The Complacent Class

December 19, 2016
In recent decades, the U.S. has been overtaken by complacency, declares economics professor Cowen (The Great Stagnation). He categorizes complacent Americans into three classes: the privileged, “those who dig in,” and “those who are stuck”; all three may want to change their lives in the abstract, but the will to do so has been replaced by acceptance of the status quo. He cites a “not in my backyard” mentality for why the revolutionary tendencies of the 1960s gave way to stasis. A society that once thrived on “Big Projects” such as going to the moon and constructing the interstate highway system has slowed down. Even the booming tech sector has become focused on convenience rather than ambition; Cowen contrasts Spotify with the 1970s’ supersonic Concorde. He also takes a (de rigueur) page from Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America to analyze current American indifference. He concludes that such otherwise very different phenomena as the protests in Ferguson, Mo., and the rise of Donald Trump threaten this complacency and suggest that societal change is on the way. Cowan’s predictions take on a different coloring with the results of the 2016 presidential election, and it will be fascinating to see whether and how they come true.

November 15, 2016
An influential economist seeks to persuade readers that American citizens have gotten overly complacent, that a crisis point is near, and that a widespread rebellion may alter the existing order.Using data from a variety of sources, extrapolating from that data, and mixing in large dollops of admitted speculation, Cowen (Chair, Economics/George Mason Univ.; Average Is Over: Powering America Beyond the Age of the Great Stagnation, 2013, etc.) claims that the population at large is resisting changes in the economy that could improve the social order. The author, who runs Marginal Revolution, "the "most-read economics blog worldwide," divides the population into three complacent categories: "The Privileged Class," who are comfortable and usually wealthy; "Those Who Dig In," roughly equivalent to the traditional middle class; and "Those Who Got Stuck," who, Cowen maintains, have pretty much given up trying to rise economically and socially (many were never given the chance to do so). The author focuses on a variety of issues, including the downturn in Americans moving to different regions to seek improvement, increased racial and/or ethnic segregation, decreased innovation in the business sector, stagnation within pop culture, and failure to challenge authority in an organized manner. As he builds his argument against complacency, Cowen regularly employs metaphors and analogies that help illuminate his positions; he is a skilled stylist and polished debater. In the final analysis, though, whether he is persuasive will depend heavily on how willing readers will be to accept sweeping generalizations about the American populace. In conclusion, Cowen describes how a dynamic society should look and feel, and then he shifts his pessimism about the present to a sort of ersatz optimism about the future, when current structures collapse and chaos improves American democracy.A book that will undoubtedly stir discussion--as many of Cowen's books do--with readers divided about how they stand based on where they currently sit.

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