This book examines the political and economic consequences of the United States' growing reliance on the market and the effects that this growing reliance is having on U.S. workers and their families. The following are among the topics discussed in the book's 10 chapters: (1) consequences of the turn to the market (disinvestment, imbalance between the public and private sectors, inequality of income and wealth, political instability); (2) markets, nations, and inequality (decline of the nation-state, free trade, business moves, free trade and inequality); (3) disposable workers (unions, productivity, robots, automation, transformation of work, downsizing, part-time and temporary jobs); (4) the low-wage, low-skill strategy (wage differentials, minimum wage, fragmentation of the middle class); (5) education, choice, profit, and democracy (ambiguous attitudes toward education, educational financing, market answers regarding educational financing, school reform, accountability, national standards); (6) jobs and job training (inadequacy of the federal response, unemployment insurance, skills and attitudes); (7) the market as cure and/or cause of poverty and welfare; (8) democracy in the workplace (market accountability); (9) government's role in relation to the workplace (enfeebling government, deregulation, privatization); and (10) the next deal (the public's capital, universalism, entitlement spending, international linkages, campaign reform). Each chapter contains references. (MN)