EUA: um pacto necessário pela produtividade e o emprego

Interessante artigo do The Atlantic que exorta os americanos a um novo New Deal. Mas, diferentemente dos arroubos protecionistas a que estamos acostumados, aqui se faz com um pacto, sobretudo, entre empregados e empresas em busca da produtividade e do emprego. Vejamos alguns trechos:

Now, at a time when America's economic preeminence cannot be taken for granted, the interests of workers are converging with those of companies, foreign and domestic, that want to invest in the U.S. economy. In a new compact for competitiveness, workers would pay more attention to innovation, workplace flexibility and productivity gains. Companies would invest more in upgrading workers' skills, help them balance the pressures of work and family, and pay them middle class wages and benefits.

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The shift from a consumer to a producer society scrambles traditional ideological categories and political alliances. Liberals are right that we need a dramatic boost in public investment, and should pay for it with a combination of spending cuts and higher tax revenues to avoid more borrowing. But goosing production also requires steps conservatives usually favor, such as cutting taxes on entrepreneurs and telling regulators to take a lighter hand to encourage investment in innovative industries.

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Progressives should rethink alliances with "pro-consumer" activists whose reflexive suspicion of business can blind them to the ways innovation and job-creation actually work. In controversies over mergers and acquisitions, for example, such groups typically focus on the hypothetical impact on consumer prices, rather than on the bigger picture of economic investment, innovation and jobs.Above all, U.S. political leaders need to move beyond today's witless "government vs. markets" debate, in which each side insists, in effect, on tying one hand behind America's back in global competition. A U.S. economic comeback requires both a more strategic public sector and a more dynamic private sector--and a new politics that can give us both.

Why America Needs a New Deal for Labor and Business - The Atlantic

Quem dera nossos sindicatos atuassem assim, de modo a requerer o aumento da produtividade e a flexibilização em nome do emprego.

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