ch 5, “Moving Toward a Shutdown: Bloomington, 1969-1978,” pp. 127-151, ch. 6, “The Double Struggle: Ciudad Juarez, 1978-1998,” pp. 152-179.
Grace Chang, Disposable Domestics: Immigrant Women Workers in the Global Economy, South End Press, Cambridge, MA, 2000. Ch 4, “Global Exchange: The World Bank, ‘Welfare Reform,’ and the Trade in Migrant Women,” pp. 123-154.
10) Globalization and Labor Policies Post-9/11
Greg Palast, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy: The Truth About Corporate Cons, Globalization, and High-Finance Fraudsters, Penguin, New York, 2002. Chapter 4, “Sell the Lexus, Burn the Olive Tree”, pp. 143-206.
Michael Moore, Dude, Where’s My Country, Warner Books, New York, 2003. Chapter 4, “The United States of BOO!”