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4.07 AVERAGE
4.07 AVERAGE
An incredibly clear-eyed and well researched history of American Capitalism, that helps us better understand our current stagnation of progress and charts a way forward. One of the best books I've read.
medium-paced
This book highlights a few economic and social cause-effect relationships I hadn't considered before, and Leonhart makes some thought-provoking assertions that for me are humbling and has given me something to ruminate on as I consider local and national policy and elections.
It is insane to me that you can write an entire book about the failures of capitalism and still be a capitalist. It is almost as crazy to me as writing a whole book about how racism and far right policies eroded the financial safety net of workers in the US, and yet somehow finding a way to praise future conservatives and blame the left. True progressivism in the US arguably has incredibly little power both in mainstream Democratic circles as well as in the media. I would like to know how we are supposed to have government leaders who will crack down on capitalist policies that are destroying the world as we know it when, in order to have enough money to run for government office, you must be a capitalist yourself? Ignoring this is just one thing on a long list of facts that the author has conveniently forgotten about including in his book, which overall cherry picks arguments to come to the conclusion that we are not giving conservatives enough of a voice in democratic policy which is why we have come to so many issues economically, instead of acknowledging that this is capitalism coming to its most natural conclusion. The section on immigration ignores that immigrants will take low paying jobs because in the system of capitalism, you must pay people as little as you possibly can to ensure the highest amount of profit for the capitalists controlling the company. The section on education does not note that the bloated costs of tuition are a large factor contributing to people’s lack of education, and how, in many of the countries mentioned that are becoming more educated than the US, they also have free tuition. This book could have very easily been a scathing indictment of both racism and capitalism, and how both had a role in destroying prosperity in the US. However, this book instead chooses to condescendingly scold leftists and progressives, lumping them in with their liberal counterparts, urging them to forego their values and reach across the aisle to band with people who have shown no interest in doing the same. The author spends so much time scolding the left and uplifting future conservatives, that he is likely falling into the same trap as the scholars like Friedman who argued for deregulation: he is creating his argument around a world that doesn’t exist.
Also, as a personal aside, there is no University of Indiana. It is called Indiana University. Thank you.
Also, as a personal aside, there is no University of Indiana. It is called Indiana University. Thank you.
Anybody planning to vote in November should read this book. Not because it will push to vote for one candidate or another, for one party or another, but because it will give you a grounding in how we got here. This book has facts, data, and history, essential elements for an informed electorate, and it's written in an engaging, accessible way that's a hallmark of Leonhardt's work with The New York Times.
饭都吃不饱，还要谈理想 —— 我读普利策奖得主David Leonhardt新书《美国梦起落》
微信公众号：联合水果社团
微信公众号：联合水果社团
informative
medium-paced
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
An excellent survey about what has led to our current social and political tensions in 2024,. Thought-provoking, judicious, and illuminating, providing needed context about American historical and economic trends - and a roadmap to what liberals and conservatives of good will can do to put the US on a more positive path - addressing the economic hardships that the majority of Americans struggle to overcome.
I quite enjoyed the first half of the book, which goes over how the American Dream succeeded (92% of people born in the 1940s grew up to earn more money than their parents) because of democratic capitalism, a system in which the government has a crucial role in guiding the economy and delivering rising standards to its citizens. He gives many examples from FDR's New Deal, Eisenhower's huge investment boom, LBJ's Great Society, the rise of labor unions, CEOs that rejected Darwinian business conservatism in favor of patriotic capitalism, even Nixon oversaw the creation of the EPA and OSHA as well as increased Social Security benefits and federal funding for education and medical research. The author argues that things started going wrong in the mid 1970s and particularly with the Reagan era. That's when rough-and-tumble capitalism emerged, in which taxes are low, corporations behave as they want, and a laissez-faire government allows market forces to dominate. This system allows the rich to become richer and more powerful over time and eventually be able to distort society's rules to benefit themselves at others' expense, further increasing inequality.
I do think a lot of points get scrambled at the end though. Some good and provocative points, about how the Democrats have moved from the party of the working class to the party of college students, intellectuals, and professionals; crime being a big problem between the 1960s into the 1990s and leading to a rise in the Republican Party; immigration pros and cons. But it gets a bit preachy even though I generally agree with most of what he's saying. I think John Cassidy's book "How Markets Fail" about the history of economic theory makes a better argument re: the American dream.
I do think a lot of points get scrambled at the end though. Some good and provocative points, about how the Democrats have moved from the party of the working class to the party of college students, intellectuals, and professionals; crime being a big problem between the 1960s into the 1990s and leading to a rise in the Republican Party; immigration pros and cons. But it gets a bit preachy even though I generally agree with most of what he's saying. I think John Cassidy's book "How Markets Fail" about the history of economic theory makes a better argument re: the American dream.
I have long enjoyed David Leonhardt's work in NYT's Morning Daily -- I appreciate his nuanced takes on grey-area problems and his firm grasp of economics and statistics. I would not call Ours Was the Shining Future an inspiring read, but it was informative and interesting (if also wonky). I wish Leonhardt would have spent a little more time on behavioral economics/psychology and motivated reasoning, which he eventually provides a short note on it towards the end of the book. Pulling in some expertise from behavioral psychology like Kahneman or Festinger might help better explain why people can have such staunch convictions on poor ideas.