William Greider, "Work Rules"

William Greider, prominent political journalist and author, has spent much of the past two decades writing about politics and the economy. A former editor at Rolling Stone and The Washington Post, Greider now writes regularly on economic matters for The Nation. To date, he has published six books that challenge mainstream assumptions about how the economy works: The Education of David Stockman and Other Americans (1982); Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve Runs the Country (1987); Who Will Tell the People: The Betrayal of American Democracy (1992); One World, Ready or Not: The Manic Logic of Global Capitalism (1997); Fortress America: The American Military and the Consequences of Peace (1999); and, most recently, The Soul of Capitalism: Opening Paths to a Moral Economy (2003), from which the following chapter is drawn.

Whether his topic is the Federal Reserve, the news media's coverage of economic policy, the spread of global capitalism, or the workings of the military's large-scale acquisitions programs, Greider writes with an eye toward exposing the tensions that exist between the theory of a free market and the actual practices of the regulatory agencies, bankers, and financial investors who drive the capitalist enterprise. More interested in reform than revolution, Greider has consistently sought to use his work as a reporter to educate his readers about the excesses of capitalism and to argue for changes in policy and practice that will allow for the creation of what he terms a "moral economy." In bidding us to consider the human consequences of the economy's inequities, Greider seeks not to dismantle capitalism but rather, as he puts it, to show that it is still possible for citizens to "change the economic system's operating values."  

Greider, William. "Work Rules." The Soul of Capitalism: Opening Paths to a Moral Economy. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2003. 49-74.
Biographical information, quote and digital image drawn from William Greider's home page.

Link to Explore:

http://www.paecon.net/: The homepage of the Post-Autistic Economics Network, an international coalition of economists who reject standard, neoclassical economic theory.  

Question for Learning:

• There is a new conflict brewing in Economics departments around the world. On one side are the standard bearers of "neoclassical" economics, which is based on the supposition that individuals make rational choices to maximize their happiness. On the other are economists who refer to the standard model as "autistic." Browse around the many pages of the Post-Autistic Economics Network. What is "Post-Autistic Economics," and in what ways does it correlate with Greider's vision for a more moral economy?

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Question for Connecting:

• In "America's Other Drug Problem," Arnold Relman and Marcia Angell describe the economic forces that drive innovation in the pharmaceuticals industry. If drug companies were transferred to worker ownership, would that arrangement make any difference in the behavior of the companies in the marketplace? In other words, would the company be able to say no to highly profitable innovations that might actually be less effective than the older drugs they replace?

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