It is my pleasure to submit the following overview of my proposed new book entitled DROPPING OUT.
DROPPING OUT is a how to book for Americans who are suffering from a declining standard of living, caused by layoff, termination, demotion, reduction in pay, employer's exportation of plant and jobs to another state or country, NAFTA, GATT, divorce, aging, discrimination, or other economic misfortune. The book is for 50% of Americans, to show them how to turn their economic adversity into a positive force to propel them to a satisfactory position in the top 50% of the economy.
There are many, converging reasons for the declining standard of living which is sweeping across the middle and lower classes in the United States (and elsewhere in many part of industrialized countries), and it is becoming clear that there are no prospects for any foreseeable turnaround of the decline, through action by the country's elected leaders, state, federal or local. In other words, it is a basic assumption of DROPPING OUT (supported by facts and conclusions spread throughout the book) that the economy will get progressively worse for most Americans while the rich get richer, but that this economic locust which is plaguing our economy can (and should be) offset by action of the individual, instead of waiting for any effective action by the persons who are causing the difficulty in the first place.
DROPPING OUT, after establishing these conditions, goes on to explain specifically what readers should do to change their lives to adjust to the new economy.
It is assumed that the reader lives in a city (say one of the top 50 cities in the United States), because city life is more dependent on employment, savings and expenditures, with the effect that a lower standard of living makes it less possible to live in a city than to live elsewhere in the United States, generally.
The various types of expenditures which are required of city living, including working in a city, are discussed, to show where huge savings can be instantly realized by moving to what I will discuss at length is a DROPOUT COMMUNITYtm. I discuss private grade school tuition, high city rents, high automobile costs, avoidable employee costs, taxation and other avoidable costs which can amount to $100,000 or more in pre-tax income for the city dweller, which amount can be saved by living and working in a DROPOUT COMMUNITY.
Persons who are suffering from a reduced standard of living attempt to offset the decline several ways: by working harder and longer hours; by greater use of credit cards; by reduced payments on credit cards; by taking out second or third mortgages on their homes; and by hocking or selling personal property; and by use of their savings. But these tactics to offset the deteriorating economy are self-defeating, when the economy keeps falling. The sounder technique is to cut expenses and reduce the hours of employment, and use the saved hours for self improvement (to increase your income).
DROPPING OUT discusses the specific things which a DROPOUT should do, and discusses at length the type of community in which he/she should relocate (a DROPOUT COMMUNITY).
The DROPOUT COMMUNITY can be created by the first DROPOUT who moves in for such purpose. There is no waiting for any type of political action by a legislative body (which has already shown its lack of sympathy by causing the lowering standard of living in the first place). Thus, the reader has much more control over his DROPOUT life than he might think (without reading this book).
The DROPOUT is to lower his overhead in as many ways as possible, when he moves to his DROPOUT COMMUNITY, which means that he buys no more new cars and no more new or used cars on time payments; makes little or no use of credit cards; has a smaller (owned) home with monthly payments (including taxes) as low as possible; no expensive sneakers or tuxedos or array of expensive suits or dresses or shoes.
In other words, the DROPOUT in his/her DROPOUT COMMUNITY will be fashionable by not being fashionable; will be more important by having less; and will be spending less time earning a day-to-day living while having more time to spend with family values and increasing his/her earning potential -- while others are working longer hours to keep up with the declining economy.
The DROPOUT COMMUNITY becomes the main asset of the DROPOUTS, and has to be changed by DROPOUTS to meet DROPOUT conditions. The most important change is to convert the library into a DROPOUT country club similar to the Grange, where the social and business needs of the DROPOUT family are to be met, and provide many things including:
1. Place to meet with other DROPOUTS for coffee, drinks, socials, lectures, dances, parties, luncheons, video exchanges, book exchanges;
2. Place where the DROPOUT can expect to see the same persons regularly to facilitate educational discussions, mutual assistance in economic endeavors, exchange of services (for compensation too), possible joint ventures and other collaboration; professional services; marketing assistance; exchange ideas.
3. Place where data processing software, hardware, databases, communications programs and skills can be used, borrowed, serviced, exchanged at community expense, with the librarian and DROPOUT COMMUNITY volunteers being the focal point, to enable DROPOUTS to learn what they need to know to develop themselves economically, and to work on a low-overhead basis from their DROPOUT homes.
4. Place where the DROPOUTS enjoy the services of a major corporation without having to pay any of the expenses, and have skilled persons available to show them how to make use of the equipment and software
The DROPOUT will be working from his home (and/or working at a job in his DROPOUT COMMUNITY to tide him/her over until he/she becomes self sufficient working from the home), and will learn to make use of the tools of persons who work from their home throughout the world: computer, printer, modem, fax, cellular phone, communications program, word processing, database program, other office suite components, internet and even a web site for the DROPOUT, or perhaps joining with others in the DROPOUT COMMUNITY.
The DROPOUT COMMUNITY will learn from DROPOUTS that a co-op store (or cooperating store already in existence) will stock the products which support the non-globalized economy of the DROPOUT COMMUNITY and avoid the products and services of companies which are destroying the U.S. economy and the standard of living of most Americans. The standards for making this determination will undoubtedly be as hotly debated as the local annual school budget.
It is expected DROPOUT COMMUNITIES will establish local banking facilities which will channel the community's savings into businesses which are locally owned and will provide local jobs; and that DROPOUTS will be able to work in the community or provide jobs for persons in the community.
Also, the DROPOUT COMMUNITIES will, for a percentage of the patent, pay for the patent applications and patent fees for any inventions of persons in the community, to assist residents in protecting their intellectual property, and to enable the community (and the U.S.) to be paid a fair share of the income derived from sale of the patented products in the U.S. Also, the patent holder DROPOUT could require patent licensees to make the product in the U.S.
The patent system in the U.S. today is too costly for most Americans to be able to afford to pay the patent attorney or agent his/her fee for preparing the patent application and the fees for filing of the application and renewal of the patent. These expenses should be paid for by the community (if the DROPOUT inventor agrees) in exchange for a percentage of any royalties, which could provide a source of financing for the DROPOUT COMMUNITY. Another source of financing is a possible share of businesses which are financed by the DROPOUT COMMUNITY.
Thus, it is discussed how the DROPOUT will help to convert his/her chosen DROPOUT COMMUNITY into a self-reliant community which has little need to buy from or the products of the multinational companies which have no governmental restraints from their locust-like activities in ripping off the U.S. economy and Americans, and how communications between DROPOUT COMMUNITIES will create a grass roots solution to the deteriorating economic conditions which are being caused by multinational companies removing U.S. jobs to lower-wage countries, then with no restraints selling these foreign-made products into the vast American market at higher profits for themselves, and economic devastation to the millions of unemployeds and lesser employeds which have resulted from these multinational tactics.
Through this grass roots program of changing small towns into DROPOUT COMMUNITIES, and passing on the experiences of these communities, and their libraries (actually, opportunity centers for the citizens), the monopolies of the multinational corporations and their captive political organizations in the U. S. can be met by the monopolies of thousands of small, self-reliant DROPOUT towns and villages spread throughout the U.S., making the multinational corporations choose between manufacturing in Asia (usually) and selling to Americans.
DROPPING OUT is timely because it deals with a major, growing problem for most Americans: a deteriorating standard of living which seems to be beyond their control. The book shows how an individual can stop the deterioration and become a financial success. It is hard to conceive of a more important book at this time for many millions of Americans.
There is no other book of this type, which shows how a person suffering from a lower standard of living (through no fault of his/her own) can reverse the direction and come out a winner, by a total makeover of is/her way of life.
The line of books explaining how the economy is becoming globalized is not competitive to DROPPING OUT because they offer no help to the individual. Instead, they are a plea for the ones who caused the problem to stop their destructive practices. But multinationals have no incentive to reduce their increasing profits (especially when their competitors are continuing their destructive course without change); and the elected governmental officials who have been paid to permit multinationals to ruin the U.S. economy cannot be expected to reverse themselves and lose their campaign and other contributions. Also, the courts are not available to handle political questions.
The only thing left, according to DROPPING OUT, is the individual from the bottom up, through moving to DROPOUT COMMUNITIES, developing the communities to make the economics work for the DROPOUTS and other residents of the communities, and to spread the self-reliant message to other communities, which will ultimately result in multinationals having to choose between the U.S. market and foreign manufacturing advantages (including child labor, environmental destruction, slave labor rates).
The book is highly marketable because it fills an immediate and growing need for a solution to the national (and international) problem of the globalized economy and economic destruction caused in highly industrialized countries by globalization. The self-help solution is workable and appealing, and should enable the author to appear on major television and radio shows throughout the U.S., Canada, U.K. and other English-speaking countries to promote the book and concept of DROPPING OUT.
The author has been on hundreds of radio and television shows, and hundreds of newspapers and magazines during the past 25 years, including the front page of The New York Times (11/19/92 Here's Who First Asked Rock's Big Question - Who Do Fools Fall in Love?), At the Bar column of The New York Times on 2/18/94 (In Regarding Henry, art [allegedly] imitated life. Or so say a couple who have [allegedly] lived the life); front page several times in the Daily News (8/12/93 Billy Joel Sued for $10M); page 1 of the Los Angles Times Calendar Section; full page, p. 31 5/13/91 story in Newsday (A Pretty Penny for Your Thoughts - Maverick Lawyer finds no shortage of clients in theft-of-idea cases); full-page in 7/17/95 National Law Journal (He Says the Power Rangers [allegedly] Ripped Him Off); page 1 story of Business Section of The Washington Post; 3 times on TV's Entertainment Tonight (3/95 re Power Rangers Suit; 1993 re Addicted to McDonald's Dick Tracy lottery; 7/91 re Wesley Snipes' hit; 5/94 Worth Magazine p. 34 article Idea Man; and CBS Evening News with Dan Rather on 3/25/96 (6:55 pm, commenting on German equivalent of David Letterman Show). All of this publicity was without use of any publicist; and hundreds of newspapers for the Anti-Monopoly v. Monopoly cases, I and II.
Some representative magazine articles and newspaper clippings are attached.
The trend in the United States is for the rich to get richer and the poor to get poorer, and DROPPING OUT is unique in showing how a person can reverse this trend for himself or herself, and for most Americans in the long run.
DROPPING OUT is a non-fiction book of about 275 pages (no photographs or illustration) which can be delivered in 2-3 months.
DROPPING OUT shows readers with a declining standard of living how they can and should change their lifestyle to reverse the decline and re-join the economy as a creator of intellectual property (in the broadest sense, with specific, practical suggestions of activities to be undertaken) working from his/her home in a DROPOUT COMMUNITY.
The approach is to convince the reader that the lower standard of living is going to go even lower for most persons for the foreseeable future, and that the reader should cut his/her losses right now by moving out of the city and into a town or village which meets the criteria for a DROPOUT COMMUNITY.
Readers are then shown how they will enjoy a substantially lower cost of living, a lower standard of living (which has many benefits); how they will work fewer hours to pay for current (reduced) living expenses; and how they will spend some of their newly-freed time to improve themselves, socialize and have business and educational meetings with others similarly situated, and acquire the skills and motivation they need to earn money working from their DROPOUT homes creating and marketing intellectual property (in the broad, information era sense), the high-value area for anyone to be working in).
Part I of the book explains the economic problem of living and working in a city while the person is experiencing a lowering standard of living, and the avoidable costs which should be cut back.
Part II explains how to select a DROPOUT COMMUNITY and make some of the easy changes needed in such community to make the community work for the reader and other DROPOUTS, where the reader will be giving to the community in a win-win exchange to provide more income and quality of life for all residents of the community.
Part III explains how the DROPOUT can to build his/her career from the base of the DROPOUT COMMUNITY; readers are told what technology they will need and how much of this can be made available free through the community; also, I explain how DROPOUTS will develop their social life and maximize their overall quality of life in the DROPOUT COMMUNITY.
Part IV is an explanation of the community improvements which can be achieved by a small community to turn the local government into a mini-U.S. government to provide the essentials for economic growth of the community which the U.S. government and its dominated bureaucracies have failed to provide to small businesses and the middle and lower class of Americans, which centers around availability of capital (through local banks and local government financings) for small business and to create jobs, and how other government functions (especially courts and judges) can be expected to be more harmonious with the goals of the community, to facilitate economic growth of the community instead of monopolizing, globalized corporations.
Finally, Part V explains how DROPPING OUT is the framework for starting a grass roots cure of the evils of economic globalization, and shows how a single DROPOUT COMMUNITY can create thousands of similar (self-reliant) DROPOUT COMMUNITIES and in time substantially offset the original problem of the ever-lowering standard of living for most Americans.
The Appendix will be used to collect the various economic, legal and other technical information and arguments the author wants to supply in support of his program, to make the chapters more readable for most, and to enable the author to make his technical arguments more complete, for persons who are interested in the specifics of what has caused the ever-lowering standard of living for most Americans. My insights are needed because some of the main points have been overlooked (or are not known) to William Greider, Nader or others writing about the problem. My expertise as a antitrust and civil rights litigator and securities lawyer provides this different insight which helps to pinpoint the problems and suggest the proper remedies (which Greider and Nader have not been able to do).
Carl E. Person is a lawyer, inventor and problem solver, spending much of his time in pursuing antitrust cases against multinational companies and civil rights cases against governments. For the past 30 years he has been a defender of the rights of small business against major corporations and governments, and has seen a lessening of the ability for individual and small businesses to obtain a redress of their grievances against major corporations and governments, coinciding with a lessening of the standard of living for most Americans, the moving of American jobs to foreign countries, and the rich getting richer from such destructive activities.
This book takes Person's experience as an antitrust and civil rights litigator, and corporate, securities, business and intellectual-property lawyer, and as a businessperson and creator of new career fields (including the paralegal and the personal assistant), and his experience in computers and related technology, to design a program for individuals to follow which will enable them to increase their standard of living by changing their workstyle and lifestyle - by moving from the city to a DROPOUT COMMUNITY and developing the community with specific features to empower the individual and his new community to offset the uncontrolled excesses of the locust-like multinational corporations and cooperative elected and appointed governmental officials. Person's book is like his past creations: Practical, innovative and controversial. The persons who act early can expect to obtain greater benefits from the personal makeover than persons who wait to see what happens.
Person is the author of The Save-by-Borrowing Technique, and has appeared on hundreds of radio and television shows and in hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles (see representative articles attached [not included in this e-book edition], and see above for a short listing of major publicity events), almost always featuring a novel case, idea or solution by Person. Person's website is at http://www.lawmall.com and provides a look at the breadth of Person's interest in the legal system, business, the economy, education, financing and other areas covered in this book.
Person's publicity results from the novelty of the matters undertaken by him, difficult cases involving unique solutions based on novel ideas of Mr. Person (such as the establishment of a private court system for profit to reduce the politically-created overcrowding in the nation's court systems) and the financing of lawsuits by the selling of shares in lawsuits to the public through public offerings. This book represents years of novel thinking by Mr. Person in the area of economics, civil rights, equal business opportunities for individuals and small businesses, employment opportunities for all in which employees are able to produce to the maximum of their abilities, the decline of opportunities and the standard of living for most Americans while the stock market is steadily increasing and making the rich richer each day.
Like many of Person's ideas, the ideas presented in the book are natural ideas which most persons would arrive at if they learned enough about the problems and thought about them long enough.
DROPPING OUT is a book to be read by persons throughout the United States, Canada and other English-speaking countries to learn how to reverse a declining standard of living, and how to offset the locust-like conduct of multinational corporations which is causing the decline by moving American jobs to foreign, low-wage countries.
The audience includes: (i) persons and families suffering from a declining standard of living, including many city dwellers as well as farmers and others living in towns, villages and other rural places; (ii) persons and families working excessively in an effort to offset a reduction in income of the breadwinner(s); (iii) unemployed, underemployed and demoted persons; (iv) economists; (v) politicians and elected officials; (vi) officials of towns and villages; (vi) libraries and librarians; (vii) small businesses, including farmers and self-employed persons; (viii) multinational corporations and their officers and employees; (ix) sociologists; (x) inventors, writers and other creators of intellectual property; (xi) persons thinking about a retirement community; (xii) persons who have little or no savings, are over-extended financially, or are recent bankrupts; (xiii) recent high school and college graduates who are trying to decide upon a career path; and persons who have read any of the books listed in the next section.
Also, this book should have a good mail order marketing potential.
Secondary markets for the book are (i) textbook use in colleges and community colleges; and (ii) for use in thousands of towns and villages in the U.S. to help them attract DROPOUTS to enable the towns and villages to undergo the growth (and quality of growth) envisioned for them in DROPPING OUT.
DROPPING OUT will sell as a self-help book for persons suffering from a declining standard of living. There is no other book in this field with a self-help orientation; the other books (such as Ralph Nader's / William Greider's THE CASE AGAINST FREE TRADE: GATT, NAFTA, and the Globalization of Corporate Power (Earth Island Press, 1993), and William Greider's ONE WORLD, READY OR NOT: The Manic Logic of Global Capitalism (Simon & Schuster, 1997) explain why most Americans are experiencing a declining standard of living, but they do not tell readers what they can do to help themselves (or the U.S.) escape from or offset the problem. Existing marketing opportunities include (a) the ever-increasing discussions in the press and awareness of the American public that the standard of living for most Americans is declining while the stock market is climbing higher and higher (and the rich are getting richer); (b) the popularity of William Greider's new book, ONE WORLD, READY OR NOT, reviewed in Business Week 1/20/97 and The New York Times Book Review Section 1/18/97; (c) Carl Person's substantial publicity over past years, including most major slick magazines; every major daily newspaper and various national television shows (such as Entertainment Tonight; and the CBS Evening News). The author generated all of this publicity himself, without any publicist.
DROPPING OUT is a how to book for 100,000,000 Americans with a declining standard of living and who can't make ends meet or are working too hard, often underemployed; or with too many jobs, to try to make ends meet. Small business persons and farmers are included within the intended market. The book explains what an individual reader or a small town can do to change the deteriorating situation and truly pull out of the economic slump (while the adversity continues for others), and if enough persons and towns do what is outlined in the book, the problems will tend to correct themselves for the nation as a whole. The book explains how the lowest levels of government can be used in small geographic areas (for all persons within the area) to provide the cooperative means by which individuals and small-town residents can obtain their fair share of the economy and how the evils of economic concentration and globalizing of the economy can be stopped without any help from the United States government. DROPPING OUT should be of interest to readers of and the markets for the following books:
THE CASE AGAINST FREE TRADE - GATT, NAFTA, and the Globalization of Corporate Power, by Ralph Nader, William Greider, Dick Morris and others (Earth Island Press / North Atlantic Books, <189> 1993).
NO CONTEST - Corporate Lawyers and the Perversion of Justice in America, by Ralph Nader and Wesley J. Smith (Random House, <189> 1996) [1. Corporate lawyers - United States. 2. Justice and politics - United States. 3. Law reform - United States.].
EVERYTHING FOR SALE - The Virtues and Limits of Markets, by Robert Kuttner (410 pp., $27.50, Knopf/Twentieth Century Fund Book, <189> 1997) [1. United States - economic policy 1993--. 2. United States - commercial policy. 3. Industrial policy - U.S. 4. Environmental policy - United States. 5. Full employment policies - United States. 6. Capitalism. 7. Free employment - United States.]. This book was reviewed (front-page, pp. 11-12) in 1/25/97 The New York Times Book Review as a book meant to provide a break-through in economic thought comparable to Galbraith's (<189> 1958) THE AFFLUENT SOCIETY and Berle's (<189> 1932) THE MODERN CORPORATION AND PRIVATE PROPERTY. to engender a wholesale change in the way the public things about government's role in the economy. ˙DROPPING OUT would be of interest to the readers of EVERYTHING FOR SALE because it describes how an individual can change government's role at the lowest political level and recreate the role of U.S. government in economic matters down to the lowest political level, to cope with the domination of the U.S. government by multinational corporations and their wealthy shareholders and managers.
ONE WORLD, READY OR NOT - The Manic Logic of Global Capitalism, by William Greider (528 pp., $27.50, Simon & Schuster, <189> 1997). [1. Capitalism. 2. Economic history - 1945 --]. This book was reviewed in the 1/19/97 New York Times Book Review ( page 11, A Rising Tide Sinks All Boats - Worldwide economic integration, William Greider argues, is bringing worldwide disaster; and a full page review in the 1/20/97 edition of Business Week (full page, at page 14 - The Global Economy: A Dreadful Reckoning?... Rather than accept free-flowing capital as beneficial, Greider smells only trouble. But Greider does not come up with any practical or hopeful solutions to the problems raised. The New York Times Review stated that Greider's book has compelling disagnoses followed by lame cures.
ONE WORLD, READY OR NOT is very pessimistic, indicating that unless something is done the country will have serious economic and social problems. His work does not, however, spell out anything which individuals can do to change the situation for themselves, or suggest any practical solutions for the problems which he presents. Greider appears to believe that the offending institutions (e.g., the U.S. government and monopolizing multinational companies) must correct themselves in some fashion, but is not very optimistic about this, because of the lack of incentive for one business (say, IBM) to forego huge profits when its competitors are not obliged by enforceable law to do the same. Greider hopes that Congress will do something, but is not very optimistic about this.
DROPPING OUT provides the missing ingredient for Greider (and other writers who see the evils of monopolies and the globalizing economy), by showing a way in which individuals and small towns and villages can make the needed changes for themselves, working in cooperation with each other, and in doing so can start a grassroots program of self-protection/self-improvement (perhaps a modern equivalent of the Farmers' Alliance of the late 1880-1920's, essentially a workable governmental cooperative for a small geographic area and all its residents) to ultimately provide the free-market opposition to the destructive policies of multinational companies and beholden government officials.
THE SOVEREIGN INDIVIDUAL - How to Survive and Thrive during the Collapse of the Welfare State, by James Dale Davidson and Lord William Rees-Mogg (Simon & Schuster, <189> 1997) [1. Economic forecasting. 2. 21st Century - forecasts. 3. Computers and civilization. 4. Information Society 1989--. 5. World Politics - forecasting.].
BANISHING BUREAUCRACY - The Five Strategies for Reinventing Government, by David Osborne and Peter Plastrik (397 pp., $25.00, Addison Wesley, <189> 1997) [1. Administrative agencies - United States. 2. Bureaucracy - United States. 3. Governmental productivity - United States. 4. Customer relations - United States. 5. Entrepreneurship - United States.].
WHEN WORK DISAPPEARS - The World of the Urban Poor, by William Julius Wilson (Knopf, <189> 1996) [1. Urban poor - United States. 2. Afro-Americans - Employment. 3. Inner cities - United States.].
THE END OF WORK - The Decline of the Global Labor Force and the Dawn of the Post-Market Era, by Jeremy Rifkin (Tarcher/Putnam, paperback, <189> 1995).
WORKING FROM HOME, by Paul and Sarah Edwards (Tarcher/Putnam, paperback, <189> 1994) [1. Home-based businesses. 2. Self-employment.].
GLOBAL PARADOX - The Bigger the World Economy the More Powerful Its Smaller Players, by John Naisbitt (William Morrow, <189> 1994) [1. Information Society. 2. Economic forecasting. 3. International economic relationships. 4. Small business. 5. Regionalism.].
POWERSHIFT - Knowledge, Wealth and Violence at the Edge of the 21st Century, by Alvin Toffler (611 pp., paperback, Bantam, $7.99, <189> 1990).
THE RATING GUIDE TO LIFE IN AMERICA'S SMALL CITIES, by G. Scott Thomas (Promotheus Books, paperback, <189> 1990).
THE REVOLT OF THE ELITES AND THE BETRAYAL OF DEMOCRACY, by Christopher Lasch (Norton, paperback, <189> 1995).
A BETTER PLACE TO LIVE - Reshaping the American Suburbs, by Philip Langdon (Harper/Collins, <189> 1994) [1. Suburbs. 2. United States - planning.].
THE JOBLESS FUTURE, by Stanley Aronowitz and William DiFazio (Univ. of Minnesota Press, <189> 1997).
OPPOSING THE SYSTEM, by Charles A. Reich (219 pp., $23.00, Crown, hardcover, <189> 1995) [1. United States - social conditions - 1980--. 2. United States - politics and government - 1989-- 3. Protest movements - United States.]. Reich is the author of THE GREENING OF AMERICA and has been a Yale Law School professor for 45 years. He explains how the declining state of the economy has been created for the profit of the major corporations, including the monopolistic ones, through a suppression of information needed by private persons to understand what is happening, and with the shared objectives of the major corporations and government, with the major corporations dominating government (and resulting in an economic government) without any responsibility. He points out the need of the public to know the truth about the economy, but has not specific program to help anyone in distress.
DOWNSIZE THIS!, by Michael Moore (278 pp., $21.00, Crown, hardcover, <189> 1996). Moore satirizes downsizing and thereby criticizes major corporations and their policy of mergers and firings. Moore became famous for putting on film, in Roger and Me, Moore's efforts in getting Roger Smith, president of General Motors, to explain why he was closing down GM plants in Flint, Michigan. Moore is critical in his satirical way with a variety of issues which my book, and the other books I describe, deal with.
Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele, a series of 3 books (something to think about for my work, to expand it into 2 or more books, possibly):
A. AMERICA: WHAT WENT WRONG? (bestseller with 16 printings, 235 pp., $6.95, paperback, Andrews and McMeel, K.C., Mo. <189> 1992), with subject index entries: 1. United States - economic conditions - 1981-- 2. United States - economic policy- 1981--.
B. AMERICA: WHO REALLY PAYS THE TAXES? (376 pp. $9.95, paperback, Simon & Schuster/Touchstone, <189> 1994).
C. AMERICA: WHO STOLE THE DREAM? (241 pp. $9.95, paperback, Andrews & McMeel, K.C., Mo., <189> 1996), with the following subject index entries: 1. Income distribution - United States. 2. Middle class - United States. 3. United States - economic policy 1981-1993. and 4. United States - economic conditions - 1981--.
This book is an important work in describing the causes and effects of globalization and the deterioration of the U.S. economy and job base. The authors cover: foreign trade and imports (free trade), immigration, taxes (inequality), deregulation, antitrust enforcement, mergers and layoffs, self employment (which the author doesn't make too clear), retraining and the rise of influence peddlers. The authors tell the problem but have no solutions for the individual reader to implement (other than an occasional example of what someone did when faced with an economic crisis). The authors got more than 30,000 letters in response to their first and second books. The first book was published simultaneously in the Philadelphia Inquirer (where the authors worked as investigative reporters).
WHO WILL TELL THE PEOPLE - The Betrayal of American Democracy, by William Greider (464 pp., $25.00, hardcover, Simon & Schuster, <189> 1992 [1. Political participation - United States. 2. Democracy - United States. 3. Representative government and representation - United States. 4. Pressure groups - United States. 5. Political corruption - United States. 6. United States - politics and government - 1989--]. Greider wrote in 1992 (3 years before Reich) pretty much the same thing, an explanation of how democracy is going down hill, and the reasons for it, and attributed some of his idea to Reich's earlier works. He believes that rehabilitating democracy will require citizens to devote themselves first to challenge the status quo, disrupting the existing contours of power and opening the way for renewal ... and then building something new that creates the institutional basis for politics as a shared enterprise. (p. 410). However, he he does not presume to know exactly how or where the insurgency begins (p. 411).
WHEN CORPORATIONS RULE THE WORLD, by James C. Korten (374 pp., $19.95, paperback, Kumarian Press/Berrett-Koehler Publishers, <189> 1995). [1. Corporations - political aspects. 2. Industries - environmental aspects. 3. Industrialization - social aspects. 4. Big business. 5. Power (social sciences). 6. Business and politics. 7. Internatiional business enterprises. 8. International economic relations. 9. Sustainable development.] Korten, a former Harvard Business School professor and person experienced in foreign trade of the type being promoted by U.S. government policy, has written about the effects of foreign trade as it is carried out and other factors which have enabled major corporations to assume control of the economy, and the adverse effect it is having on middle class Americans. He suggested various constitutional and legislative changes which are needed, and my own book idea was based on my efforts in constructing a model community through self help, and without constitutional change or legislation, which would implement as much as possible the conditions which Korten wanted to have occur. My book idea came about naturally, as a how to book to help persons badly hurt by the economy to change their way of living to improve their economic position (and for some, undoubtedly and hopefully, becoming members of the economic elite, the upper 1%) by playing the game under a new set of rules, and using their newly achieved wealth and power to help correct various evils in the U.S. political process and government.
THE MYTH OF FREE TRADE - The Pooring of America, originally published as THE POORING OF AMERICA, by Dr. Ravi Batra (274 pp., $12.00, paperback, Touchstone/Simon & Schuster, <189> 1993) [1. Free trade - United States. 2. United States - foreign economic relations.].
THE GREAT AMERICAN DECEPTION - What Politicians Won't Tell You About Our Economy and Your Future, by Ravi Batra (278 pp., $24.95, Wiley, <189> 1996) [1. Tariff - United States. 2. Free trade - United States. 3. Budget deficits - United States. 4. Balance of trade - United States. 5. Income tax - United States.].
THE DOWNSIZING OF AMERICA, by The New York Times (356 pp., $14.00, paperback, Times Books/Random House, <189> 1996). This work was the result of various reporters at The New York Times and was supported in part by a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, which seeks to stimulate new thinking about the role of the corporation in American society and about the changing relationship between work and families [acknowledgments].
THE NEW WORLD ORDER, by Pat Robertson (bestseller 500,000+ copies, 318 pp., $5.99, paperback, World Publishing, <189> 1991) [1. World politics - 1989--. 2. Civilization, modern - 1950--.]. Relevant quote from the back cover, A compelling assessment of the imminent dangers looming on the world's horizon ... shines light on the invisible hand shaping U.S. government policies.
FARMERS' AND FARM WORKERS' MOVEMENTS - Social Protest in American Agriculture, by Patrick H. Mooney and Theo J. Majka (260 pp., paperback, Twayne/Maxwell-Macmillan, <189> 1995) [1. Trade unions - agricultural laborers - United States - history. 2. Trade unions - United States - political activity - history. 3. Agricultural laborers - United States - political activity - history. 4. Farmers - United States - political activity - history. 5. National Farmers Organization (United States.) - history. 6. United Farm Workers of America - history. 7. Labor movement - United States - history. 8. Social Movements - United States - history.] This book traces the history of farmers' movements (and cooperative successes) from 1868 (The Grange), through the Farmers' Alliances and Granger Movement, and provides historical proof of the validity of the thesis and underlying justification described in DROPPING OUT. The solution of farmers who sought justice against monopolies, creditors, high interest rates, globalized business interests, co-opted state and federal governmental agencies was grass roots organization at the lowest political level, where the individual farmer could be heard and could affect government action. This parallel suggests a major market among farmers (many of whom have more income from non-farm pursuits in small towns) as well as farmer organizations and institutions (such as libraries, land-grant, agricultural colleges and churches).
WHY GOVERNMENT DOESN'T WORK, by Harry Browne, Libertarian Candidate for President (245 pp., $19.95, St. Martin's, <189> 1995). [1. Federal government - United States. 2. Decentralization in government - United States. 3. Libertarianism - United States. 4. United States - politics and government - 1993--]. The back cover states: How making government much smaller will enhance the lives of everyday Americans and that the book offers a realistic plan to get federal government smaller. DROPPING OUT forgets about the U.S. government and uses the small government at the town level to achieve the desired smaller government.
MELTDOWN ON MAIN STREET - Why Small Business Is Leading the Revolution Against Big Business, by Richard Lesher, President of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (214 pp., $22.95, Dutton, <189> 1996). This book is an attack on bureaucratic government excesses which cripple small business, appealing to the same market as DROPPING OUT.
THE POPULIST MOVEMENT - A Short History of the Agrarian Revolt in America, by Lawrence Goodwyn (349 pp., paperback, Oxford, $10.95, <189> 1978), an abridgement of Goodwyn's 1976 classic DEMOCRATIC PROMISE: The Populist Movement in America (the definitive study of American Populism). The back cover states that the agrarian revolt was the largest and most intense mass democratic movement in American history [with] ... profound impact in our own times.
HARVEST OF RAGE - Why Oklahoma City Is Only the Beginning, by Joel Dyer (292 pp., hardcover, WestviewPress, division of HarperCollins Publishers, $24, 1997), explains how the failure of government to enforce antitrust law against the monopolies and provide any remedies for the farmers and others hurt by the Federal Reserve Board's interest policies is resulting in increased violence (expected to culminate between the present and the year 2000), as the only perceived remedy by the persons feeling economically and unjustifiably oppressed by their government.
Carl E. Person, Author of DROPPING OUT, carlpers@lawmall.com