Tales of a New America

February 1, 1987
Japan's resurgent growth and unrest in the Third World signal the end of the United States' preeminent position as a world power. American conservatives bent on a rigid, militarist posture and liberals who preach altruism both have utterly failed to adapt to a changed reality. That is Reich's thesis, developed in chapters examining the corrosion of our cultural myths. While the Horatio Alger parable of "the little guy who makes good'' is losing its inspirational hold in an economy of scarcity, America's fear and aggressiveness toward ``them out there''be they Russians or Latinosseem to be intensifying. Reich