In the last few years, persistent, high unemployment has taken over as the headline of the Great Recession, driving an urgent need to create more jobs and get Americans back to work. But when the financial crisis first hit, it prompted a wave of anger and criticism against the corporations and financial institutions that own and direct capital across the globe, and its aftermath has continued to expose longstanding fissures in the U.S. on virtually every measure of economic well-being.

In an era where employment has become the main preoccupation of citizens and governments alike, a job preserved is often as good as a job created. And contrary to what is often implied by Schumpeter’s famous metaphor on the “creative” aspect of enterprise destruction in a capitalist market economy, plant closures and job losses are not always redeemed by some positive outcome elsewhere. Sometimes they are simply a waste of human talent and a pure economic loss. As Stiglitz noted in his analysis of restructuring, it is much easier to destroy enterprises and jobs than to create them.