The Political Economy of California (1st edition)

dollEdited by Bill Barclay, Peg Strobel, Chris Sturr, and the Dollars & Sense collective

A Dollars & Sense first—an entire book devoted to California, the most populous state in the United States and the fifth-largest economy in the world. From the redwoods of the north to the sparkling waters of the south, from the highest peak to the lowest elevation in the contiguous United States, the state has captured the imagination of its residents and drawn visitors from across the country and the globe for decades.

But what is the actual California? The state is full of challenges—and potential. Where will the water come from for its growing population? How can the state meet the needs of the large number of union members and the demands of the billionaires that cluster in the Bay Area and Los Angeles? The Silicon Valley-led development of AI points to a future—but which Californians will benefit from the promise of that future? Can the state remain a leader in the fight to stem climate change while being a major global center of water-intensive agriculture?

This reader brings together D&S authors who wrestle with these questions and more as they explore the state’s political economy at the regional, national, and global levels.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Chapter 1—The Big Picture
  • 1.1 Wage Laborers in California’s “Factories in the Field”
    Bill Barclay
  • 1.2 Exporting Water in the Era of Climate Cataclysm
    Bill Barclay
  • 1.3. California’s Imperial Valley
    Bill Barclay
  • 1.4 Silicon Valley Fractures
    James M. Cypher
  • 1.5 The “Blue-ing” of California
    Harold Meyerson
    
    
• Chapter 2—California in the Global Political Economy
  • 2.1 Migration, Labor, and U.S. Policy
    David Bacon
  • 2.2 “Migration Is a Form of Fighting Back”
    David Bacon
  • 2.3 Mixing Oil and Water
    Bill Barclay
  • 2.4 Getting Stuff From Here to There
    Bill Barclay
  • 2.5 Richmond’s Progressive Alliance Has Won Elections and Made City Hall Better for 20 Years
    Steve Early
    
    
• Chapter 3—Laboring in the Golden State
  • 3.1 How Filipino Migrants Gave the Grape Strike Its Radical Politics
    David Bacon
  • 3.2 What Happened to the Flower Carriers?
    David Bacon
  • 3.3 The Fight for $20 and a Union
    Martin J. Bennett
  • 3.4 The Fight for $20 and a Union
    Lin Nelson
  • 3.5 Why Celebrities, Actors, Writers, and Artists Fear AI
    Leslie Alan Horvitz
    
    
• Chapter 4—A Force for Change
  
  • Excerpts from a comic book from the Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders for Civic Empowerment Education Fund
    Illustrated by Audrey Chan
    
    
• Chapter 5—Silicon Valley, Big Tech, and the Future
  • 5.1 AI and the Future of Work
    Robert Ovetz
  • 5.2 Rebooting Big Tech
    Rob Larson
  • 5.3 Neutralized
    Rob Larson
  • 5.4 Serfing the Internet
    Zoe Sherman
    
    
• Chapter 6—Health, Housing, and Education
  • 6.1 Private Equity Is Destroying America’s Health Care System
    Steve Tarzynski
  • 6.2 The Political Economy of Rent Control
    Stephen Barton
  • 6.3 California’s “Yimbys”
    Zelda Bronstein
  • 6.4 UC’s Strike-Busting Over Palestine Protests
    Hassan Farhat and Michael Wasney
    
    
• Chapter 7—The Mega-Metropolis: Making Los Angeles Sustainable
  • 7.1 Financing an Equitable Economy in Los Angeles
    Jane Paul
  • 7.2 Workplace Solidarity in the Equitable Economy
    Jane Paul
  • 7.3 Hope for Housing in California’s Equitable Economy
    Jane Paul
  • 7.4 Intercommunalism Mixtape
    Yvonne Yen Liu

Edition: 1st
Date of publication: December 2024
ISBN: 978-1-939402-94-3
Pages: 222
Price: $41.00