America’s unique prosperity is based on its creation of a middle class. In the twentieth century, that middle class provided the workforce, the educated skills, and the demand that gave life to the world’s greatest consumer economy. It was innovative and dynamic; it eclipsed old imperial systems and colonial archetypes. It gave rise to a dream: that if you worked hard and followed the rules you would prosper in America, and your children would enjoy a better life than yours.
The American dream was the lure to gifted immigrants and the birthright opportunity for every American citizen. It is as important a part of the history of the country as the passing of the Bill of Rights, the outcome of the battle of Gettysburg, or the space program. Incredibly, however, for more than thirty years, government and big business in America have conspired to roll back the American dream. What was once accessible to a wide swath of the population is increasingly open only to a privileged few.
The story of how the American middle class has been systematically impoverished and its prospects thwarted in favor of a new ruling elite is at the heart of this extraordinarily timely and revealing book, whose devastating findings from two of the finest investigative reporters in the country will leave you astonished and angry.
About Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele
Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele are the nation’s most honored investigative reporting team, and authors of the New York Times bestseller America: What Went Wrong? They have worked together for more than forty years, first at the Philadelphia Inquirer (1971–1997), then at Time magazine (1997–2006), and now at Vanity Fair since 2006. They have also written seven books. They are the only reporting team ever to have received two Pulitzer Prizes for newspaper reporting and two National Magazine Awards for magazine work. They live in Philadelphia.
Editorial Review
Competing polemics rely on predictions of a dire future, but veteran investigative reporters Barlett and Steele point out that they delivered identical warnings in America: What Went Wrong (1992)—all of which came true. They maintain that the deficit is less the result of government programs than plummeting tax revenue from the rich, who paid 51.2 percent of their income in 1955 versus 16.6 percent today. Congress once assumed that salaried workers shouldn’t pay more than the rich, who lived on dividends. They reversed this in 2003, capping the dividend rate at 15 percent. More than half of large American corporations pay no tax. Since the 1970s, advocates of deregulation and free trade persistently proclaim that it increases jobs and reduces the trade deficit, apparently unaware that the exact opposite almost always happens. The authors’ solutions include: Revise the tax code so corporations and the rich pay more than the middle class instead of less, discard the clueless ideology of free trade (no other nation believes it), re-regulate disastrously unregulated areas, and enforce current laws equally instead of giving the influential a free pass. The authors describe genuine problems, but their solutions would produce outrage among congressional Republicans (obscenities such as “tax increase,” “government regulation,” “protectionism” and “class warfare” would fill the air) and no enthusiasm from Democrats. Reforms since the 2008 crash have been easily defeated or watered down. – Kirkus Reviews
Book review: The illuminating ‘Betrayal of the American Dream’
The Chicago Tribune Book Review – August 5, 2012 (Excerpt)
You may be old enough to remember the United States whose passing Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele lament on nearly every page of their new book, “The Betrayal of the American Dream.”
In that other, older America, you could buy bell-bottom pants, a color television set or a pair of high-platform shoes, and there was a good chance you’d find attached a label that said “Made in the U.S.A.”
U.S. companies made big profits — but invested in the local communities where their products were made. The rich paid their fair share in taxes without complaint.
Barlett and Steele can pinpoint the moment this America began to disappear: June 1979. More people were employed at U.S. factory jobs at that time than during any month before or since. At about the same time, the share that the wealthiest Americans paid in taxes began to fall sharply.
American factory jobs soon began to flee south to Mexico, and then overseas to China, followed by all sorts of other tasks once performed by the guy next door — including your friendly customer service representative, who these days might answer your queries from Bangalore.
Since then, three decades of laissez-faire business strategies and government policies have undercut the American middle class and the underpinnings of American democracy. That’s the central argument of “The Betrayal of the American Dream,” a book that’s essential reading to anyone trying to make sense of our country’s current malaise. [Read the full article...]
‘American Dream,’ Betrayed By Bad Economic Policy
NPR Book Review – August 6, 2012 (Excerpt)
A lot is at stake in the current election, but no matter who wins, the victor will stay committed to policies that cripple the middle class. That’s according to Pulitzer Prize-winning reporters Donald Barlett and James Steele, who’ve been covering the middle class for decades.
In their new book, The Betrayal of the American Dream, Barlett and Steele criticize a government obsessed with free trade and indifferent toward companies that outsource jobs.
“Everyone loves Apple. Apple makes nothing in this country anymore,” Bartlett tells NPR’s Steve Inskeep as an example. “But then, look over here on the other side and you have Intel, and their plants are massive, and they are good-paying jobs. They continue to invest in this country. And what we need in this country now are more Intels and fewer Apples.”
For models of how to boost manufacturing and job growth in the U.S., Barlett and Steele look abroad. “Germany has had a fairly good record in recent years,” Steele says. When the global financial meltdown happened, Germany adopted a policy that subsidized companies in order to help them keep employees on the rolls. “It’s one of the reasons the German unemployment rate is much lower than in this country,” he says. [Read the full article...]
‘The Price of Inequality’ and ‘The Betrayal of the American Dream’
The Washington Post Book Review – August 24, 2012 (Excerpt)
Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele’s “The Betrayal of the American Dream” is a brawling, journalistic mix-it-up. As journalists, Barlett and Steele have been studying the decline and troubles of the middle class for more than three decades. They entered the national consciousness in 1992 with their book “America: What Went Wrong,” which was adapted from their 1991 series of articles in the Philadelphia Inquirer.
The authors’ passion and anger are as clear in these pages as they are in the title — after all, they are arguing that someone has been betrayed. They present the Democratic contention that the new economy simply isn’t fair to many people. Outlining how freer trade has harmed U.S.workers, they note that one hedge fund manager said the global economic transformation lifts four people out of poverty in China and India for every one worker harmed in America. [Read the full article...]
The End of the Middle
The New York Times Book Review – September 28, 2012 (Excerpt)
There are two major flaws in “The Betrayal of the American Dream,” a new book about the dismantling of the middle class. The first is its diagnosis of what’s causing the country’s economic troubles. The second is its prescriptions.
At least it got the symptoms right.
The authors, Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele, investigative reporters for Vanity Fair, are angry about unemployment, offshoring, pension underfunding, tax loopholes, financial fraud and many other legitimately infuriating issues. In their rage, they see conspiracies everywhere, usually led by the Montgomery Burnses and Henry F. Potters of the world and their minions in Washington. The country’s economic malaise is due to the malevolent machinations of the “ruling class,” they suggest, which wants nothing more than to snuff out the proletariat with their “rapacious job-killing strategies.” [Read the full article...]
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THE BLEEDING HILLS A Novel by Wilfried F. Voss
I have fought a good fight,
I have finished my course,
I have kept the faith. - 2 Timothy iv. 7
The Irish War is officially a part of history, but not for Finnean Whelan, an IRA veteran of almost 40 years. British Intelligence has produced evidence that he is the mastermind behind a conspiracy to assassinate the First Minister of Northern Ireland. For Whelan this is not only a mission of revenge, but marks the beginning of a journey into the past and the return to the one true love: Ireland. [More...]
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THE BLEEDING HILLS
