David Leonhardt, Ours Was the Shining Future: The Story of the American Dream

 

David Leonhardt, Ours Was the Shining Future: The Story of the American Dream, (NY:  Random House, 2023), 395 pages, $32.00

In his new book New York Times journalist David Leonhardt gives readers the origin of the term “American Dream.” It derives from an 1880’s book of history by an author I have never heard of named James Truslow Adams. A lengthy quote from the book, titled The Epic of America, describes the better, richer and happier life future progress will bring to Americans. As you might guess the Leonardt book writes about the disappearing American Dream.

The book has an Introduction, a Part I entitled “The Rise” with four chapters and a Part II entitled “The Fall” with six chapters, followed by a Conclusion of 26 pages. For no obvious reason the Introduction is numbered in roman numerals, ix- xxxiv, which often signals something readers might skip over.  Here though the Introduction should be read as part of the book.

Halfway into the introduction Leonhardt explains “For almost forty years now, the United States has been doing a worse job than any similar country of keeping its citizens healthy and alive.” How true, but he does not blame our failure on capitalism. Instead, he writes “My central argument is that capitalism remains the best system for delivering rising living standards to the greatest number of people – but only a certain type of capitalism.” He fills in this argument by defining three forces he argues generate the rise and fall of Democratic Capitalism as practiced in the United States. He gives brief discussion of Power, Culture, Investment.

The four chapters of Part I, The Rise, offer quite disparate people and events intended to trace the rise of the American Dream. Discussion stays within the 1920’s up to the early 1960’s.  The first chapter gives a sketch of depression era labor history and union organizing using the 1934 Minneapolis Teamsters strike as an example of working-class effort and success.  In chapter two readers meet businessman Paul Hoffman and a selection of other businessmen including automobile executive and Michigan Governor George Romney as examples of people who worked as trustees of the common welfare. Leonhardt contrasts the career and sacrifice of George Romney, the father, with his son Mitt Romney who opted for money making at Bain Capital. Chapter three does much the same for another selection of people that stayed in long run careers. Include here Dwight Eisenhower, computer pioneer Grace Hopper and some discussion of the government’s move to support long term research. Chapter 4 features the efforts of A. Philip Randolph of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and his early struggles for racial equality.

Next, begins the six chapters of Part II, the Fall, that starts with chapter five entitled “The Young Intelligentsia.” Here readers meet C. Wright Mills, Tom Hayden, Betty Friedan, Raph Nader and follow their careers along with a supporting cast of people Leonhardt defines as New Left. He narrates their efforts and successes before shifting to the careers of people he defines as the old left, primarily four labor union leaders of the 1950’s and 1960’s: George Meany, Cesar Chavez, Walter Reuther and Jerry Wurf. Leonhardt takes six pages describing Meany’s failure to expand the labor movement, and while more charitable with the others they too failed to unify the working class.

Chapter Six starts describing a few celebrated crimes of the 1960’s and a plot of crime data that documents the increasing crime rate.  There follows a discussion of the academic and political response to crime.  Here Leonhardt provides the reaction to crime of Spiro Agnew, Richard Nixon, George Wallace and a much longer discussion of Robert Kennedy. Kennedy confronted the crime issue to unite the working class, something Democratic politicians have avoided ever since.

Chapter 7 and 8 develops the evolution of conservative ideology following Richard Nixon’s election. Many are mentioned in this effort in Chapter 7 but it primarily follows the Chicago School and the efforts of Milton Friedman and Robert Bork. Chapter 8 follows with the October 1973 Middle East oil embargo, which Leonhardt treats as the beginning of an era that “Clears the Track for Business.” Here Leonhardt follows the Ronald Reagan era and those in the anti-tax movement and the de-regulators like lobbyist Charls Walker, Congressman Jack Kemp, deregulator Ann Gorsuch and a little more of Robert Bork. The closing pages describe the Democrats response and evaluates the economic success of Republican “Neoliberals.”

Chapter Nine, “This Little Village Called America,” gives the historical background and politics of immigration. Narrative starts with 1924 and moves forward to Edward Kennedy and the 1965 immigration law, then onward to Congresswomen Barbara Jordan and the 1986 amendments and on to Bill Clinton, Bernie Sanders and the present immigration troubles. Chapter Ten, the last chapter before the conclusion, describes the decline in education spending, the rise of health care and income support subsidies and the failure to invest in the future or address inequality of income and wealth.

The designation of the first four chapters as Rise and the last six chapters as Fall feels out-of-place; all ten chapters feel like Fall.  Possibly the editors at Random House wanted something that feels good to include, but I found that quite difficult to find. For example, the Rise chapters included the 1934 Minneapolis Teamsters strike where employers made public calls to organize a “citizen army” of vigilantes to end picketing as a first response. Continuing the strike required a dangerous, deadly and ferocious battle to fight the employer’s organized violence until finally the intervention of Governor Olsen as impartial mediator got employers to the bargaining table. While the strike ended with some wage and labor gains, they amounted to a hiccup; I cannot find a consistent Rise through any periods in America’s labor relations.

Think of the above as a minor criticism to an otherwise well written book of important economic and public policy subjects. The book makes a rough progression through time, where chapter narratives are primarily topical and treat the people and events in the narrative as evidence for drawing conclusions. Leonhardt offers censure across the political spectrum such as “What the New Left tried to do, it often succeeded at doing. Yet, the movement never made much of an attempt to improve pay, benefits, and job conditions of the working class, . . .” How true.

Before narrating the chapter 7-8 Nixon-Reagan era, Leonhardt suggests “By the late 1960’s, millions of American workers had no political home.” How true and a perfect introduction for describing the corporate agenda that leaves the working class with declining real wages and greater inequality by 2025. Be sure to read the immigration chapter carefully, it provides a thorough and excellent discussion of the evolving controversies of immigration law and policy, the best chapter in my opinion.

The Conclusion chapter returns to the American dream and the power, culture, investment forces that he mentioned at the beginning. He writes “If there is a central reason for the decline of the American dream over the past half century, it has been the lack of a strong political movement dedicated to protecting that dream.”  Lack of a strong political movement translates to a failure of the always-divided Democratic Party to be an opposition party and defend the working class.

The need for change and new direction dominates the conclusion narrative: “Think about how different American society might be if there were also strong movements to reduce corporate concentration, raise taxes on the wealthy, lower medical costs, create universal pre-K education and increase middle class pay.” He advises progressives interested in building a movement for change needs to know it “requires making the left less upscale than it now is and more inclusive of people who are not white collar professionals” and he counsels for a reinvigorated labor movement and listening more to the working class. In the last two paragraphs of the book Leonhardt expresses outrage for the past up to the present but hope for the future. After finishing the narrative, I can agree America is not hopeless, but I found precious little hope for a shining future.