Business: No Progress Without Pain

M.I. T.'s Lester Thurow offers some hard economic choices

A major issue in this year's presidential campaign is the poor performance of the American economy. Carter, Reagan and Anderson have all offered vote-catching solutions for the problems of inflation, unemployment, energy shortages and declining productivity. Will the results match the rhetoric? "Not a chance," says M.I.T. Economist Lester C. Thurow. "Everybody is looking for a magic button, and there isn't one."

In one of the most provocative economic books of the year, The Zero-Sum Society (Basic Books; $12.95), Thurow, 42, analyzes the present U.S....