William Mitchell

This book dismantles the arguments used by policy makers to justify the abandonment of full employment as a valid goal of national governments. Bill Mitchell and Joan Muysken trace the theoretical analysis of the nature and causes of unemployment over the last 150 years and argue that the shift from involuntary to 'natural rate' conceptions of unemployment since the 1960s has driven an ideological backlash against Keynesian policy interventions. The authors contend that neo-liberal governments now consider unemployment to be an individual problem rather than a reflection of systemic policy failure and that they are content to use unemployment as a policy instrument to control inflation and coerce the unemployed with work tests and compliance programmes rather than provide sufficient employment. They present a comprehensive theoretical and empirical critique of this policy approach, with a refreshing new framework for understanding modern monetary economies. The authors show that the reinstatement of full employment with price stability is a viable policy goal that can be achieved by activist fiscal policy through the introduction of a Job Guarantee. Full Employment Abandoned will appeal to graduate and postgraduate students and researchers of economics and politics with an interest in macroeconomic policy and the labour market, particularly unemployment and neo-liberal policy frameworks.

When Clement Anthony, a young ministerial student, finds an abandoned child in an alley, he takes on a task in practical Christianity that tests his character and faith. Thrust from the safety and comfort of an abstract and academic devotion, Clem follows the costly journey of human life to murder and ultimate sacrifice. He confronts institutional failure in every segment of society posing as a channel for justice and care. In his compassion and love for the child, he travels to the depths of human experience and loses everything which identifies him.

In Voices of the Advent, poet William Mitchell recreates the timeless Christmas story, with a most vivid sense of place and time, as the various participants speak in these moving and thoughtful poems. This is a book of poetry for all seasons, including the season of joy and the season of despair. By letting us read the words of the biblical characters as they might have actually spoken them, the book provides a source of inspiration to readers today. Most readable and absorbing poetry. This edition contains twenty-six poems, each with an accompanying full page illustration.

In My Life Before the Fire, William R. Mitchell has caught that sense of "peace and sufficiency" expressed "in words of the child I was," in the "tone, perspective, and psychological validity of the child." He argues that "the means to live worthily and joyfully" are also available to our own age, "once the possibility of doing so is awakened. It is this awakening I hope my little book will make possible."