That reaction to Indians’ pursuit of wealth has a lot to teach us, not only about common conceptions of Indians but also about dilemmas inherent in Indian/non-Indian relations and in America’s economy because of that economy’s foundation in lands and resources appropriated from indigenous peoples.
Along with the growth of tribal bureaucracies, this turn toward tribal capitalism has given Indians new reasons to articulate, ponder, and debate some of the basic principles that guide or should guide their economic affairs—to consider in particular whether economic aims and relations in Indian communities do or should differ from those that predominate in the United States.
Murphy attacked the tight-fisted policy of Ford Motor Company (FMC) and its indifference toward unemployed workers. Henry Ford publicly maintained he would never cut wages or jobs, even as he proceeded to do both. Employment at the largest facility of FMC in Dearborn, just outside Detroit, fell nearly 50 percent between 1929 and 1932. But the overwhelming majority of laid-off Ford workers resided in Detroit, raising the question, who bore responsibility for assisting them?
To address the human element of production, Ford introduced his Five Dollar Day, Ford Profit-Sharing Plan. When the plan was unveiled in 1914, the world was stunned. Qualified Ford workers would receive five dollars a day, more than double the average wage in the auto industry at that time. When compared to lower prevailing wages in other industries such as steel, meatpacking, or coal mining, the Ford proposal was even more astounding. Simultaneously, FMC reduced the workday from nine hours to eight.
Gitterman and Coclanis argue that our leaders must find a way to forge a bipartisan, pro-growth economic agenda and, in order to implement it, embrace creative public-private partnerships of various kinds.
Foreign policy historian James Edward Miller provides background on the current financial and political predicament of Greece and the European Union.
Polanyi’s classic suggests we should ignore the profoundly false choice between markets and the state.
Revisiting Henry Luce’s essay on American ascendancy, Michael H. Hunt considers the current era of American decline.
The recent events concerning public sector workers in Wisconsin have brought a great deal of reflecting and attention to the ways in which the government, at both the state and national levels, spends and saves money. UNC Press author Lisa Levenstein, with economics doctoral student Jason Brent, wrote an Op-ed in this past Sunday’s Greensboro …
Continue reading ‘Lisa Levenstein on Balancing Budgets and Public Employees’ »
The midterm election campaign now approaching the home stretch has brought with it striking but fairly empty calls to action–from the Tea Party frenzy over fiscal virtue to a president exhorting his base with the banal promise of “moving America forward.” But this and all the other lamentable features of our democracy, it is worth …
Continue reading ‘American Democracy and the Challenge of Globalization’ »
As we celebrate the University of North Carolina’s 217th anniversary on this University Day, chancellor Holden Thorp introduces a new project called “Innovate@Carolina: Important Ideas for a Better World” to lead the university forward. This three-year roadmap, described in detail at innovation.unc.edu, is designed to “build a culture of innovation that permeates every corner of …
Continue reading ‘The University Day Challenge: Innovate!’ »
Congratulations to Michael Walden, author of North Carolina in the Connected Age: Challenges and Opportunities in a Globalizing Economy, who has just been awarded the UNC Board of Governors Award for Excellence in Public Service. The award is intended “to encourage, identify, recognize, and reward distinguished public service and outreach by faculty across the University.” …
We welcome a guest post today from Andrew J. Kirkendall, author of Paulo Freire and the Cold War Politics of Literacy. In his political biography of Freire (1921-97), a native of Brazil’s impoverished northeast who developed adult literacy training techniques that remain influential today, Kirkendall gives new perspectives on the history of the Cold War, …
Continue reading ‘Paulo Freire, Lula, and the Next Step for Brazil’ »
I’m pleased to have a guest post today from Frank Stricker, author of Why America Lost the War on Poverty — And How to Win It, which we published in 2007. That book focused on the second half of the twentieth century. In his current work, Stricker’s looking more closely at unemployment and job creation, …
Continue reading ‘Job Programs and Stimulus II: What We Can Learn from New Deal Programs’ »
I’ve posted a couple of items recently (here and here) about the renewed relevance in these painful economic times of Robert McElvaine’s classic collection of letters written to FDR, Down and Out in the Great Depression: Letters from the Forgotten Man. On Friday, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer aired a wonderful segment featuring McElvaine …
Continue reading ‘Robert McElvaine on The News Hour: reconsidering consumption’ »
