5828 .Ours Was the Shining Future The Story of the American Dream, by David Leonhardt (read 20 Jan 2024) This book, published in 2023, is full of good commentary re the years in America of the last 50 years, setting out how we have declined recently and what needs to be done to revivify the search for the American dream. It requires greater study than I gave it, but sets out what the author sees as necessary and what he says makes sense. ( )

I took an elective in economics in high school after a teacher recommended it. What I most remember was being told that a high national debt was the result of a growing economy, and since it was money we owe to ourselves, we shouldn’t be worried about a high debt.

When I took that class, the economy was still good. My dad had a union job with great benefits. We had two cars and a house in the suburbs. He talked about his international lab at Chrysler, with engineers from India and Lebanon.

But society was also under strain. We watched helicopters flying overhead, taking National Guard to Detroit in ’67. Kids from my high school class went to an antiwar protest and fhad to run from the police. Inflation and lines at gas stations plagued my early marriage, and when we bought a house the mortgage had a 15.5% interest rate. Fast forward to 2008, and when our son graduated from college, it took two years to find a job.

What happened?

David Leonhardt’s take on the American Dream is a comprehensive history of the social and political influences that drove the growth of the middle class and later drove huge business profits at the expense of workers.

Yes, there is a lot of information, but I found it interesting reading.

He breaks the book down into “The Rise” and “The Fall.” A central theme of The Rise is the importance of unions to workers. President F. D. Roosevelt supported living wages and unions. After WWII, business believed that well paid workers was good for the economy, therefore good for business. In The Fall, he shows how the breakdown in society into separate interest groups, especially those with ‘elite’ concerns over working/middle class concerns, impacted politics and the economy, and how social disorder and crime drove people to switch political allegiance.

I found the book to be balanced, engaging, and very informative.

Thanks to the publisher for a free book. ( )