I'm heartbroken to say we lost my brother, Steven Attewell yesterday morning after a long struggle with cancer.

I'll put personal feelings and thoughts elsewhere, but given his and my community here, I want to talk about Steve's political and intellectual contributions.

🧵:

13/ Steve was thrilled by the upsurge in union organizing from academia to Starbucks & the UAW Stand Up campaign. In hard times, I shared every NLRB victory with him to bring a smile to his face.

For those so moved, please donate to EWOC in his memory:

workerorganizing.org/donate/

12/ Steve was a Democrat, a Social Democrat, a Socialist, and a union man-- and saw no inherent contradiction between these.

Please read and spread his book, which I believe is a profound contribution towards an egalitarian and humane future.

11/ He felt the radical horizons of democratic policymaking required both pressure from below & the ideas of experts and bureaucrats in govt.

This required a strong labor movement, creative, organized left intellectuals and policymakers, and a realignment of the Democratic Party

8/ The conclusion argues that the level of unemployment is ultimately a political decision: 'what level of unemployment do we want in America?'

Steve advocates that 'direct job creation could and should be used today,' and lays out a program to end unemployment, in peacetime.

6/ The book tackles struggles over DJC over the whole postwar period.

But fast forwarding a lot, the intellectual rejection of DJC in liberal circles left the Democratic Party without the policy tools to decisively end the Great Recession of 2008.

5/ Ch 3 argues that the New Deal, not WWII, ended the Great Depression.

Dominant claims of its failures stemmed from data which classified workers in New Deal jobs programs (millions of people) as unemployed.

Reanalysis suggested public jobs helped reduce unempl. to 6% by 1941

4/The book argues govt could end unemployment by directly hiring the unemployed (Direct Job Creation, DJC).

That New Deal programs like the WPA offered proof of concept.

And that DJC's sidelining was due not to policy failures, but rejection within liberal economics circles.

3/ This was expressed in his powerful book, 'People Must Live By Work: Direct Job Creation in America From FDR to Reagan', that came out of his dissertation at UC Santa Barbara:
pennpress.org/9780812295313/…

I'll try to lay out some of the key contributions below.

2/ At their core, Steve's contributions boiled down to a simple idea.

Contemporary left govts were being fatally held back by a lack of political imagination, and we should look to history to rediscover the radical possibilities of democratic politics.

10/ Steve believed in his bones that unemployment was an indefensible waste of human potential.

That everyone had something to contribute to the common good.

And that this couldn't be more important given the total mobilization needed to take on the climate crisis.

7/ A quote of his that encapsulated Steve: 'The purpose of policy history is not merely to trace where we have come from and why, but to show us the paths not traveled, the tools discarded and forgotten but still useful, so that we can make use of them in the here and now.'

What terrible news. Steve's work was central to those of us championing decent work for all. We lost a good one.

Le #droitalemploi avance ! Aujourd’hui j’ai eu l’occasion de présenter mon rapport du European Committee of the Regions sur les Territoires Zéro Chômeur de Longue Durée Projet Territoires Zéro Chômeur - Grand Poitiers
au Comité emploi EMCO qui coordonne les politiques de l’emploi des 27 EM. Le modèle fait son chemin en 🇪🇺!@PES_CoR

An honor to screen FINDING THE MONEY with Jason Hickel at UAB and discuss the exciting synthesis of #MMT w/ ecological economics and post growth visions for economies that thrive within planetary boundaries.
The reason I made the film.

COMING May 3: tinyurl.com/FTMWatch

The last Real Utopias project by Erik Olin Wright culminated in this book edited by Isabelle Ferreras et al.

Book launch tomorrow, Thurs, Apr 11
Zoom registration: us02web.zoom.us/webinar/regist…

Website: realutopiasproject.com
Order the book (discount rate): versobooks.com/en-gb/products…

Registration:

wageindicator.org/about/events/2…

See you then for this vital exchange with experts joining from across the globe.

Join us on Friday for our next #DemocratizingWork -WageIndicator Foundation global workshop:

How should we understand workers union’s mission - is it only about the interests of workers, or does it include broader societal interests?

Join 4 experts. Register via link below 🔽

Nothing like it #EclipseSolar2024

Great conversation.
For more, read Economic Democracy Initiative Working Paper 18
edi.bard.edu/research/notes…