We will also look at some of the big economic issues that face us all as members of society at the end of the twentieth century. Despite huge advances in technology, and despite the comfortable lives led by many people in the industrialised world, we still suffer from unemployment, poverty and inequality, and in many countries (the UK included) the gap between rich and poor has grown wider; our environment is polluted; our economy still goes through periodic recessions; our growing affluence as consumers is increasingly bought at the expense of longer hours at work and growing levels of stress. So what can be done about these problems? This book seeks not only to analyse these problems but also to examine the sorts of policies that governments pursue in their attempt to address them. The book is designed with one overriding aim: to make this exciting and highly relevant subject as clear to understand as possible. To this end, the book has a number of important features.