This book appears to offer some excellent insights to enable an understanding of the gradual degradation of the lives of working people caused by neo-liberal policies.
The first section of the book addresses economic globalization, in which "transnational corporations are able to pit workers in the rich, developed imperialist countries in a direct job-for-job wage competition with workers in poor, underdeveloped, low-wage countries on an ever-widening scale."
In the second section of the book, Goldstein outlines the thirty-year assault on the American workforce. The net effect has been more deleterious than is often realized. "Over three decades of outsourcing, offshoring, and immigration, the pressure has become more insidious than a market crash. The confidence of workers has been slowly and imperceptibly undermined by the bosses' gradualist piecemeal tactics: layoffs in one plant or a group of plants, staggered over time and in different industries and regions. Production is shifted to low-wage areas behind the backs of the workers. Over time, concessions have been made to the bosses in increments. It all adds up to a massive attack on the entire class, but in slow motion. The workers are influenced by what has become known as the 'fear factor' and their leadership has shown no way out."
