The issue ultimately is not one of race or color, but of opportunity, and the tragedy of talent and potential checked and squandered, not to mention owned, controlled, and abused. So long as race is used as a tool to assign privilege and to divide people from opportunity, then diversity is a valid tool to provoke the questions and restore (or should I say create, or imagine) a more equitable balance. The frequently played “excellent” card assumes that white excellence is innate rather than subsidized and even, sadly, enforced. What are we risking in allowing another (an “other”) to thrive? #mefirst
In the good old days of the American Dream, we were three billion on the planet and the Chinese, the Indians, and the Africans had scarcely enough to eat. Today, we are seven billion and almost everyone has access to food, to the point that everyone now wants a car. Do the math, technology or resources of the planet are not enough to ensure the continuity of the Dream as it was.
2
Nicholas Lemann has a conflict of interests problem dating back to his first article disparaging Jim Garrison in The Crimson in 1973. In 1983, he wrote another article critical of Garrison in the WaPo. In January, 1992, timed with the release of "JFK, the Movie," Lemann penned an extremely critical article about that film, and debated Garrison's autobiography editor and that film's co-screenplay writer, Zachary Sklar, on Charlie Rose's TV show. Lemann never disclosed that his uncle Stephen was accused by Garrison in a June, 1967 letter to the FCC of being the distributor of CIA funds to lawyers defending individuals subpoened by Garrison, or that Lemann's father, Thomas and uncle Stephen were stepbrothers of Mrs. David G Baldwin. David Baldwin, a former covert CIA officer and employee of Shaw, informed Clay Shaw by letter, just after Shaw's March, 1967 arrest by Garrison, that he, Baldwin, was godfather and first cousin of Garrison's wife. Liz Ziegler Baldwin. Liz's father and Baldwin's mother were siblings. Lacking any post- graduate degree, Nicholas Lemann enjoyed two terms as Dean of Columbia Graduate School of Journalism.
It's too late. Before you made it to Kindergarten, you were imprinted by thousands and thousands of TV commercials. These turned you into a patsy for corporate profits, for the rest of your life essentially incapable of whatever is beyond petty consumerism.
You could try to deprogram yourself, finally futile as that may be. Immerse yourself in arts that try to take you along on different path.
Or just go on a cruise. Your mind is already on a cruise control not of your own making.
12
@Mr. Samsa
With respect.
Never surrender.
Never.
Vote for change.
We can change things.
1
Don't overlook the power of Ayn Rand, whose anti-Communist anger (she emigrated from the U.S.S.R) helped develop her outlandish "libertarian" views that are so persuasive to high school-level minds and corporate giants. Not to discount the many, many politicians who use her thoughts -- "The Virtue of Selfishness" -- to advance their own interests and consolidate their power:
Rand Paul, Alan Greenspan, Paul Ryan, and hundreds of others have made Rand's fantasy a reality.
9
It is quite simple. Ever since FDR the filthy rich have been on the warpath. They want their money back. All of it.
17
@Concernicus
Just their money$
I'm sorry, but the title of the book is clumsy. It should be, "The Rise and Fall of the American Dream" or something else altogether. The "rise of the dream" phrase is vague and unnecessary. Cut it. FSG is a high-brand publisher. Lehmann is highly regarded. Both are winners. The best and brightest of the American meritocracy game. And yet our winners can't get a simple book title right. Our winners can't run an economy without sinking it down a rathole. Our winners cheat and lie to get their kids into the best colleges. It's no wonder half the country feels alienated and angry with a country run by elites who dismiss the poor and uneducated as unworthy of the American Dream. No wonder the "losers" are desperate enough to vote Trump into office. How cruel the irony. The desperate elect an elitist who cons them into believing he's out to protect them, to bring them back to the American Dream. Yet he's most incompetent of all. When the elites of both left and right are corrupt and incompetent, what dream is left?
12
We only had the Great Society because of leaders with empathy, vision and guts - leaders like FDR, Eleanor Roosevelt, Frances Parkman (first woman as Secretary of Labor), and a Congress that actually thought about what was best for America. Yes, they made mistakes, but overall, they passed programs to help people, Social Security being one, and a shout out to LBJ for Medicare.
Lest anyone forget, that opportunity was created by the utter devastation of the Great Depression, which interfered with the wealthy elites gaming the system since they lost their money. And we are headed right off that cliff again. So a new chance to build a new society again - and it is beyond words that massive suffering will ensue. However, massive suffering is going on right now, and maybe a crash will help us all remember we are in this SS Life Boat together - we need each other, and we can help each other. We just need leaders to remind us of what we already know.
32
Not being an economist, I have for some time struggled to understand why my hardworking but not overly intelligent white male father was able to provide mom and I every real necessity of life (including paying for my 4 year degree from the UC system out of pocket), own his own home and car, and have the occasional vacation while still amassing a savings I could not dream of managing. I have worked hard for both state institutions and my own business -- which was doing well until the crash of '08 gutted my potential customer base and arguably stole a chunk of my financial future along with it. Dad was a union man; he grew up in an era where people fought and sometimes died to organize labor. Not being blind to its dark sides, he called unions a 'necessary evil.' Most of them are gone or toothless, which is why plenty of people are working three jobs just to have healthcare and pay the rent. Dad also used to say that he was lucky to have lived the prime years of his life at a time when the American Dream was low hanging fruit.
I really don't know how anyone not born into wealth is supposed to make their way in the world, in which starting life means educational debt, business has almost all the advantages, and many good people face a non-retirement with no savings and deteriorating bodies. All I can say is, a sound business plan and the willingness to work hard guarantee nothing, anymore, and the safety nets amount to knowing that there is an overpass under which to sleep.
51
@Ann Smith
Education is a good place to start for this generation. Unfortunately the greed of the Teachers Union makes that very difficult.
1
@Grace That is simply false. The core issues of education, at least as it's manage in New York State comes to one issue - property tax, the single most regressive tax there is. Watch a poor district struggle to obtain basic lab equipment for science classes while a neighboring district spends several million dollars on athletic field rehabilitation. We now require teachers to be, at a minimum holding a Masters Degree. What kind of salary do you expect them to receive? Districts have to compete for the best teachers, who do you think wins? The district with millions to spare or the one struggling to properly equip classrooms. Is it fair that Edgemont has a literal Lamborghini of learning while a Cairo (NY) fights the leaks in it roofs? We wonder why good teachers leave the profession in many cases district voters with your concept of "greed" is why.
15
@Grace I believe education is the key to a great many things...but saddling a student who wants a master's degree with six figures of debt to have it is ludicrous. Trade schools charge staggering amounts of money...I recently learned what it costs to become a cosmetologist, which is jaw-dropping. This country has stopped investing in access to higher/vocational education. I graduated Uni in 1989...the last year before tuition and other costs soared skyward. As a nation we make education and health care dangerously expensive and wonder why the 'ordinary Joe' can't manage to do more than survive. We charge a premium for health and knowledge, and think that makes good sense. Uh, sure. Some unions protect bad actors, which is not right. And yet despite the teacher's union I do not know a single teacher that is wealthy. There is no single thing wrong with national K-12 education and we'd be here all day if we were to discuss that long list of problems. Isn't it interesting that studious children in one room 19th century schoolhouses came out of them with the equivalent of a high school plus two years' college knowledge set and were prepared to be functional citizens by age sixteen? No, they might not have had the breadth of subjects taught now, but what they were taught was wholly useful. Now many kids can't count change.
6
Post war liberals saw first hand how the Nazis harnessed organizational life and a sense of duty to an institution for quite evil ends. Some skepticism was warranted but that's not what killed it. I think the assassin was consumerism. Institutions simply cannot compete with the constant barrage of advertising that makes a god of the individual and "choice" a sacrament. Consumer products promise meaning, status, and fulfillment in the form of brands and a social media score. Even our bodies are status commodities via flat abs and pecs or a dreaded disease. Consumerism atomizes everyone.
16
The Republicans nixed the idea that corporations should act in citizens interest. We have now have two choices break them up or nationalize them.
21
The rise of "transaction man" corresponds to the race to the bottom in corporate law. The so-called Delaware approach to corporate charters can be contrasted with the stakeholder approach in other states (largely forgotten). To see a contrast of the results of the 2 frameworks, consider the Hershey trust in Pennsylvania, and the Walt Disney Corporation. Disney provides a global brand that has a virtual monopoly on Hollywood, and is basically too big to fail. Hershey remains a pillar of the community, whose corporate charter includes consideration of the wellfare of workers and the town as well as the anonymous, purely short term transactional theoretical shareholder. It is only because the majority shareholder happens to be a foundation trust that must carry out the wishes of Milton Hershey that those provisions of the charter have been given any meaning, not because of an effective and efficient interpretation of corporate law. And so the workers and community in Hershey and Harrisburg continue to support a reminder or the American dream, while the Disney Corp. requires its American employees to train their H1B visa worker replacements who were imported in order to cut costs.
27
@Gene Google the way that Republican politicians in PA have raided the Hershey trust for campaign funds. Harrisburg itself has filed for bankruptcy in the past decade.
3
But is it too late?
2
@Wayne Falda - - Leave the people free and it is never too late!
2
Sounds like a worthy addition to a dozen or so other works:
The Politics of Rich and Poor (1990); Boiling Point (1993); Arrogant Capital (1994); Wealth and Democracy (2002), all by Kevin Phillips
Hot Money and the Politics of Debt (3rd. ed. 2004)
America: What Went Wrong (1992); America: Who Really Pays the Taxes?(1994); America: Who Stole the Dream?(1996); The Betrayal of the American Dream (2012), all by Donald Barlett and Sames B. Steele
13 Bankers (2010), by Simon Johnson and James Kwak
Who Stole the American Dream (2012)? by Hedrick Smith
But people have to actually know of the existence of these books in order to read them. Not necessarily all that easy, when the books- and the mind-boggling statistical data and fact references in their pages- receive so little notice or discussion in television or radio media.
17
I can't remember anyone ever really defeating the privileged, the ones who are in control now. If Trump is defeated, you will probably still have a president (Biden) who will be scared to make a move against them. Interest groups? The only ones will have any power are composed of the, you guessed it, the privileged.
7
@MARCSHANK
Write in Bernie Sanders.
5
@s.whether
You wrote in Bernie Sanders three years ago. Look where it got us.
13
@MARCSHANK
Trump's net worth has taken a big his from his service as President.
1
Nothing reveals the human condition more than history in context. You cannot go back but there will be change. We have a chance in an economic meritocracy based on a corporately deleveraged society based on transparency and fair access. The signposts to watch are special interest monies flowing into politics and the organized financial markets defying oversight. Both are growing at alarming rates with no champion since McCain and Finegold.
4
corporations built america, and made it great, this is true .That was when product was important, everyone strove to be the best, strongest, longest lasting. But now this constant need for more. Every quarter higher profits , lower margins. Lowering costs is industry speak for lower quality product more often than not. Maximizing profit and the bonus system has individuals making moves that profit themselves at the expense of company , but of course look great in the data (looking after my metrics). The corporations grew so powerful , they bent the system to their will and now the government is being dismantled by the distractor in chief. Feudalism awaits us all if we don't wake up soon
18
@Dave LeBlanc... true that. A friend of mine bought a new 60" flat screen tv online from Best Buy and it arrived with a cracked screen. Best Buy told her to just throw it out- we'll send you a new one. Imagine that!!
2
Big corporations have stolen the American dream away from millennials who, without collective bargaining, work at transactional gig jobs with no benefits and no future. That's the world we're leaving to our children. The Baby Boomers have robbed the economy for all it's worth so there's nothing left for those who come behind them.
4
@Nina RT
It's always easy to blame the older generation for the ills of the present. May be some of the Millennials could disengage from the various social media platforms, trying to get a side hustle and instead get a meaningful, proper job - even if that means working for the Man. Not all corporations are evil and if you want any kind of change, you need to fight from the inside and you need to be at the table first.
4
@Nina RT It is always the same (bad) reflex to look for a scapegoat. "It's not me, it's the other" never solved any problem. It is necessary to target the systemic cause of a societal problem together and then to correct it altogether. Divisions only make matters worse—except of course for those who want power over others.
1
This not the first time that a rapid surge in markets created inequality resulting in political polarization. What do you think caused the Civil War?
1
It's pretty clear that the columnist has not done much research about either taxes in the 50's or how "Wall Street" actually works. Let's take them in turns. No one paid a 90 percent rate because the loopholes in the tax code were enormous. The difference between the actual tax rates of top earners now and then is around 4 percent. Not enough to be the cause of anything. If you want to know why income distribution is the way it is in the US, read Piketty's carefully researched book, not this drivel. The second "cause" is Wall Street changed the rules. Well that runs afoul of what actually happened. Apparently it's convenient to forget that as the late sixties and early 70's came around US corporations were having their lunch eaten - losing market share - because their costs were too high. The companies that survived (not Studebaker, Woolworth or RCA) survived by cutting costs and becoming lean. What had to give was corporate largess. If you continue that you just go out of business or get gobbled up. At the same time technology was automating tons of jobs - ATM's date from the 70's (does the author know that?). Again, the real issue behind our current unequal income distribution is that returns on capital are very high and much higher than returns on labor (wage increases). The only way to fix this is to tax wealth and eliminate the tax preference given to long term capital gains. More government interference will only impoverish everyone. Just see what has happened to Cuba.
5
@Ross Salinger: "Government interference" or the necessary equilibration that regulation and taxation provides to society? Workers create the wealth of corporations, yet these entities behave as if their success stems from the existence of their managers. The gains in productivity over the last 40 years have not been met with commensurate wage and benefit increases for workers as businesses plow money into stock buybacks, dividends and cash hoarding. The antidotes are fair and full taxation, support for "automatic unionization" (the concept that workers are a bargaining entity by definition and should be formally recognized as such by labor law) and universal healthcare access that removes the health insurance cost burden from businesses. Uncapping Social Security taxes will help workers by allowing for a federal living wage pension system. Taxing capital income as wages would further bolster revenues that can be used for universal child care and Head Start. Not rocket science, just an application of sensible, worker-centric public policies.
5
@Ross Salinger
Thank you for another opinion Ross- although I am not knowledgeable enough in this field to agree or disagree it is good to read non-jingoistic writing. Thanks.
I can't help but find a strong correlation between the actions of the privileged few who bribed their children's way into college and the loss of sense of being part of a whole that is large than yourself and your immediate offspring. We have spent 40 years indoctrinating people to only care about themselves and their children.
I also appreciated this well written review.
7
@Roger Reynolds
You’ve hit in something which is demonstrated by Trump. The rich can game the system like Fred Trump did with Donald who got into great schools which would have been impossible if Donald had to really compete. At the same time talented women and other minorities were told “NO” before they even started. Americans know this and have lost faith that the American dream is achievable. The saying “It’s not what you know but who you know” is more true than ever in this country.
3
Transaction Man's ethos has permeated the culture. (And please don't point out that I am obviously generalizing.)
Gordon Gekko's "greed is good" speech, at the time, a little shocking, now seems almost quaint. Just think of the millions of shareholders (i.e., owners) who don't think twice about a CEO taking in $65 million in annual compensation.
And the greed, the get-it-now, the get-as much-as-you-can, don't -worry-about-the-future crowd, finds political support in its anti-government rhetoric.
Those that are in control have convinced those that will never rise above lower middle class that any regulation or program that might hinder the "get as much as you can" way of life somehow also hinders the liberty of the latter, i.e., those who face the flip side in the form of crumbling schools, poor healthcare, polluted air and water.
I have spent a good amount of time in the Hamptons. Trust me, those people are living a completely different reality than the bottom, say, 75%. They don't care about you, except on election day.
8
This is why so many of us find Bernie Sanders and his movement, Our Revolution, so inspiring and important. Join us, get involved, help us take back some power for actual people, not corporations.
4
@Parapraxis
"One cannot speak truth to power if power has no use for truth." We can yell with our vote for Bernie!
I am not going to vote for Biden. Period.
If I must choose between corporate centerism, Biden and corporation dynasty, Trump, I will write in Bernie.
The DNC can vote too, just not with my vote.
3
FDR-1975, the end date
Was so perfectly timed
For July 2nd of 1964
The vast majority of American kids today have a fair shot at the American Dream. That is, if they work hard, apply themselves, and build a disciplined approach to finances. Any college professor will tell you the vast majority of today's 20-somethings are simply too spoiled, too disorganized, to narcissistic to do so successfully. They would rather vote for Bernie or Liz to hand everything to them on a golden plate wit a magic wand: write off their debt, double their salary while having their work hours, etc. Success does not grow on trees.
5
@Misha
How many professors have you discussed this with? The college professors I know are teaching people who work full time and go to school full time and still complete degrees in four years. They don’t get much sleep but are hard working and committed.
2
@Misha
"any college professor?"
Man, you sure know thousands of professors.
1
@Misha, Perhaps you should reconsider your vision on the new generation, what I see does not correspond at all with your soured vision, on the contrary!
1
The simple explanation is the Koch Brothers, the plutocrats and public choice theorists have destroyed the middle class and unions and captured the supreme court and congress.
The increase in inequality and the rise of right wing politics is evidence of the effectiveness of their policies
Any challenge to right policies is slandered as communism and socialism
The Federalist Society, AEI, CATO and the Heritage Foundation, all bought by the right wing provide the laws and propaganda.
Their work is done with Dark Money and Citizens United.
Minorities and Black Americans are left in the dust and prisons
Vietnam Vet
16
@Michael
An even simpler explanation is that God Is Dead and too many of us can't see anything more to life than pigging out on immediate appetitive gratifications.
How laughable...when was America more equitable than right now?
@HistoryRhymes
Only if the American dream is dull drudgery officially part time but well over 40 hours a week, with no or lousy health care and no pension and no way out except drugs and narcotic entertainment.
4
Nope. It is too late. Far too late. There is no "(wo)man for the people" in sight. Short of a literal storming of the bastille, the deck chairs might be moved, but the heading remains the same. And insofar as the possibility of a true insurrection -- what do you think creating a half-addicted, half-obese society was about?Making clear-headed citizens capable of defending their rights? Even Bezos wants to exit the planet.
6
@Invisigoth
It is never too late if want change badly enough.
1
Collective bargaining, yes!
Mandatory arbitration, no!
5
It's not corporations. It's nu metal with an umlaut. Victims who want to become aggressors. The disdained, the maimed, the dismissed out of hand. The have nots, and... let's not forget... the haven'ts.
So, in a word, the force killing the American dream is...greed. Who woulda thought it?
9
Let's keep in mind WHY marginal tax rates were at 90 percent: we were paying off World War II, not putting war on a credit card as did Bush the Fool.
OK?
6
As usual, one word is avoided. With the same extreme fear and caution with which Victorians expelled any mention of body events, this article and, so far, the comments avoid any mention of capitalism.
Capitalism is a system meant to benefit the few at the expense of the many.
Organization Man was a last-ditch effort before the dam broke.
Today the dam did break.
Capitalism is running rampant, and has successfully diverted anger away from itself towards xenophobia, successfully hijacked by the various recent populist leaders of the world.
As far as that lame ideal "The American Dream" is concerned, it always had as much value, beauty and sincerity as the nefarious ideology brought by those cruel religious bigots called The Pilgrims.
5
And not a word about the dynamics of Capitalism and class warfare which shaped American life. So typical of American intellectuals both liberal and conservative to perpetuate the myth of a a classless society.
8
Over 100 y ears ago, shortly before his execution for a trumped up murder change, the union organizer Joe Hill wrote to Bill Haywad " Don't waste any time in mourning. Organize." What is new here?
6
This is an absurd thesis
It’s completely based on white narratives
This nation was born in genocide and slavery
It was flawed then
It’s a bit better recently
The trump administration is all about taking us back to what we really have been
"Today, we have powerful, self-interested corporations that benefit relatively few people — and that dominate the many other weakened institutions".
"The four decades of the Transaction Man economy have not been good for most Americans. Wage growth has been slow, and life expectancy has stagnated."
As Elizabeth Warren states in her book "A Fighting Chance" The system is rigged.
"Citizens United" authorized corporations to make anonymous, unlimited, contributions to politicians; the very rich contribute to the Republican party, which in turns supports the same very rich at the expense of all other Americans.
Trump is one of the results. And we are very lucky that he is essentially inept. But as long as the system remains rigged in favor of the very wealthy, the causes of Trumpism are only going to increase. And the next Trump is likely to be much more proficient at deceiving Americans, similar to what Hitler did with Germans in the 1930's.
We better wake up. And soon!
10
(....)The reason I mention all of this is because in the South these two types of Conservatism have managed to co-exist in the Republican Party since the election of Reagan (with critical help from Jesse Helms). But the impossibility of them to co-exist has been papered over until now, because with the rise of Trump the Republican Party has to have an existential crisis on what it stands for. I’ll come back to this after the narratives of my experiences, but the short of it is that the (always) dis-enfranchised and therefore irrelevant lower middle class can no longer be exploited as useful idiots by Establishment Republicans who want to go back to Gilded Age, the glory days of America when the ultra-wealthy paid no tax and 50% of the population was destitute. (Steve Bannon calling ethno-nationalists “a collection of clowns” shows his own brand of intellectual dishonesty. And now the Russians are calling Trump their useful idiot, so Lenin is alive and well.)
2
The local Democrats of Chicago ALSO solved little problems like running public schools without kowtowing to teacher union stewards and keeping nlack and brown people in their place with the expert use of tokens.
If you want to keep voting after you die, your only viable choice is Chicago.
And what state is THE leader in former governors doing hard time?
1
The dream never matched the reality. That is why it is called a dream. It is as imaginary as the cry, every few years, that NOW, after some new tragedy, America has... lost its innocence.
It's all phonus-balonus.
https://emcphd.wordpress.com
3
As the comments here show, today's gross inequalities are damaging and result from complex trends. I recommend the book "Prosperity: better business makes the greater good" by Colin Mayer. For all who refuse to accept the status quo, Mayer provides a readable view of how this came to be and, importantly, clear description of how to cure it.
I believe the root problem is our myths of "rugged individualism" and "self determination". We still believe in a frontier mentality where there is no limit to the land and resources available to conquer. Also we have a near religious view of capitalism. Our economic system mirrors our sense of individualism, anyone can get rich, anyone can be President, makers vs takers. God is on the side of the achiever.
We only need to look at our obsession with guns to see our obsession with individualism. The gun is the ultimate expression of individualism. My life is worth more than yours and my gun proves it.
I believe that Unions would have never taken root in this country were it not for the Robber Barons and the Great Depression. Unionism is collectivism, one for all and all for one. As a life-long union member and leader I can attest that many union members only wanted the union to represent them, not their fellow members.
Too much "me" and not enough "us". We will never have universal healthcare, world class education, or a clean and safe environment until we start thinking and acting as fellow citizens instead of competitors.
22
Nicholas Lemann is an accomplished author. I learned a lot from his "Promised Land," and still own the book. "The Transaction Man" sounds like an excellent new work, and it can be presumed that this informative review will encourage a deservedly wide readership.
The title, whoever picked it (I would not assume that the author did), has an unfortunate and regrettable misframing, however.
"The American Dream" is a stylized, insular myth.
Does anyone write tomes on the Canadian Dream or the Icelandic Dream?
Of course people have hopes and ambitions, and immigrants have visions of how life can be better in their newly adopted country.
But "the" (as if there is only one) "American" (as if people think of their future mainly in terms of the country they reside in) "dream" (as if fantasy is more significant to people's lives than practical goal-setting) is an overhyped misnomer. It cannot be killed because it was never alive as a real thing.
America now faces indeed more deep-rooted internal challenges than it has for a long time. The "decline of the American dream" is relative triviality in comparison.
6
When I was a kid, parents would carpool their kids to distant away games. It was always fun to irritate the parents by selecting an aggressive (rock) radio station and delighting with my friends over the parental annoyance as well as enjoying the music as a group. When I took the kids to the away games it was silent in the car. Just like the pros, every kid would listen to their personally curated music via headphones. No need to interact, everyone is listening to something different. These are the kids who make up Lemann's new TRANSACTION MAN.
Why listen to music as a group when you can listen to exactly what you want? No need for group consensus on which station to listen to. Switch songs whenever you want. It's all making sure that YOU are optimally satisfied. Social interaction skills and developing an ability in consensus building are no longer fundamental skills required for success. Thank God I'm retired.
17
Many states have actively worked to eliminate unions. These "right to work" states are hand in had with big business, handing out generous tax breaks and other goodies. These states have become an arm of corporate America. Their citizens have not received the attention they deserve. Unions may have abused their power, and in some cases were corrupt, but they gained decent pay and benefits for their members. Corporations on the other hand. have had the goal of enriching shareholders and corporate leaders at the expense of workers. The scale is now so unbalanced we see people 2 or 3 jobs and barely surviving, people retiring without pensions and people with no or over-priced health insurance. People are one medical emergency from economic disaster, while the rich cruise along. Yes, we have weakened institutions because many people are so busy just trying to get by they do not have the time or energy to engage.
39
Back in the 70's, there was both a fascination and a horror regarding the rise of suburbs, often with a single house plan stamped out in neat, narrow streets.
Particularly in the Netherlands, they have found an interesting approach to creating affordable housing and safe communities. Build a small, multifamily dwelling with a large, communal kitchen. Individual homes in the dwelling have kitchenettes. The families take turn preparing a meal for everyone in the communal kitchen/dining area. The result is a very tight knit microcommunity where everyone regards each other as family. Put clusters of these buildings with the street and parking area facing the buildings' backs, so the fronts of the buildings open onto a pedestrian walkway, allowing kids to safely play outside, and people out walking their dog to stop and chat without getting in the way of traffic. In other words, our neighborhoods could be reimagined to be more livable and more affordable.
16
@Mary M:
That sounds so nice.
But I'm sure my friend Sean Hannity will smirk and croak: "Who wants to live in the Socialist People's Republic of The Netherlands (SPRN)?"
Sean, my friend, a lot of people would.
5
The root tragedy at the heart of America's economic, intellectual, and moral decline is loss of solidarity. The rigors of the Depression and the burdens of World War II were shared by all. In the postwar years, there was a national consensus that societal benefits should be shared, too; that we were all in it together. That consensus did not survive the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights Movement, and Ronald Reagan. Democratic pluralism, in which different interest groups compete to shape national policy, will not bring it back. It is exacerbating the problem, as the left decays into obsessive identity politics, the less affluent right embraces white supremacy, and the affluent right, along with the neocons, goes full bore winner-take-all capitalist.
49
@Kaleberg- You don't win the "The Last Word on This Issue" trophy, however in my opinion, your comment is an accurate summary. Since I mostly align left, I don't like the "decays into obsessive identity politics," but as a trend I believe you are correct and it is a problem. It builds "walls," that we all pay for.
Mind if I steal this and take credit? Just kidding.
Thank you, G
4
Journalists excel at telling stories, and there is no doubt Mr. Lemann is a gifted journalist. His new book sounds as if it is intended as a kind of follow-up to the William H. Whyte’s sociological study, one that incorporates some amount of reflection on economics and politics. The strength and weakness of Mr. Lemann’s account is that it personalizes history and economics. It makes for a good story when events can be traced to individuals having conversations with one another, but it seems to me misleading to overstate the importance of such things. For example, General Motors was already exploring use of workers outside of the U.S. in the 1960s, if I recall accurately, and such an example of globalization predates the advent of late 70s economists. The global search for cheaper labor along with corresponding moves of factories to non-union states can be identified as the most important reasons for the decline of unions and of the U.S. middle class. An analysis of what can be traced to economics that does not place economics at the center runs the risk of being somewhat misleading. Sometimes real expertise in a field matters more than the ability to effectively craft a story.
13
@A, you are right. I lived in an area where furniture and textiles were the main industries and watched the demise of these industries over the years. When I moved there in the early 60s, the area was full of entrepreneurs who had started their own furniture, hosiery, and carpet factories. Associated industries that provided materials to the companies flourished. Local lawyers made money from representing the companies. Of course the local economy flourished also because people had jobs and spent money. Little by little, the factories were bought up by large national companies, starving the local economy. Along with that, the rest of the community that supplied the factories began to dry up. The companies bypassed local lawyers to use big national law firms. They began moving their factories overseas. The people lost their jobs and that area is still a depressed area, much like the former coal mining and car making areas. It didn't start with NAFTA or any other global treaty. It was already in motion.
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I actually worked at a grocery store in Park Forest during my high school and junior college years in the mid to late 1970s. I grew up in a nearby suburb, another bedroom community to downtown Chicago where my father commuted to work every day. My brother and his wife purchased their first home for about $17,000 and started their family in Park Forest.
There was a shopping mall there with a signature department store, a movie theater and many shops.
45 years later, the mall is gone, the grocery store is gone, and a house like my brother owned can now be bought for $24,000.
This is the story of America after the Regan era. The fabric of the country has been torn asunder in favor of "maximizing shareholder value." The pretense of a "social compact" between a community and corporate America has been completely negated.
Both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are symptoms of our lost faith in institutions. It has taken many years to get to our current political and societal situation and Mr Lemann's book appears to identify the culprits in this decline. While this modest suburban dream was not available to everyone at the time, the middle class eventually found out what the poor have always known.
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@Michael
Do you mean $240,000? If not, I'm ready to buy a $24K house!
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@Andio MY question too. Surely it must be a typo error.
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@Nightwood does not seem to be a typo zillow has plenty of properties under 75k, some are freshly rehabbed with brick facade and hardwood floors
The organization period of history was very short. The transactional history is much, much longer. Basically all of human history. I hope for all our sakes we can go back to this golden age. I feel like the organization structure is not really part of our nature. That the greedy people always win in the end.
7
The rebellion against the organization was nothing compared to the hatred of the federal government and regulatory agency's. The Republicans ached for old time unfettered capitalism and means to suppress labor, contain the middle class through interest based credit and block the low income workers by stoking bigotry and class resentment. We live in the after mass. Even today Republicans shrug off trillion dollar deficits in the belief that eventually the FDR evil social programs will fail and the fed go bankrupt. There are those who really do hate the America that rose in the 20th century. What is needed is a universal acknowledgment of what it takes for a modern investor/consumer state to function and benefit the most members of society. Capitalism with a conscience and politics that is reasonable rather than reaction be it left or right. When the majority of people lose faith in a political or economic system, nothing will save it.
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@David Fairbanks what we need is to change from greedy so called Anglo-Saxon capitalism to the German version; Rhenish capitalism. The difference is the conscience component. History tells us that if we stay on the current track, the system will destroy itself and we will have serious social upheaval as "Les Miserables" will rise as they did in 1830 and 1848 Europe. Hopefully, Americans wake up at election time and save the country/system from itself!
2
Someday I will get around to publishing my stories, but here is a snippet for my take on Reagan.
But there has always been another strain of conservatism in America, one of intellectual dishonesty, and is based on the viewpoint that in the history of the world America’s role is unique (or as they would say incorrectly, so unique). I call this Optimistic Conservatism, a conservatism that allows one to cherry-pick history and America’s role and come up with ideas and policies that to a Burkeian conservative make absolutely no sense. The most prominent spokesperson for this conservatism was Ronald Reagan, whose role in changing America (called ironically the Reagan Revolution) cannot yet be judged, because its effects are still being played out. (....)
7
Once upon a time capital established its means of production in proximity to markets and the prospective consumers located therein and labor, (often those same prospective consumers), in turn was attracted to those locations. In the last twenty to thirty years we have seen capital, motivated by the unregulated pursuit of profit, move production to increasingly cheaper sources of labor, first to Mexico (think NAFTA), then to Central America, then to Southeast Asia and finally to China, while still intending to sell to the same consumers, now forced to work in much lower paying jobs. What is wrong with this scenario? It's called unbridled capitalism and it sets up the inevitable cycles of economic uncertainty and recessions that plague the global economy. Common sense dictates a new approach that allows the worker/consumers to participate in the flow of capital so that the profits may be spread in an equitable way. After all, when the capitalists fail, (although deemed "too big to fail), the tax payers are prevailed upon to bail them out. The government, as the representative of the people, has a fundamental responsibility to ensure that the capitalists perform for the benefit of us all.
9
The death rate comment ignores the fact that the small reduction in life expectancy is due to a large increase in middle age death rates that is obscured by much lower death rates of the young and old. This app pattern substantially increases the dependency ratio but saves the health insurance industry lots of money.
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@Dr James Gundlach: and that sharp, RECENT rise in middle-aged deaths is almost 100% due to the opioid crisis -- not natural deaths, or due to accidents, or illnesses.
2
Building new institutions is a long game. Meanwhile, the most efficient road to rebuilding the middle class is by electing progressives to the White House, Senate and Congress next year, and passing legislation to establish universal health care, student debt forgiveness, subsidized education, more affordable early child care and more generous social security benefits. These new programs would level the playing field that is seriously out of whack right now, paid for by taxes on the wealthy, and give us all a better shot at the American dream.
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Start with making it easier to unionize. Then do away with the Capital Gains Tax, except for whatever is equivalent to a year’s worth of the Federal Minimum Wage (currently about $14,000 a year). Anything over that should be taxed as earned income. A Tobin Tax to help pay for infrastructure wouldn’t hurt either.
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@Vasari Winterburg Aye to all, along with a wealth tax and a 50% Estate Tax on all estates over 10 million. If we don't redistribute by regulation, revolution will do it for us.
Even a patrician like FDR knew that.
30
Missing in this conversation is the influence of the energy sector (9% of the economy compared to less than 8% for finance). Or government (around 20% of the economy). Or healthcare now around 12% of the economy.
Any view of the nation from the North East perspective is distorted as much as a view of America from Houston or Dallas would be distorted. Sure finance has impacted modern America, but so has computers and cheap oil and expensive medicine and a number of other forces.
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@Ben P
I see it more as things no longer being 'within reach.' For instance, I just read that Elizabeth Warren had to pay $50 a semester at the University of Houston as an 'out of state' student.
About the same time, the University of California waived the pittance of a fee I would have to have paid as an out of state student.
East Coast, West Coast, Oklahoma and Texas--seems everyone emphasized opportunity back in the day. Education had a cross nation emphasis, not a North East emphasis.
Neither her family, nor my family, had money, but back in the day things were 'within reach' for everyone. It allowed people like Elizabeth Warren and myself to maximize what we could contribute to this country. It's not that way now, and frankly, computers and oil and medicines and whatever has little to do with it. Our nation is bifurcating into billionaires and serfs no matter what the industry, and the serfs have little ability to maximize their potential.
Hence the sour mood, from coast to coast, and it will continue.
39
This is an interesting and well-written article about a book that I now want to read. I really like the historical approach taken by Mr. Lemann. However, it is difficult for me to take seriously any analysis of post-WWII America that leaves out the most important point-- from 1945 to about 1975 we were the only manufacturing economy left standing. When WWII ended, the entire developed world was flattened except us. Western Europe, Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union and the Pacific rim countries all needed to rebuild. Their factories and infrastructure were gone, their finances drained, many of their educational, cultural and religious institutions were ruined. The USA was the only remaining country that had the factories, investors, workers and transportation infrastructure that was needed to rebuild the rest of the world. Basically, American businesses and workers were in "hog heaven" for 30 years from 1945 to 1975. Then, as other countries began to get their economic and manufacturing feet under them, they started out-competing us and our standard of living started to decline. Historians and social analysts need to work these facts into their theses. The "greatest generation" suffered mightily during the depression and the war, but they also reaped huge benefits afterwards. Today's young people and business institutions will not be able to repeat their success.
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@Pat O'Hern
You made a very nice observation from a perspective which I've seldom seen posted in this newspaper. Our city lost 30,000 jobs in basic steel beginning in 1978, although our Renaissance is finally coming through our nascent hegemony in additive manufacturing.
8
@Pat O'Hern
"However, it is difficult for me to take seriously any analysis of post-WWII America that leaves out the most important point-- from 1945 to about 1975 we were the only manufacturing economy left standing."
That overstates things a bit. Europe, for example, definitely had a lot of catching up to do but, post Marshall Plan, Europe rebounded fairly energetically in its manufacturing and export efforts. By the 1960's for example, Germany had gone a long way to reviving its auto industry and was exporting VW beetles in some quantity.
10
@Pat O'Hern,
There was at least one other surviving manufacturing economy post WWII, albeit one much smaller than the US. I'm thinking of Sweden which was, ahem, neutral during the war. Their post war years were similar to ours but diverged in the mid-1970s and they still have many businesses that make things. They still have an "organization person" society. Those of us who have spent time there and worked alongside Swedes here wish that the US had avoided our retreat into selfishness seen as a desirable trait because we know it could be otherwise.
One more thing, I don't want to see a response to this comment asserting that the Swedish population is more ethnically homogeneous than that of the US and that explains their success. The fact is that the percentage of first and second generation Swedish residents was about the same as that of the US before the recent influx of refugees in Sweden. The primer I used to learn Swedish in 1987 had as its central protagonist a teenage female immigrant from Yugoslavia. [Lots of cultural lessons packed in there. The Swedes are a slyer lot than they usually let on.]
20
I find it interesting that in dissecting where America started on its current path, there is very, very little discussion of the Reagan Administration's Trumpishness.
I'm personally convinced that Ronald Reagan was the face of a group of hidden money people who were willing to break the gates that protected America's 99% in order to concentrate their wealth even further. Because that is what the Reagan Adminstration managed to achieve. Like Trump, they were willing to act as destroyers of the established order.
I'm really surprised there hasn't been far more public discussion of who actually ran the Reagan Administration and how it and they destroyed the old goals of the US government.
182
@vineyridge
If it was Dick Nixon who brought forward the"imperial presidency", it was surely Saint Ronnie who launched the first salvo in the attack against the middle class.
5
The widespread adoption of the 401k has allowed corporations to treat their employees as individual contractors. Every American worker knows that on any given day they can be laid off given 2 weeks and told to take their 401k and hit the road.The carnage was on full display in 2008-09 . I think alot of the anger in society today is everyone down deep knows this and it wears on a person.
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@robert conger Two weeks?!?!? What a dream. How about zero notice for termination, for any number of arbitrary reasons. Employment at will is a death knell for progressive employment policy in this country.
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The widespread adoption of 401K accounts allowed workers to leave firms with something worthwhile instead of being shackled to a firm they likely hated, waiting for their pensions, pensions that only made sense if you spent decades with same firm. No thanks.
2
@robert conger Not due to 401Ks. This is due to the destruction of unions. Even if you did not belong to one, the presence of unions benefitted all workers.
7
Large corporations have learned a lesson from the way the Robber Barons of the early Industrial Age operated Thay took all the benefits and left nothing for their workers and society.
Current leaders leave as little of the benefits as possible, in order to discourage workers, and society from organizing against them, as happened in the 20th century.
They are also cushioned by the social safety nets provided by government. How else could huge companies have successful business models that employees millions of workers at below poverty wages?
Hard to imagine going back to the "good old" days.
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My friends father, born in 1931 like my father, and now gone like most of that generation of Americans, made the following observation and comment to me, back in the 1990's. After years of "greed is good" and Reaganonimcs, he saw the steady deterioration of American society when it came to what people were willing to do, for money. He said "there was a time not so long ago when there were certain things people simply would not do, no matter how much money you threw at them."
That's what this country has lost.
Everyone now has a price.
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@Van Owen, Not quite everyone but I'm afraid your friend's father was right that it sees to be the norm.
3
The take away (from a great writer whose book I'll probably read) is.. “It’s impossible to change things without interest groups...In a pluralist system, the way to fight unacceptable views is to outorganize the people promoting them.”
Political Science has know this for years - that America is an interest group democracy. Sadly the interest groups and that are best organized are corporate funded, anti labor, racially exclusive, anti regulatory and deeply anti egalitarian.
My cohort seems to think countig how many of your friends denounce things on FB is political. The Chamber of Commerce exercises their brand of organizing from K Street. Who's better organized? The stressful, unequal state of our socioeonomic lives are the product of organized interests that currently appear to be frighteningly well organized and showing no signs of letting up.
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EVERY REPUBLICAN should read this - but they won't.
1. They probably can't read.
2. Trump has told them it's "fake news".
Speaks volumes for a previously respectable political party!
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@RealTRUTH
And the leadership of the DNC should read it as well. The Clintons, with the help of Robert Rubin and Larry Summers, were the final push that enabled the transactional economy to dominate.
4
"The Forces that are Killing the American Dream" is the exporting of jobs which the Republicans AND Democrats support!
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@scythians More likely it's technology that has replaced most manufacturing jobs... That said.... Unemployment is 3.7%.... so jobs are not the problem... we have lots of them... low paying and no benefits maybe.... but trying bringing back textile jobs and mining jobs - they'll also be low paid and no benefits... (and mining coal is replaced by natural gas - those jobs are like the stagecoaches... they're gone for good).... next is truckers... will be replaced by technology - NOT disappearing overseas... Trump needs an enemy to blame... must be foreigners...
2
@scythians One of the biggest problems right now is not that the jobs are shipped overseas, but that they're being done by prison labor where corporations can pay cents on a dollar in wages. Many of the biggest Fortune 500 companies rely on prison labor. Start there. Prison should not be a for-profit enterprise designed to create a workforce of slaves.
3
Try to make real issues into elevator pitches with catch phrases might work. Certainly works for the “transactionalists.”
The “disrupters.” The “woke.” The POC grifters.
But I find that a fad is a fad is a fad. Deal with the real.
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@In deed
Language is bigly a modeling of the world, therefore involves simplification, reduction, generalization, abstraction, etc. to reduce to manageable, graspable portions what otherwise is too dang complex, convoluted, hugely.
Like toys.