The Good Life and Its Discontents The American Dream in the Age of Entitlement

by SAMUELSON, ROBERT J.

• ISBN13: 9780679781523
• ISBN10: 0679781528
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1997-09-30
• Publisher: Vintage

Summary

A New York Times Business Book Bestseller "Shrewd and optimistic. . . . [The Good Life and Its Discontents] combines first-rate analysis with persuasive historical, political and sociological insights." --The New Republic Today Americans are wealthier, healthier, and live longer than at any previous time in our history. As a society, we have never had it so good. Yet, paradoxically, many of us have never felt so bad. For, as Robert J. Samuelson observes in this visionary book, our country suffers from a national sense of entitlement--a feeling that someone, whether Big Business or Big Government, should guarantee us secure jobs, rising living standards, social harmony, and personal fulfillment. In The Good Life and Its Discontents, Samuelson, a national columnist for Newsweek and the Washington Post, links our rising expectations with our belief in a post-Cold War vision of an American utopia. Using history, economics, and psychology, he exposes the hubris of economists and corporate managers and indicts a government that promises too much to too many constituencies. Like David Reisman's The Lonely Crowd and John Kenneth Galbraith's The Affluent Society, the result is a book that defines its time--and that is sure to shape the national debate for years to come. "A smart, balanced epitaph for an era--with a few clues for what's ahead." --Business Week "Lucid [and] nonsectarian . . . Samuelson traces how the reasonable demand for progress has given way to the excessive demand for perfection." --The New York Times

Author Biography

Robert J. Samuelson is a columnist for the Washington Post. He began his journalism career as a reporter for the Post in 1969. He is the author of The Great Inflation and Its Aftermath; The Good Life and Its Discontents: The American Dream in the Age of Entitlement; and Untruth: Why the Conventional Wisdom Is (Almost Always) Wrong, a collection of his columns. He lives in Bethesda, Maryland, with his wife, Judy Herr. They have three children.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Preface to the Vintage Edition
Introduction
The Entitlement Society
The Postwar Paradox	p. 3
History's Chasm	p. 18
The Cult of Affluence	p. 34
Prosperity's Broken Promise	p. 49
The New Capitalism
The Apostles of Control	p. 67
Cheery Economics	p. 85
The Myth of Management	p. 104
The Real Economy	p. 122
The Politics of Overpromise
Colliding Ideals	p. 141
Borrow and Spend	p. 155
Elusive Equality	p. 172
Suicidal Government	p. 188
Epilogue: After Entitlement
History's Cycles	p. 207
Responsibility, Not Entitlement	p. 218
Crisis or Consensus?	p. 232
Afterword to the Vintage Edition	p. 243
Public Opinion	p. 257
Incomes and Living Standards	p. 269
Notes	p. 287
Index	p. 325
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