Uses illustrations and infographics to explain such vital economic issues as the minimum wage, taxes, and healthcare, advocating against the policies of global austerity, right-wing populism, and "Trumponomics."

When President Bush promoted shopping as a patriotic duty, the American culture of consumption hit a new low. But a quiet revolution is growing in the developing world and in a new generation of Americans, fighting the advance of the shopping malls and the desolation they leave behind. Written by one of the most insightful critics of American commercialism, The Business of America probes the forces that have transformed citizens into consumers eager to take as much as they can from the planet. From on-line shopping to spectator sports to the cash-and-carry ethos of political campaigns, Saul Landau decodes the subtle ways in which advertising images tell us to correct our inadequacies with more things: SUVs, credit cards, air conditioning, video games. The winds of change are blowing, Landau shows, from resurgent student protests for underpaid janitors to the Group of 21, the developing countries that stopped the World Trade Organization dead in its tracks in 2003. Eschewing nostalgia for a simpler time--a less-interconnected world that can never return-The Business of America shows how we as citizens can regain our identities, stripping away the plastic overlay of consumerism.

A leading political and business thinker identifies the greatest threat to our economic future: the things we think we know--but don't. In the face of global competition and rapid technological change, our economy is facing its most severe test in nearly a century. Yet our leaders have failed to prepare us for what lies ahead because they are in the grip of a set of "dead ideas" about how a modern economy should work. These ways of thinking--dubious at best and often dead wrong--are on a collision course with irreversible economic developments. Here, Matt Miller offers a blend of business-world acumen and public-policy vision to lay bare how this conventional wisdom holds our country back, and he introduces us to a new way of thinking--what he calls "tomorrow's destined ideas"--that can reinvigorate our economy, our politics, and our day-to-day lives. --From publisher description.