One book that I finished last evening is The United States Since 1980 by Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. The book is a popular political and economic history of the U.S., and for anyone born circa 1980 it resembles the public policy version of a greatest hits album -- PATCO, Iran-Contra, Desert Storm, NAFTA, Monica Lewinsky and Bushes senior and junior all get "shout outs."
One thing that the book does well is point out just how radically the country has changed since 1980. This is a change that younger folks may not even realize. Writes Baker:
However, the differences between the United States and the rest of the industrialized world in 1980 were far smaller than they are today by a wide variety of measures. In the period since the Great Depression, the United States had developed a welfare state that was less generous than the average across Europe but not qualitatively different. Like the European welfare states, the United States had a nearly universal system of retirement benefits. It had a national system of unemployment insurance for workers who had lost a job and a system of income support (welfare) that provided the basic necessities for the poorest families.
Furthermore the United States still appeared to be moving in the direction of further expansion of the welfare state at the time ....
This was not the course the country followed over the next quarter century. While there were still extensions of the welfare state in some areas, the explicit goal of much public policy in the period was to limit the expansion of the welfare state and in many cases roll back prior gains. And this policy shift did not apply only to governmental social welfare programs. There was a larger agenda to tilt the playing field in ways that favored those at the top end of the income distribution.
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2 comments:
JQ-
Do you own the Baker Book? If so, Loco Foco and I are interested in borrowing it. We are wonking up big time in our holiday and winter reading list
I owe it all to my library card, Megnanimous. Personally, it was a fun read, but I don't know if I would pay for that book.
I do, however, own the Jamie Galbraith book that you have asked about and have been carrying around for you, though I never seem to see you.
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