America's Economic Dilemma

Jeffrey Madrick, in The End of Affluence: The Causes and Consequences of America's Economic Dilemma, explains the meaning of his title and in doing so summarizes his work:

By "the end of affluence," I mean the period of slow economic growth . . . which began in 1973 and shows no sign of ending as we enter the late 1990s. . . . Slow economic growth over two decades has created conditions in America that are significantly different from those that shaped our earlier history. In my view, slow growth is the main cause of the political and social problems we find most critical today (x).

Madrick argues that Americans have developed a new way of looking at their lives, at the American economy and the way that economy affects their lives, and at their futures. Because of this long-term economic slowdown, a sense of uncertainty about life, politics, society, and economic reality has pervaded the nation.

Basically, Madrick offers two roads to the future. First, all will be well again "if rapid economic growth does return, our wages will rise, we will be more willing to pay taxes, we will save more," and the nation as a whole on every level will benefit. However, "if rapid growth does not return," Madrick warns that

we will have to learn to deal with the social and political consequences differently than in the past. Such changes will be difficult and politically dangerous. We can face this challenge wisely only if we acknowledge the true source of our problems (xii).

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g the economy without sufficiently perceiving the causes of the troubles of that economy is like analyzing the loss of cheese without acknowledging that the kitchen was recently full of rats. The author's two brief mentions of the Vietnam War do not address this problem. One is entirely dismissive of the war as a factor in the nation's economic situation (19), and the second seems to acknowledge the impact of the war, but then oddly lets the claim lay there uninvestigated (122). Madrick does, however, examine many economic strings which connect the post-1973 slowdown to earlier eras, going as far back as the eighteenth century. In this historical analysis, Madrick is effective in showing the long, if not the short roots of the economic development of the nation. Madrick's long-term analysis leads to his conclusion that the United States is in a unique position economically in which most Americans take for granted that any slowdown will be temporary and will lead to even greater prosperity: Despite the many problems of the last two decades, few Americans, I think, have come to terms with the possibility that our prospects may have changed permanently. We remain a deeply optimistic country. . . . But in the real world there i

Category: Economics - A