ABSTRACT

The Surplus American considers a future where increasing numbers of Americans will be rendered jobless and redundant. Exploring the ongoing crisis of 'surplus people' today, authors Charles Derber and Yale Magrass show that the jobless are merely the tip of the iceberg. Drawing on the work of economists and highlighting new trends, the book identifies a number of primary groups within the category of 'surplus' including the underemployed, people forcibly removed or induced to leave the labour force and retirees. Derber and Magrass argue that a majority of the US public is now part of the surplus population constituting an integral part of the economy. The authors conclude that these movements will be essential to solving the crisis of surplus people and redirecting the economy in a more positive direction.

part |109 pages

You're Fired

chapter |6 pages

Who Are the Surplus People?

They Are the Unemployed but They Include Many Other Unfortunate Souls

chapter |4 pages

How to Make Money from the Creation of Surplus People

The 1 Percent's Strategy to Maximize Profits by Minimizing US Employment

chapter |3 pages

How Capitalism Created Surplus People Right from the Very Beginning

How Early Capitalists Got Their Opponents, the Feudal Aristocracy, to Create a Surplus Population

chapter |3 pages

How American Capitalists Controlled the Surplus Population before World War I

The 99 Percent Were Both Promised the “American Dream” and Threatened with Destitution

chapter |3 pages

World War I and the Roaring Twenties

How American Capitalists Came to Be the Richest and Most Powerful in the World By Turning Their Workers More into Consumers than Producers

chapter |2 pages

The Great Depression Begins

The Consumer Economy of the Roaring Twenties Implodes and Leaves Millions of People as Surplus

chapter |6 pages

Roosevelt, Keynes, and the New Deal

How the Government Tried to Save Capitalism from Itself by Relieving Misery among the Surplus

chapter |6 pages

America at Its Height

War, Keynesianism, and How People Who Were No Longer Needed to Produce Came to Believe They Had Achieved the American Dream

chapter |5 pages

America Enters Decline

How Other Countries Used America's Discoveries to Create Wealth while America Dismantled Its Industries and Wasted Its Prosperity on Weapons and Consumer Debt

chapter |7 pages

The Age of Reagan

How Reaganism Accelerated the Outsourcing and Destruction of Infrastructure, Widened the Gap between the 1 Percent and the 99 Percent, and Made More and More People Surplus

chapter |8 pages

Does Our Theory Hold Up?

The Role of Bubble Jobs, Low-Wage Employment, and Students and Retirees in Explaining Unemployment Rates since Reagan Left Office

part |77 pages

I Like Firing People

part |32 pages

I Like Firing People: A Version Performed at Boston College