"Third World America": as Arianna says in her video about the book, it's a tough phrase to swallow when it comes to how we perceive America's powerful economy. But one of the characteristics of a third world country is that there is no middle class, and that's what's happening here. It's been a long time coming and probably began during the Reagan years. The 90s saw a steep decline--when we look at how many kids who went off to college only to return home to live with their parents because they couldn't find jobs, or their work didn't pay well enough for them to live on their own. Then came the precipitous decline of this decade, the credit crisis, the housing bubble, the extreme unemployment.
As usual, there were visionaries who saw this coming and wrote about it. Here are eleven books that predicted the situation we're in now.
Let us know what you think. Is a "Third World America" the new normal, or is there something we can do about it?
1. "Falling From Grace: The Experience of Downward Mobility in the American Middle Class" (1989) Katherine S. Newman
Newman finds that the American concept of self-worth and success depends on growth and dominance. Observing that stagnant wages have made continual improvement in the middle class quality of life impossible, Newman warns that the new generation will find it difficult to live with less than their predecessors.
2. "Upward Dreams, Downward Mobility: The Economic Decline of the American Middle Class" (1993) Frederick R. Strobel
While proponents of Reaganomics celebrated what appeared to be a decade of success, economists such as Strobel recorded the increasing pressures on the American middle class. Blaming the Bush and Reagan economic policies for accelerating the crisis, Strobel claims that the trend began after the end of the New Deal.
3. "Boiling Point: Republicans, Democrats and the Decline of Middle-Class Prosperity" (1994) Kevin Phillips
Like many of his contemporaries, Phillips believed that Reagan and Bush policies sacrificed the stability and comfort of the middle class for the free advancement of the wealthy. Phillips extended his thesis by comparing the trend to the historic decline of England and Holland, which "had also fallen from their middle-class zeniths when manufacturing, trade, nationalism and bourgeois spirit gave way to 'financialization' -- the cumulative influence of finance, government debt, unearned income, rentiers, overseas investment, domestic economic polarization and social stratification." While remaining optimistic, Phillips warned about the consequences of this trend.
4. "Silent Depression: The Fate of the American Dream" (1994) Wallace C. Peterson
Economist Peterson argued that that despite the nation's economic expansion, middle class Americans has been living in a depression since 1973. Four fifths of American families suffered from a stagnant income that made maintaining their quality of life increasingly difficult. Peterson proposed increased public spending and revisions to the tax code that would help to level out economic disparity between the middle class and the elite.
5. "Speculative Capital" Nasser Saber (1999)
In "Speculative Capital," Saber explains the role of speculation in driving national and international economic engines. This theory helps to explain the rise of derivatives and the increase in market volatility, which has had a direct impact on the middle class.
6. "The Fragile Middle Class: Americans in Debt" (2001) Teresa A. Sullivan
In this study, Sullivan warns that a significant portion of the American middle class is on the verge of economic collapse. The book inspects the role of layoffs, the overuse of credit cards, and unpredictable medical expenses in creating financial instability for average Americans.
7. "Wealth and Democracy: A Political History of the American Rich" (2002) Kevin Phillips
"Laissez-faire is a pretense," historian Kevin Phillips argues in his book, "Wealth and Democracy." Phillips rejects the idea of trickle-down wealth creation held by many conservative economists. He argues that allowing the wealthy to dominate economic policy has harmed both ordinary Americans and the government.
8. "War on the Middle Class: How the Government, Big Business, and Special Interest Groups Are Waging War on the American Dream and How to Fight Back" (2006) Lou Dobbs
According to Lou Dobbs, the economic and academic elite have created policies that harm ordinary Americans. Taking increased class stratification, problems of immigration, and problematic health care system as evidence to the problem, he proposes higher taxes and a bigger government.
9. "The American Dream vs. The Gospel of Wealth" (2007) Norton Garfinkle
Garfinkle writes that America is split into two factions- the wealthy who have already made it and the lower and middle class who continue to dream. Garfinkle warns that the middle class dream of social mobility has been put in danger by the supply-side economic theory of the wealthy.
10. "Screwed: The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class- And What We Can Do About It" (2006) Thom Hartmann, Greg Palast, Mark Crispin Miller
Hartmann argues that since the Reagan administration, the US government has been instituting policies that favor corporations over citizens. He objects to the weakening of measures that protect average Americans, arguing that a strong middle class is crucial to the health of democracy.
11. "Not Keeping Up With Our Parents: The Decline of the Professional Middle Class" (2009) Nan Mooney
Mooney notes that typical middle class careers in education, the arts, and public service pay little yet paradoxically demand a high cost education. Those in the middle class find themselves financially unstable due to mortgage payments, student loans, credit-card debt, insufficient health care, retirement needs, and child care. The author recommends that the government create policies to support the middle class in this difficult position.
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