Presents the theory that the American dream, all but abandoned in the United States, has been adopted successfully in other countries, including Italy, France, Finland, Slovenia, Germany, Portugal, Norway, Tunisia, and Iceland, looking at such areas as worker benefits, public expenditure for the common good, and state-funded higher education.

Economic crises tend to have a disproportionate negative impact on employees rather than high-paid executives, whose incomes often increase even at the worst of times. The author proposes a new mechanism -- parity pills -- designed to be triggered by external shocks like pandemics and recessions, or internal factors like revenue declines or pay inequality thresholds -- that would ameliorate the effects on workers while upping the financial responsibility...

"The progressive twentieth century changed every facet of life for American workers--from how much life you could expect to have, to what you had the right to demand of it. But by 2027, a majority of American workers will go to work every day as a part of the gig economy, and without the traditional employer-sponsored safety net that baby boomers took for granted. And within a decade, a majority of Americans won't even be traditional employees. A...