The Zero-Sum Society is a piercing analysis of the social implications of economic policy and a classic work of economic problem solving."--BOOK JACKET.

Challenges and alters the way we view the economic background of today's world, and examines how changes will affect the future.

The classic text on the post-Cold War economic battle. Starting with the fall of communism, influential economist and former dean of MIT's Sloan School of Management Lester Thurow deftly explores how head-to-head competition -- not military might -- among Japan, the United States, and the newly united European countries would produce the next world leader. As Thurow explains, in the 1990s the race for economic supremacy was only just beginning. In a world no longer governed by two military superpowers, the stage was set for a dramatic shoot-out among the world's most powerful national economies. Using analytical data, key insights, and common sense, Thurow presents a solid economic game plan for the United States to follow in order to win this battle and attain dominance in the global economy.

Lester Thurow's new book is an original and highly readable analysis of the future of capitalism which charts a course for surviving and winning in the years ahead.

In this insightful and forward-looking study, MIT economist Thurow draws uncompromising conclusions: only a bold embrace of globalization will bring prosperity, and nations that fail to engage in global economics will fall behind the world’s dominant powers. “Thurow deserves credit for spotlighting some unconventional but increasingly compelling explanations for America’s international deficits, like the little-noticed recent transformation of U.S. multinational companies from superstar exporters to superstar importers from all the factories they have moved abroad. He also usefully reminds readers that the imbalances result significantly from public-sector decisions, not simply from the impersonal workings of technological progress or free markets. Globalization’s course, in other words, can be usefully shaped by policy.” -The Washington Post

This revised edition contains a new introduction for 1994, discusses the implications of the recent GATT and NAFTA agreements and the many developments made since the book was first published in 1991. Who will own the 21st century is the question Lester Thurow asks in this book.