Manufacturing Green Prosperity

Book excerpt: This timely set of solutions based on a new theory of economics shows how America can reverse its inexorable economic decline and stop the bleeding of its middle class by rebuilding its manufacturing sector on a green basis. Manufacturing Green Prosperity: The Power to Rebuild the American Middle Class connects two critical issues: the importance of manufacturing to the growth and fair distribution of national wealth and the need to create an environmentally sustainable society. In so doing, the book offers groundbreaking arguments demonstrating the centrality of manufacturing and shows ways in which creating a green economy will rebuild U.S. manufacturing and expand the middle class. Drawing from the fields of political science, economics, ecology, history, engineering, and philosophy, the author challenges existing myths about manufacturing, exposes the weaknesses of neoclassical economics, and proposes a production-centered alternative. America, he persuasively argues, needs a sophisticated, green manufacturing base in order to create an entirely new transportation and energy infrastructure-one that will make cities ecologically sustainable; prevent the worst effects of global warming; protect vulnerable ecosystems; and counter the depletion of oil, coal, and other critical natural resources.