American Amnesia: How the War on Government Led Us to Forget What Made America Prosper
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In American Amnesia, bestselling political scientists Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson trace the economic and political history of the United States over the last century and show how a viable mixed economy has long been the dominant engine of America's prosperity. We have largely forgotten this reliance, as many political circles and corporate actors have come to mistakenly see government as a hindrance rather than the propeller it once was. "American Amnesia" is more than a rhetorical phrase; elites have literally forgotten, or at least forgotten to talk about, the essential role of public authority in achieving big positive-sum bargains in advanced societies.
The mixed economy was the most important social innovation of the twentieth century. It spread a previously unimaginable level of broad prosperity. It enabled steep increases in education, health, longevity, and economic security. And yet, extraordinarily, it is anathema to many current economic and political elites. Looking at this record of remarkable accomplishment, they recoil in horror. And as the advocates of anti-government free market fundamentalist have gained power, they are hell-bent on scrapping the instrument of nearly a century of unprecedented economic and social progress. In the American Amnesia, Hacker and Pierson explain the full "story of how government helped make America great, how the enthusiasm for bashing government is behind its current malaise, and how a return to effective government is the answer the nation is looking for" (The New York Times).
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
March 29, 2016 -
Formats
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Kindle Book
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OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9781451667844
- File size: 3043 KB
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EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9781451667844
- File size: 3224 KB
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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March 15, 2016
Hacker (Stanley B. Resor Professor of Political Science; Yale Univ.) and Pierson (John Gross Professor of Political Science, Univ. of California at Berkeley), who previously collaborated on Winner-Take-All Politics, devote Part 1 of this title to the history of the development of a strong mixed U.S. economy, from the Industrial Revolution through the 1960s. They argue this mixed model, with broad political support for government and markets working as complements, led to transformative economic growth and widespread prosperity. Part 2 describes the tactics and consequences of a deliberate and sustained movement from the 1970s to the present through which an economic elite and free-market ideologs--dubbed Randians after the novelist Ayn Rand--have worked to discredit government. The authors call for electoral reforms and endorse movements such as alt-labor and good government but see overall a difficult path forward. This book chronicles the same arc of prosperity as Robert J. Gordon's The Rise and Fall of American Growth but offers a political rather than technological explanation. VERDICT Recommended as a well-documented but partisan account for readers interested in the influence of politics on the U.S. economy.--Jennifer M. Miller, Univ. of Southern California, Los Angeles
Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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