Roots of Insecurity: Why American Workers and Others Are Losing Out

In 2004 the International Labor Office (ILO) published a voluminous though mistitled report called "Economic Security for a Better World." This is in fact a treatise about the economic insecurity that has been afflicting the world's working people for the past several decades. It is also an argument criticizing the "liberalization context" of insecurity and the policies that have deliberately fostered it. Liberalization, says the ILO, is the objective of policies formulated by international financial institutions in concert with the U.S. Treasury—policies that are based on the "Washington Consensus."