Who Stole the American Dream?

July 30, 2012
This depressing book details the recent wreckage of the American middle-class dream: the hope for decent comfort and security for oneself and one’s family under fair rules set the same for everyone. Smith, a Pulitzer-winning former New York Times reporter and expert on Russia and the Pentagon Papers, is comprehensive and compelling in his coverage and blame laying. His principle villains are American corporations and politicians, his concerns such realities as the nation’s huge wealth gap and excessive pay for corporate executives, even those who fail. But while the book performs an important service in bringing recent history and well-known problems together, there’s little in it that’s new. In calling for a “populist renaissance,” a domestic Marshall Plan, and more citizens’ involvement, Smith’s on the side of liberal angels. But he doesn’t deal adequately with structural and institutional barriers to reform, instead arguing principally that changes of heart and civic engagement will make things right. Unfortunately, the book is written in blaringly subtitled two-page chapterettes, as if readers won’t stick with Smith long enough to learn what he has to say. But even if patronizing to some readers, the book is a strong, effective liberal indictment of things as they are. Agent: David Black, David Black Literary Agency.

Starred review from August 1, 2012
Remarkably comprehensive and coherent analysis of and prescriptions for America's contemporary economic malaise by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Smith (Rethinking America, 1995, etc.). "Over the past three decades," writes the author, "we have become Two Americas." We have arrived at a new Gilded Age, where "gross inequality of income and wealth" have become endemic. Such inequality is not simply the result of "impersonal and irresistible market forces," but of quite deliberate corporate strategies and the public policies that enabled them. Smith sets out on a mission to trace the history of these strategies and policies, which transformed America from a roughly fair society to its current status as a plutocracy. He leaves few stones unturned. CEO culture has moved since the 1970s from a concern for the general well-being of society, including employees, to the single-minded pursuit of personal enrichment and short-term increases in stock prices. During much of the '70s, CEO pay was roughly 40 times a worker's pay; today that number is 367. Whether it be through outsourcing and factory closings, corporate reneging on once-promised contributions to employee health and retirement funds, the deregulation of Wall Street and the financial markets, a tax code which favors overwhelmingly the interests of corporate heads and the superrich--all of which Smith examines in fascinating detail--the American middle class has been left floundering. For its part, government has simply become an enabler and partner of the rich, as the rich have turned wealth into political influence and rigid conservative opposition has created the politics of gridlock. What, then, is to be done? Here, Smith's brilliant analyses turn tepid, as he advocates for "a peaceful political revolution at the grassroots" to realign the priorities of government and the economy but offers only the vaguest of clues as to how this might occur. Not flawless, but one of the best recent analyses of the contemporary woes of American economics and politics.

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September 15, 2012
Smith, Pulitzer Prizewinning reporter, explains how the middle-class prosperity after WWII (the 1950s, '60s, and '70s) was reversed in the 1980s, '90s, and 2000s because of a long period of sweeping transformations both in Washington's policies and in the mind-set and practices of American business leaders. American corporations paid high wages and good benefits after the war; millions of workers spent their money; and business investment increased, which led to growth, expansion, and higher living standards. The 1980s ushered in the era of job losses and a lid on average pay scales; hence, consumer spending declined, and the nation's economy was negatively affected. We learn the top 1 percent (3 million people) got two-thirds of the U.S. economic gain between 20027, and the 99 percent (310 million) got one-third. Smith concludes, We are at a defining moment for America. . . . We must come together and take action to rejuvenate our nation and to restore fairness and hope in our way of life. An informative account.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)