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GAME CHANGERS: HOW TO BUILD THE ECONOMY WE DESERVE  
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Gerald Epstein; Juliet Schor; James K. Boyce; Manuel Pastor
September 15, 2026
Common Dreams
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_ What’s needed are bold yet realistic policies that break cleanly
from the corruption of the Trump years and the free-market
fundamentalist era that preceded them. Righting the rules means an end
to game-rigging by ruling elites ... _

“Social change, and especially major economic transformation,
requires a compelling positive vision of the possible,” the authors
write. “The Game Changers project was formed to provide that
vision.”, Getty Images

 

_EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is part of new series for Common
Dreams based on “__GAME CHANGERS: ECONOMIC POLICIES FOR A WORKING
AMERICA_ [[link removed]]_,” a project
spearheaded by the __Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) _
[[link removed]]_at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Game Changers is a collaborative initiative bringing together leading
economists and policy experts to develop bold, new ideas to build a
stronger, fairer, greener, and more inclusive economy for all
Americans. Through dozens of policy briefs, supporting research
papers, and online webinars, the project offers solutions designed to
help working people thrive while preparing the country for the
economic challenges ahead. “”People are looking for solutions that
improve their daily lives—not just marginal changes around the
edges,“ says economist Juliet Schor. ”Our proposals make housing,
care, and daily life more affordable.“_

The Economy We Deserve

When a system reaches the point of breakdown, it’s time for radical
change. That was the lesson of the 1930s, when the Great Depression
ignited transformative labor and social movements that reset national
priorities. It was also the negative lesson of the 1980s, when elites
responded to stagflation with a neoliberal turn to “free markets”
and enhanced corporate power
[[link removed]]. The resulting
intensification of income and wealth inequality
[[link removed]] has enabled state
capture by a white supremacist authoritarian movement in alliance with
tech and fossil fuel interests.

The antidote is increasingly clear: recognizing the equal dignity of
every human being and working to guarantee their right to economic
security, the opportunity to thrive, a livable planet, a world free of
racism [[link removed]], and democratic
governance of our lives, societies, and economies. Large majorities of
the public understand that the current system is failing most of us
and threatening democracy [[link removed]]
itself. They’re ready to begin building an economy that we deserve.

It’s time to “right the rules” to create an economy that meets
individuals’ basic needs for food, shelter, care, education, health,
and free time.

Social change, and especially major economic transformation, requires
a compelling positive vision of the possible. The Game Changers
project was formed to provide that vision. Rooted in new economic
thinking and research to address the multiple dysfunctions of the
current system, it offers far-reaching ideas that go beyond the failed
policies of the past, both neoliberal and liberal, and the corrupt
authoritarian practices of the present.

It’s time to “right the rules” to create an economy that meets
individuals’ basic needs for food, shelter, care, education, health,
and free time. We envision that happening in multiple ways: local
public provisioning for health, child and long-term care; federal
income supports; access to work with good wages and reasonable hours;
raising wages at the bottom and the middle to address longstanding
racial and other inequalities; and sensible and compassionate
immigration [[link removed]] policies.
We lay out plans for new public infrastructures such as high-quality
mixed-income public housing with renewable energy
[[link removed]] systems and a
low-cost, efficient public payments system. We need to detoxify the
natural environment, restore ecosystems, and stabilize the climate
system.

Investments in individuals, communities, nations and the planet are
key to prosperity. But we need more than that. Changing the game
implies that the game is rigged. We offer policies that help working
people build power, through collective organizations, in the workplace
and the state. These organizing strategies address racial and other
divisions that weaken communities. They’ll help redress the
asymmetries of influence that plague this moment.

A new game also requires fundamental transformation of large-scale
economic structures, such as the financial architecture, the
international trading system, and the functioning of the macroeconomy.
Our policies do that through breaking up concentrated power,
penalizing rent-seeking, stabilizing the financial system, and forcing
corporations to pay their fair share of taxes. These measures help
fund the investments in people and planet that are required for a
decent economy.

One throughline among the wide range of proposals we have developed is
that they are based on strong economic research and reasoning, but
they reject the economic story that has dominated policymaking.
Conventional economic thinking has been shown to be misguided in area
after area. Minimum wages don’t cause unemployment
[[link removed]]; rent control
doesn’t reduce housing supply; and equality and efficiency are not
opposed. Climate action is cheaper than inaction, worktime reduction
and higher productivity go together, and investments in social goods
can pay for themselves.

The economic logic of our approach is based on game theory, as well as
common sense. Zero-sum, competitive games like the one the economy has
been stuck in yield much worse outcomes than cooperative games. When
we join together in communities, labor unions
[[link removed]], civic associations, and
business enterprises, outcomes are far better. This recognition is the
basis of a powerful new economic paradigm: invest in each other,
secure the future, and realize the promise of multi-racial democracy
throughout society. It’s time to change the game.

ANATOMY OF THE CRISIS

The roots of our current predicament can be situated in the early
1970s, when the economic damage wrought by an earlier wrong-headed
foreign adventure—the Vietnam
[[link removed]] War—coincided with an
increase in oil [[link removed]] prices
resulting from conflict in the Middle East. The resulting economic
crisis of inflation [[link removed]] and
recession brought to a head longstanding political, social and
economic struggles. Workers [[link removed]]
mobilized and built power through militant trade
[[link removed]] union activities; African
Americans gained voice and political influence via the Civil Rights
[[link removed]] movement; the
women’s movement demanded equal treatment. These developments
coincided with declining competitiveness of US business and a profit
squeeze. Panic arose within the American business class as they feared
they were losing control.

All the proposals share the goal of helping to build a positive-sum
economy that works for all, rather than a zero-sum economy where the
greed of the one percent trumps the well-being of the ninety-nine
percent.

An additional factor was increased environmental awareness. The first
Earth Day in 1970 attracted 20 million, the largest protest
[[link removed]] action in US history.
Existential panic was especially present in the fossil fuel industries
of oil, gas and coal [[link removed]]. Fossil
fuel interests, including Exxon and the Kochs, fought back, investing
millions to capture politicians and state institutions. They joined
with other business interests to support representatives of both
parties who would break unions and negotiate trade agreements that
undermined the power of US workers. They de-regulated banks and other
financial institutions to allow them to grow bigger, more profitable
and, as we were to discover in 2007 and 2008, more dangerous to our
economy and livelihoods.

In wave after wave, the state cut taxes for the rich and reduced
government resources for investing in and supporting people and
communities. The capture of politics and politicians by big capital
directed even more money to the military industrial complex. The
economic vision associated with neoliberalism
[[link removed]] was summed up most up
memorably by Ronald Reagan
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Inaugural Address: “Government is not the solution to our problem;
government is the problem.”

By the 2000s, this neoliberal approach had been adopted by a
significant portion of the economics profession, and
“laissez-faire” became the baseline and even touchstone for
economic policy. But in reality, the push for laissez-fare was a cover
for state policy that boosted the rich at the expense of everyone
else. This helps to explain how policy could evolve in just a few
decades from the neoliberalism of Reagan to the authoritarian
corruption [[link removed]] of the Trump
administration [[link removed]]
and its allies.

State capture has ensured that neither the economy nor the government
works for most Americans. Naturally, and perhaps by design, this has
led to general mistrust and even disdain by many Americans for the
federal government, though there is less skepticism of state and local
government. As a result, the potential for the public sector to act as
a countervailing force against the power of big business is further
undermined by angry and discouraged voters.

This top-heavy economic and political system is populated by
corporations too often driven by short-term profit-seeking rather than
long-term investments, and by a government that invests too little in
people and communities and too much in fossil fuel interests and the
military-industrial complex
[[link removed]]. The
average worker’s standard of living has stagnated for decades
despite large increases in productivity. Affordability may be a
buzzword. It is also a pressing day-to-day issue for most American
families.

The rise of billionaires and even one trillionaire, along with the
enormous power of tech and fossil fuel capitalists in the Trump
Administration, is in some ways the natural extension of this
decades-long pattern. But we are also experiencing unprecedented
perversions and pathologies, as reflected in the vast corruption
exhibited by the Trump family and friends and the hyper-inequality of
society, with a handful of billionaires striding over millions of
Americans barely able to make ends meet. And now fossil fuel interests
are redacting “climate change” from government’s—and possibly
even society’s—to-do list.

It is long past time to break this destructive cycle and usher in a
new economic structure, and a new paradigm to support it.

CHANGING THE GAME

The Game Changers are examples of bold yet realistic policies that
break cleanly from the corruption of the Trump years and the
free-market fundamentalist era that preceded them. The policies
address how both markets and government work, based on the premise
that the role of government is not merely to clean up after the messes
when markets fail, but to ensure that markets work consistently on
behalf of working people rather than being rigged against them.

Game Changer policies span a broad canvas of economic issues—health
care, housing, immigration, care work, labor, the environment, trade,
and finance. All the proposals share the goal of helping to build a
positive-sum economy that works for all, rather than a zero-sum
economy where the greed of the one percent trumps the well-being of
the ninety-nine percent. They are based on a simple set of
propositions.

* _CHANGING THE GAME MEANS INVESTING IN EACH OTHER_.

Childcare, health care, and a clean and safe environment are not
commodities to be sold to those with the most purchasing power, nor
are they privileges to be granted to those with the most political
power. These are universal rights that should be shared by all.

Something is deeply wrong with an economy where people who play by the
rules must struggle to get by, while the wealthy flaunt their power
with impunity.

Investing in each other means strengthening personal connections by
making sure that working people have time and energy to invest in
their families and communities. It means uniting with those by our
side who are striving for a better life. It means spurning attempts to
pit us against each other—white against non-white, native-born
against recent immigrant, worker against worker—to divert attention
from the abuses perpetrated by those on top.

In short, investing in each other means building an economy in which
everyone is free to survive, strive, and thrive.

* _CHANGING THE GAME MEANS SECURING OUR FUTURE._

Economic security should not be a privilege for the few. A secure
economy must be resilient enough to safeguard present as well as
future generations from workplace abuses, environmental destruction,
and supply-chain fragility.

Securing our future means recognizing that there are things that all
should be able to afford, like housing, education and care. It means
recognizing that there are things we cannot afford, like the poisoning
of our air and water [[link removed]] and
lavish tax breaks and handouts for the rich. And it means building an
economy in which the lives of working people are not subjected to
catastrophic disruptions that result from concentrated wealth and
power in the hands of people who do not care.

Securing our future also means forging solidarity
[[link removed]] with others across the
world with whom we share not only the same planet, but also the same
struggle against transnational elites who seek to divide nations and
peoples to pursue ever more wealth and power for themselves.

* _CHANGING THE GAME MEANS RIGHTING THE RULES._

Today the rules for how markets and governments work are rigged in
favor of the wealthy and powerful. Something is deeply wrong with an
economy where people who play by the rules must struggle to get by,
while the wealthy flaunt their power with impunity.

Righting the rules means ending reckless and predatory financial
practices that siphon wealth from working families into the hands of
speculators and banksters. It means reorienting housing markets to
provide affordable homes for all rather than to maximize profits for
real-estate barons. And it means ending the tragic squandering of
lives and wealth to shore up a military-industrial complex that offers
empty promises of national security even as it undermines the security
of families and communities by engaging in immoral and unnecessary
wars.

Righting the rules means an end to game-rigging by ruling elites and
instead crafting rules that first and foremost protect the well-being
of working people.

The call for changing the rules highlights a key aspect of our
approach. Many of the Game Changer policies involve redesigning how
the market works rather than calling for major new public spending.
They transform market outcomes, thereby reducing the need for
post-market redistributions to achieve more fairness. And in calling
for more public spending in some areas, we also propose new revenue
sources and fiscal priorities to improve the functioning of the
economy, as detailed in the Game Changer on funding the future.

GETTING FROM HERE TO THERE

To animate the changes we are proposing, we need to restore people’s
faith that change is possible. We’ve noted the existence of
pervasive cynicism and disillusionment with government. In an age of
state capture, when government has so frequently failed workers,
communities of color, rural families, and distressed geographies,
these feelings are warranted. Part of the difficulty of defending
democracy against the current authoritarian threats is that the system
has empowered elites while disempowering and discouraging working
people.

As we’ve argued, changing the game requires far-reaching policies
that offer improvements and are based on strong economic analysis.
That’s a given. Overcoming cynicism and disillusionment requires
something else as well: people’s actual lived experience fighting
for and winning change. By being part of a truly democratic movement,
and achieving victories, it’s possible to rebuild trust in
government, businesses, and each other.

We must reject the false tensions between collective strategies and
individual dreams, between worker welfare and business health, between
climate caution and economic prosperity.

A transformative agenda won’t be enacted in one stroke. It may start
with smaller victories and incremental steps. Each successful campaign
engages people who can then be part of the next, bigger effort. Or
perhaps we notch an early win with a big, bold Game Changer. That can
be followed by smaller steps to make sure it’s implemented fairly
and successfully. Social and economic restructuring will come in the
form of changes, big and small. And with each positive step, trust in
government—and each other—increases.

We are optimistic about the possibilities for deep transformation. Our
reasoning is based on the episodes we began with—the
paradigm-shifting moments in which new economic models arise and
stick. While such shifts can be connected to intellectual trends, they
are often more rooted in social conditions and political coalitions:
New Deal thinking and labor mobilization in the context of the Great
Depression, or neoliberal economics and business opportunism in the
context of the stagflation of the 1970s and early 1980s.

In this moment of crisis, we need both new perspectives and new
coalitions. We must reject the false tensions between collective
strategies and individual dreams, between worker welfare and business
health, between climate caution and economic prosperity. We must build
a broad movement that includes workers, communities of color, small
businesses, professionals concerned about AI, community leaders
sickened by division, and anyone and everyone who knows that democracy
cannot stand when oligarchy
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The traditional American motto, “out of many, one” is often used
to refer to the power of our diversity. Forging a broad and unified
force for a better future will be key for the many—movement
builders, unionists, community organizers, civic leaders, and all who
stand with them—to triumph against the one percent. A transformative
policy package, like the Game Changers, is one part of the
coalition-building needed for the future we deserve.

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Gerald Epstein is a professor of economics and a founding co-director
of the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University
of Massachusetts-Amherst.

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Juliet Schor is an economist and Professor of Sociology at Boston
College. Schor’s research focuses on work, consumption, and climate
change. In 2021 she became lead researcher for global worktime
reduction trials, which have now included hundreds of companies across
fifteen countries. Her book Four Days A Week
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reports on these findings and her Ted talk
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on the 4 day week has more than 3 million views. 

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James K. Boyce is a professor emeritus of economics and senior fellow
at the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of
Massachusetts Amherst. His latest book is The Case for Carbon
Dividends.

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Manuel Pastor is a professor of sociology at the University of
Southern California and author of the forthcoming book CHARGING
FORWARD: LITHIUM VALLEY, ELECTRIC VEHICLES, AND A JUST FUTURE
[[link removed]], and
previously STATE OF RESISTANCE: WHAT CALIFORNIA'S DIZZYING DESCENT
AND REMARKABLE RESURGENCE MEANS FOR AMERICA'S FUTURE
[[link removed]].

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Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel
free to republish and share widely.

* US Economy; Social Change; Economic Justice; Democratic Future;
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