Globalization and the American Worker: Negotiating a New Social Contract

Globalization and the American worker is a path-breaking work on economic policy in a global age. It debunks the myths that clutter the political debate over globalization, focusing instead on the hard challenges America faces in building a stronger economic future. The book highlights the need to embrace the challenge of competing in the global economy, while making the investments in America’s workers that they need to compete in world markets. It underscores the importance of adaptability in a time of accelerating economic change and explains how economic policy can encourage or hinder the ability of workers and firms to adjust to the changes that globalization has wrought. The book provides concrete recommendations for trade and tax policy, education, health care, labor, technology and range of other areas that would help build a new social contract between America and its greatest asset, its workers.

Grant Aldonas is the founder and principal managing director of Split Rock International, Inc., a global business consulting firm, and a senior adviser at CSIS. He served as under secretary of commerce for international trade from 2001 to 2005, where he was one of the president’s principal advisers on international trade and responsible for all U.S. trade promotion activities.