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The global financial crisis showed deep problems with mainstream economic predictions, as well as the vulnerability of the world's richest countries and the enormous potential of some poorer ones. China, India, Brazil, and other counties are growing faster than Europe or America and have weathered the crisis better. Is their growth due to following conventional economic guidelines or to strong state leadership and sometimes protectionism? These issues are basic to the question of which countries will grow in coming decades, as well as the likely conflicts over global trade policy, currency standards, and economic cooperation. This is the third part of a trilogy comprised of the first three books in the Possible Future series.

This book situates the current crisis in the historical trajectory of the capitalist world-system, showing how the crisis was made possible not only by neoliberal financial reforms but by a massive turn away from manufacturing things of value towards seeking profit from financial exchange and credit. Much more basic than the result of a few financial traders cheating the system, this is a potential historical turning point. The book establishes why the system was ripe for crisis of the past, and yet why this meltdown was different. It concludes by asking whether as deep as the crisis is, it may contain seeds of a new global economy, what role the US will play, and whether China or other countries will rise to global leadership. This is the first part of a trilogy comprised of the first three books in the Possible Future series.

Response to financial meltdown is entangled with basic challenges to global governance. Environment, global security and ethnicity and nationalism are all global issues today. Focusing on the political and social dimensions of the crisis, this book examines changes in relationships between the world's richer and poorer countries, efforts to strengthen global institutions, and difficulties facing states trying to create stability for their citizens. This is the second part of a trilogy comprised of the first three books in the Possible Future series.

How do economic conditions such as poverty, unemployment, inflation, and economic growth impact youth violence? This book provides a new perspective on this crucial issue. Pinpointing the economic factors that are most important, the book explores how different kinds of economic issues impact children, adolescents, and their families, schools, and communities. Offering new and important insights regarding the relationship between macroeconomic conditions and youth violence across a variety of times and places, chapters cover such issues as the effect of inflation on youth violence; new quantitative analysis of the connection between race, economic opportunity, and violence; and the cyclical nature of criminal backgrounds and economic disadvantage among families. Highlighting the complexities in the relationship between economic conditions, juvenile offenses, and the community and situational contexts in which their connections are forged, the book prompts important questions that aim to guide future research on the causes and prevention of youth violence.

This book investigates how the politics of immigration, health care, and welfare are intertwined. Documenting the formal return of the immigrant as a “public charge,” or a burden upon the State, the book shows how the concept has been revived as states adopt punitive policies targeting immigrants of color and require them to “pay back” benefits for which they are legally eligible during a time of intense debate regarding welfare reform. The book argues that the notions of “public charge” and “public burden” were reinvigorated in the 1990s to target immigrant women of reproductive age for deportation and as part of a larger project of “disciplining” immigrants. Drawing on nearly two hundred interviews with immigrant organizations, government agencies and safety net providers, as well as careful tracking of policies and media coverage, the book provides vivid, first-person accounts of how struggles over the “public charge” doctrine unfolded on the ground, as well as its consequences for the immigrant community. Ultimately, it shows that the concept of “public charge” continues to lurk in the background, structuring our conception of who can legitimately access public programs and of the moral economy of work and citizenship in the United States, and makes important policy suggestions for reforming our immigration system.

In Japan: The Precarious Future, a group of distinguished scholars of Japanese economics, politics, law, and society examine the various roads that might lie ahead for this East Asian nation. Will Japan face a continued erosion of global economic and political power, particularly as China’s outlook improves exponentially? Or will it find a way to protect its status as an important player in global affairs? Contributors explore issues such as national security, political leadership, manufacturing prowess, diplomacy, population decline, and gender equality in politics and the workforce, all in an effort to chart the possible futures for Japan. Both a roadmap for change and a look at how Japan arrived at its present situation, this collection of thought-provoking analyses is essential for understanding the current landscape and future prospects of this world power.

This book explores how we think about money and, particularly, how our jobs influence that thinking. By spotlighting people for whom money is the focus of their work, the book illuminates how the daily practices experienced in different jobs create distinct ways of thinking and talking about money and how occupations and their work cultures carry important symbolic, material, and practical messages about money. The book takes us deep inside the cultures of these “moneyed” workers. From hedge fund trading rooms in New York, to poker players at work in Las Vegas casinos, to a “Christian money retreat” in a monastery in rural Pennsylvania, the book illustrates how the underlying economic conditions of various occupations and careers produce what it calls “money cultures,” or ways of understanding the meaning of money, which in turn shape one's economic outlook. Key to this is how some professionals think very differently than others in their regard to money—the book argues that it is the structure of these professions themselves that in turn influences monetary attitudes. The book shows that what people do for a living has a profound effect on how people conceive of money both at work and in their home lives, making clear the connections between the economic and the social, shedding light on some of our most basic values.