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Since the Founding, Americans have debated the true meaning of freedom. For some, freedom meant the provision of life's necessities, those basic conditions for the "pursuit of happiness." For others, freedom meant the civil and political rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights and unfettered access to the marketplace—nothing more. As Mark Paul explains, the latter interpretation—thanks in large part to a particularly influential cadre of economists—has all but won out among policymakers, with dire repercussions for American society: rampant inequality, endemic poverty, and an economy built to benefit the few at the expense of the many.
In this book, Paul shows how economic rights—rights to necessities like housing, employment, and health care—have been a part of the American conversation since the Revolutionary War and were a cornerstone of both the New Deal and the Civil Rights Movement. Their recuperation, he argues, would at long last make good on the promise of America's founding documents. By drawing on FDR's proposed Economic Bill of Rights, Paul outlines a comprehensive policy program to achieve a more capacious and enduring version of American freedom. Among the rights he enumerates are the right to a good job, the right to an education, the right to banking and financial services, and the right to a healthy environment.
Replete with discussions of some of today's most influential policy ideas—from Medicare for All to a federal job guarantee to the Green New Deal—The Ends of Freedom is a timely and urgent call to reclaim the idea of freedom from its captors on the political right—to ground America's next era in the country's progressive history and carve a path toward a more economically dynamic and equitable nation.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
May 12, 2023 -
Formats
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Kindle Book
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OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9780226826295
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EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9780226826295
- File size: 1445 KB
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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April 1, 2023
Paul (planning and public policy, Rutgers Univ.) argues that leaders need to prioritize providing equitable economic rights for all Americans. The book defines economic rights as the freedom to have basic necessities such as housing, employment, and health care. The battle and discussions about it started as early as the Revolutionary War. Drawing from FDR's proposed Bill of Economic Rights, the author discusses a comprehensive way to create enduring programs, such as more stimulus federal grants and raising wages that are more than the cost of living. The book argues that all Americans should have the right to a good job and access to banking and financial services. The book also suggests changing laws so that grants other than Pell can be given to Americans to have a tuition-free education, and one that comes with academic freedom for its teachers. To actualize these programs, the book calls for changes within the Medicare system and the creation of federal job-guarantees. VERDICT This book will be of interest to scholars and general readers alike. It belongs in collections in the social and behavioral sciences.--Claude Ury
Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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April 1, 2023
A proposal for an economic Bill of Rights designed to expand freedoms and "address the problem of persistent economic insecurity in America." Arguing against the use of negative rights to champion individual freedom and bolster conservative thought, Paul, a professor of public policy at Rutgers, begins his counterargument with a history of the rise of neoliberalism in the U.S. and of governmental efforts to realize positive rights that ensure that everyone prospers. Midway through the text, the author shifts from history to policy analysis and proposes "concrete alternatives that would provide all with universal security by guaranteeing economic rights." These efforts, he notes, could succeed in "rooting out the deep power imbalances that warp America's economy and society." Paul groups his alternatives in broad categories: work, housing, education, health care, basic income and banking, and climate change. Among many other initiatives, the author lays out plans for federally funded and owned social housing for everyone, free college education, universal health care, and a basic income program that applies to each household and includes generous child allowances. The daunting issue is whether the government can afford the increased spending such an economic program would require. Paul believes it can, and he offers as a possible solution a combination of reduced social expenditures due to a lessening of poverty, full employment, and a commitment to the living wage and increased taxes. The result will be a "well-being state" that realizes the deeply flawed concept of the American dream. Paul is sharp and deeply knowledgeable about his field, and his comprehensive approach is admirable, if politically impractical. However, his book enters a crowded field of other recent attempts to build on a resurgence of progressivism, most of which work the same political-economic terrain in a quasi-historical style with similar liberal inclinations. A reminder of the country's lost ideal of economic freedom and the many actions that might turn that ideal into reality.COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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