Customer Reviews

Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(10)
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1 star:		(8)

 

 

The last chapter, entitled "Alternative Futures," sounds a note of optimism. All that we need is for America's elites to recognize the problem, come to their senses, and set things straight. Right. As if Murray has not been futilely expounding this message for the past 40 years. He cites Robert Fogel's "The Fourth Great Awakening" as an inspiration for his optimism. America has overcome crises of the spirit in the past, after we lost first the Puritan spirituality, then the secular sense of mission which fueled our independence, then the crisis of the depression which was answered by the New Deal and the welfare state. Fogel argues that today's crisis is a want of meaning in our lives. Murray believes we can reestablish it.

Murray says that there are only about four fundamental personal characteristics undergirding a happy life. The ones he names are two character traits: honesty and industry, and two societal connections: meaningful relationships with one's fellow man, and a satisfying marriage. He provides another, overlapping list of four elements that have historically defined American society which he calls the four founding virtues: industriousness, honesty, marriage, and religiosity. He goes into some length presenting sociological surveys that demonstrate the importance and the interconnectedness of these characteristics to personal happiness, and their importance to the well-being of society. If only we could recover them, all would be well.

The backbone of his book is a comparison between two hypothetically constructed communities, Fishtown and Belmont. They are based on real places, predominantly white neighborhoods of Philadelphia and Boston respectively, with incomes at the 8th and 97th national percentiles. They exemplify the directions taken by subsets of white America as we are, in the words of his title, "Coming Apart." In constructing his abstract communities he excludes minorities and people outside the age range of 30-49. He goes on to describe how these communities have evolved over the past half-century.

Fortune has put me in a good position to judge the accuracy of his characterization. I am a few months older than Murray and spent my 25 year marriage in Bethesda, one of the Belmont like suburbs of Washington DC, not far from Murray himself, with a wife who was born in the actual Fishtown and some of whose family remained spiritually anchored there. That gave me time on both sides of the tracks. Moreover, I started out that way - in a blue-collar neighborhood close to Berkeley, where my classmates and intellectual peers were definitely Belmont types.

One of the things I enjoyed about the book was Murray's 20 questions to help an Overeducated Elitist Snob (OES) such as almost everybody who's going to be reading this book determine how well, if at all, they know the "real America" where 80 percent of white people live. By virtue of my blue-collar neighborhood and my Army service, experience is that younger men simply don't have, I scored a respectable 41 on his test, placing me well in the category of those with the most experience with the real America. The shock was how low you can go on his scale... how totally out of touch my Bethesda ex-neighbors could be with the country their governing. I knew this intellectually, but Murray brings it home.

Back to the story, in 1960 Fishtown was a very Catholic neighborhood in which the men worked, the women stayed home, and the kids went to Catholic school. My ex-wife was one of them. What they considered to be social problems were excess drinking, quite a bit of it, fistfights and a bit of philandering. Young people, however, knew what was expected of them. They got married, before or after becoming pregnant, and provided families for kids. It was a moral expectation that was generally observed. People had responsibilities and took them seriously. They did not accept welfare, they answered the call when they were drafted, and they participated in church and civic organizations.

Fishtown in 2010 is a very different place. People simply don't feel an obligation to either work or get married. There are many never married people, and many out of wedlock children. A lot of the guys are just bums - don't work, don't want to work, don't want to get married, and waste their time watching television. An inordinately large number have figured how to game the system by qualifying for Social Security disability. Their attitude is that work is for chumps. Quite a few of them have drinking and drug problems, but Murray does not consider these disabilities to be nearly as important as the lack of any of the four foundations in their lives. No more religion, no social connections with the community, either no marriage or an unsatisfactory marriage, and no vocation.

Murray, a longtime libertarian, claims that intrusive, European-style government has taken away the need for these four virtues and undermined the people who attempt to practice them. Kids don't need a father if the government provides money and social workers. Men don't need work if the government gives them handouts. Social connections aren't important if there's nothing really to be done improving the place.

Murray claims that the state of affairs in Belmont is much better. People work hard, get married, stay married, are resolutely and obsessively concerned with their children, and are involved in community. More than that, counterintuitively, they are more involved in church than are the people remaining in Fishtown. They may not believe the dogmas, but they understand the social value of belonging.

What has changed in Belmont is the conviction that the set of virtues they practice really ought to be preached. Belmont now believes totally in moral relativism. If somebody else doesn't want to remain married to his kids' mother, doesn't want to work, or spends all of his money on drink and drugs and all of his time watching TV, they're not going to be judgmental. That's somebody else's life.

Another thing that has changed in Belmont is their acceptance of lower-class culture. A Belmont mother will not prevent her daughter from dressing like a hooker, using gutter language picked up from rap music, or swearing like a sailor. There is not a sense that "Belmont girls don't do that." Also out the door are old-fashioned morality, the idea that you shouldn't seduce girls when they're drunk, cheat on tests, or tell the clerk at McDonald's if he gives you too much change. People just don't have a sense of seemliness anymore. Kids can wear the most outrageous clothes, and their parents can take the most outrageous bonuses from their companies, and rich people can take inappropriate and undeserved handouts from the government without blushing in the slightest.

Murray makes a few huge oversights. Race is one. White people are everybody's least favorite ethnicity. We get called anti-Semites and racists, and are constantly backpedaling in the face of accusations from Hispanics and overwhelmed by the sheer intellect and industry of the Asians. Even in the unlikely event we were to resist in the ways he advocates, society would still sweep us along its unfortunate path. Another oversight is education. All sectors of society are being worse educated year-by-year, Belmont, Fishtown, and most especially the black and Hispanic groups he doesn't mention. The educational system seems dedicated, whether by design or sheer ineptitude, to destroying religion, fostering dependence on government, and stultifying personal industry and ambition. Oh, and it goes out of its way to denigrate anything in American history of which white people might be proud.

My Puritan forefathers hoped to establish a country in which the four founding virtues - industry, honesty, religion and marriage - might flourish. It worked for a few centuries, but now appears to be hopelessly broken. I do not think it is possible within any country. Murray himself relates Toynbee's description of the way in which every great empire contains the seeds of its own destruction. I would advocate that each individual leave countries out of the equation as they seek the best future their family. Find a community - Mormons would be a good place to look - where civic virtues are still in evidence. Find a way to educate your family - homeschooling looks good - to shield them from the propaganda and the mediocrity of the public system. Find a religious community of like-minded people. And do not be afraid to look the world over to find these things - America may no longer be the place.

"Coming Apart" offers a very effective analysis of the diverging economic prospects and social values of American society since 1963. I should say first off that many people seem biased against this book because of the controversy surrounding Murray's prior book, "The Bell Curve." Murray has taken great pains in this new book to avoid the issue of race, focusing specifically on white Americans. I could find nothing offensive or even politically incorrect regarding race in this book.

The author's main premise is that over the past 4+ decades, America has divided strongly into two classes, that he illustrates with fictional town names. "Belmont" refers to the cognitive elite: The top 20% with college or graduate degrees, who hold jobs in knowledge-based occupations. And "Fishtown" refers to the working class: The bottom 30% with at most a high school diploma and (if employed) working in blue collar or low wage service jobs. Murray demonstrates quite effectively (using statistics) that the people who make up "Belmont" have become more industrious and more traditional in their attitudes toward marriage, family and community, while the people in "Fishtown" are living in communities that are basically falling apart and where traditional nuclear families are becoming harder and harder to find.

While the book bases its arguments on solid statistics, I have two primary complaints. First, it does not always do a good job of distinguishing cause and effect. For example, the author points out the working class men now choose to engage in much more "leisure" and less work. He then conjures up a vision of a typical male, who all bent out of shape because he doesn't have the opportunity has grandfather had at the GM factory, turns down a $12 per hour job driving a delivery truck. I find it VERY hard to believe that $12/hr delivery jobs are going begging. If, in fact, a lot of working class men are not actively pounding the pavement looking for these jobs, there could be reasons: Maybe competition is so intense it is hopeless. Or maybe the jobs get given out based on networking or cronyism, so someone out of the loop has little chance. But I fail to see how "laziness" is the primary cause here.

The second thing is that the book does not anticipate the future very well. Just about everyone will agree that technology and globalization have hit "Fishtown" hard. What fewer people seem to see is that BELMONT IS NEXT. If you doubt this, consider how IBM's Watson computer won at Jeopardy. Or consider the number of information technology and software engineering jobs getting offshored. Or look at what the internet is doing to journalism. These are all jobs that Murray puts in the "Belmont" category. But in the future, a lot of these people are not going to be able to afford to stay in Belmont. Of course, Belmont will still be around; it will just be occupied by fewer and fewer people.

To get an idea of how technology and globalization are likely to change the workforce (and society) of the future, read The Lights in the Tunnel: Automation, Accelerating Technology and the Economy of the Future. Don't assume that today's status quo will continue indefinitely!

Charles Murray has never been one to shy away from a volatile subject. As a result, he has been able to make startling arguments on topics that are rather taboo in the modern intellectual climate. With the Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life (A Free Press Paperbacks Book), he argued that intelligence, which is partly innate, is more important to social success than socioeconomic status. In Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences, 800 B.C. to 1950, he ranks the cultural value of different civilizations and assesses the west as by far the greatest. It's clear from his work that Murray does not suffer from delusion--he is no quack. And the content of his arguments is engaging for anyone who is open-minded and willing to consider arguments from new perspectives.

Here, Murray explains that white America has grown increasingly divided along class lines. There is a clear moral case being made here. The lower class is falling into illegitimacy, crime, and poverty while the upper class is excelling in education, career, and family. The main cause is simple: primarily, a devaluation of white middle class values brought on by increased intervention by the government. This intervention takes the form of welfare support, in which the government gives incentive for people to break apart families and avoid work. Meanwhile, the upper class is left alone to prosper in its highly technical fields.

This argument will challenge the reader, whether you agree with the central premise or not. At the very least, it is worth an in-depth discussion. Reflect upon it with regard to George Gilder's Men and Marriageargument, and Eric Robert Morse's argument in Juggernaut: Why the System Crushes the Only People Who Can Save It.

Definitely a five-star book for the provocative ideas alone.

In his latest book, Mr. Murray writes about his ideas (based on statistical interpretation) of what ails America. He brings together 4 themes.

1. The conflict between "elite" cultural values and those of the main stream.
2. Decline in Religion & family values
3. Degradation of American Exceptionalism(in the World)
4. The dangers of the US turning into an EU style Welfare state.

His treatise begins with his discussion about the new upper class (the top 5%, which is $287K Household income - 2010 census data), who are isolating themselves into their own neighborhoods and "cultural" groups from the rest of us. He describes them as the ones with the top educations, jobs and who pass their wealth,"brains"and cultural values onto their children, which is diametrically opposed to the new lower class - the bottom 20% of the white population (he was smart this time and left Blacks and Latinos out of the equation - no race card to play). These "whites" are the ones, who will not work, who raise children out of wedlock and have stopped (or minimized) participating in religion or their community at large.

He writes that he is afraid that we will go the "European" way and give the job of fixing broken families and communities to government bureaucracies which are bound to fail. For the "wealthy", it is easier to accept paying higher taxes than to get involved with people they do not understand. Living in Europe now, I see this and can relate to it.

Overall, he has an interesting analysis and prospective on the current "sociological" problems within the bottom 20% of America, why they are there and how to possibly correct it. However, I think it is somewhat unrealistic to believe that the top 5% are going drive from their "gated" community and park their BMW outside of "Waffle House" to have a discussion with the bottom 20%. There are obvious problems, but the solutions are a lot more complicated than what he writes. However, it is a good effort to "wake" people up again to some of the sociological problems facing America today. Expect in this election year to see more books published on - What is wrong with America.

I have read Mr. Murray's work before and I have been consistently impressed with his rigor, professional integrity and the sheer depth of his material. "The Bell Curve" is the most impactful book I have ever read. This latest serving is no exception.

"Coming Apart" seeks to answer the question of what happened in the United States, socioeconomically speaking, between 1963 and 2010. He ignores the impact of intelligence in this work and chooses to focus solely on whites, as he did in Part 2 of "The Bell Curve".

Contrary to many criticisms of the book, which appear to have at least superficial merit, I do not agree that Mr. Murray is "blaming" the lower class for their refusal to work. Pointing out that a primary reason why they are unemployed is their apparent refusal or inability to hold down even a menial job is not assigning blame. This is not a moralistic or polemical book; far from it.

I find the book has tremendous value for understanding the divergence of America on the basis of class instead of race. Mr. Murray could have chosen to include race but (wisely in my view) decided not to. Foregoing the opportunity to explore more interesting dynamics is the price paid to avoid insipid accusations of racism which are themselves racist.

"Belmont" and "Fishtown," while at first blush appear to be somewhat flippant, are based on real locations: Belmont, Massachusetts and Fishtown, otherwise known as Kensington, Pennsylvania. The statistical evidence he presents takes on a disturbing meaning when we are confronted with the actual stories from the real Fishtown in chapter 12. The pain experienced by many (perhaps the majority) of the women there is heartbreaking. The men appear as Kay Hymowitz's proverbial "men-children," overgrown kids wearing pseudo-adult clothing but nonetheless capable of doing real social and economic damage.

Plenty of the reviews of this book elsewhere express frustration that Mr. Murray did not focus on what seemed to them the obvious culprit for this divergence: the decline of American manufacturing. While I agree that the manufacturing decline is important to understand the social and economic dynamics of the past 40 years, it is beside the point. Mr. Murray explicitly stated that he was not going to focus on the causes, the "whys," instead merely focusing on the facts and circumstances as they stand today.

That being said, his anecdote about abandoned factories being turned into loft apartments speaks for itself. The statistics he presents in the context of the four founding virtues illuminate in painfully precise detail how far the process of divergence has gone. Belmont, despite popular perceptions of being significantly more atheistic than the rest of America, is actually more "socially" religious (in the sense of going to church) then Fishtown! This was very surprising and enlightening for me. Mr. Murray invokes Robert Putnam's work on social capital to explain how the decline of the four founding virtues among the lower class has put it on a path which may lead to its complete destruction.

The statistics in the chapter on industriousness are enlightening. I couldn't help but notice that a few of the indicators started to turn negative for Fishtown in the mid-1970s. Specifically, Figures 9.3 on page 173, 9.5 on page 176 and 9.7 on page 179 all turn upward either in the early or mid-70s. I believe a case could be made that the coincidence of the worsening indicators for Fishtown with the deteriorating trade balance is not accidental. The loss of America's manufacturing capability to offshore competition directly impacted Fishtown negatively. I would further argue that the manufacturing decline also played a role in the formation of the new upper class.

Off the top of my head, I can think of at least two reasons to account for the apparent unwillingness of Fishtown men to work. The first is psychological: they are a simple lot. Having a job in the manufacturing sector, making some obscure but tangible product, the men of Fishtown were content because they were making things they could see and they were being paid well for them. The loss of those high-paying manufacturing jobs was a psychological shock that profoundly altered them. They became discouraged as they saw their industries wither and die as the trade deficit grew ever larger. The effects of this discouragement altered the dynamics of Fishtown, which was already somewhat rough-and-tumble anyway. The job losses had the unfortunate effect of amplifying and exacerbating the negative aspects while diminishing the positive.

Does this mean the manufacturing decline directly caused their behavior? Of course not. Everyone is responsible for their own actions, emotions and motives. I believe we must look at Fishtown in the context of the manufacturing decline to fully understand the lower class today.

The second reason is economic: the loss of high-paying jobs made it more difficult for average weekly earnings to keep up with inflation. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, average weekly earnings in 2009 CPI-W dollars fell dramatically after 1973 and have never come close to regaining that peak since. Today, according to official BLS numbers, average weekly earnings are down at least 13% from the 1973 peak. (I believe this is for all classes, not just Fishtown, but the effects on Fishtown alone are obvious enough.) I do not believe it was a coincidence that the trade deficit grew explosively in the inflationary recessions of the 1970s. As inflation accelerated, the manufacturing decline began in earnest, devastating the working class communities that made up Fishtown.

Mr. Murray has given us something of great value: a mirror. The class divergence depicted in "Coming Apart" will indeed tear America apart if something is not done. I believe one of the most important things that must be done is a reinvigoration of America's manufacturing sector.

Five stars. Highly recommended.

(Edited on 02/19/12)

Many years ago, I read Murray's earlier controversial book, The Bell Curve. When I read Coming Apart, I was reminded of what I liked and did not like about The Bell Curve. The author is a top notch writer and weaves a great story from the enormous range of statistical studies that he draws upon. The problem that I have is that the inferences that he draws from the statistics in order to support his thesis are far too broad. The data that he pulls together are really important. They support the idea that white America has split into very different camps and he focuses on two extremes. The first of these is the Ivy League yuppie types who live in their little enclaves, totally insulated from reality. I live in one of the places that he describes and he astutely challenges his readers to examine their own positions and lifestyles and notes that probably the readers of his book are overwhelmingly in the new elite. And here we already run up on some of the limits of Murray's thesis. He asserts but in no way proves that the demographic enclaves of the white educated and professional upper middle class are made up of a homogeneous group of private-school-educated upper-middle-class elites who have never seen nor understood the world beyond theirs. The fact that most Ivy Leaguers end up in these enclaves does not mean that everyone there has the same background. There is a critical flaw in the logic. Yes, the author's caricature of well-educated well-off yuppies who are comfortably ensconced in their safe smoke-free world is entertaining and may hit a nerve or two, but the statistics are used to support the story rather than the story emerging from the statistics.

The second extreme that the author focuses on is poor white people with little education or financial resources. It used to be possible to be working class and be in a decent financial situation. Today, this population is an absolute disaster according to Murray's statistics. The white working class (according to Murray) suffers from high unemployment, high poverty, high divorce, high crime, high teen pregnancy, and large numbers of people who are life-long recipients of government handouts. He blames high unemployment among the white working class on a lack of moral virtue and work ethic but gives little real attention to the flow of low-skilled labor to overseas factories. Once again, his statistics are impressive and paint a clear picture of a working class population with serious problems--enormous problems--but the inference as to cause is problematic and lacks the rigor that the author seems to want to attribute. An example. There is a chart which shows that unemployment in this population has been increasing steadily over the past three or four decades and does not seem to go down when the economy is good (or the opposite). Murray ascribes this trend to a moral breakdown in working class America. The relative goodness of the U.S. economy as measured by national employment figures does not tell the whole story. If you are a high-school educated manual laborer, the fact that there are jobs available does not mean that you can do them nor does it mean that you can travel to those jobs even if you have the skills.

An additional example of weakly supported conclusions is in Murray's assertion that personal bankruptcy rates are emblematic of inherent dishonesty among working-class white people. He is trying to make a case that basic honesty and work ethics have declined over recent decades. He then tries to support his case with bankruptcy data, which shows a strong upward trend over the same period. But correlation is not causation. The connection is, at best, plausible.

It is crucial to remember that the main thesis of the book--a contrast between well-educated wealthy whites and poorly-educated poor urban whites--is somewhat contrived. Yes, there is evidence that the American middle class is hollowing out and that there are massive divides between the 'haves' and the 'have nots'. But there are huge populations in America who do not fit neatly into these two categories and it is impossible to draw conclusions about America by looking only at these two extremes.

Charles Murray is one of the United States' most important social analysts . Here he provides a quite troubling portrait of an increasingly polarized white America. In the past thirty years a society where most people once- prided themselves on being 'middle-class' has become one divided into two extremes, the very poor and the very rich. What divides these groups is not simply income, but also social capital, most significantly perhaps , Intelligence. In this book Murray calls the two divides, Fishtown and Belmost. In Fishtown there are high- rates of unemployment, high- rates of divorce, high- rates of single parenthood, decreasing social and religious commitment. In Belmont where the elite live 'old values' still persist. People work hard, parents are devoted to giving their children the best opportunities they can, there is far greater social and religious commitment.
Murray nonetheless faults the Belmont people for having become cowed and timid in regard to presenting their own life- style as an ideal. Rather they do one thing for themselves but have adopted the morally neutral attitude of super- tolerance in which they believe they have no right to put forward their own way- of- life as an example.. Murray believes they thus broadcast the wrong message to those who live in Fishtown those who need the industry, family devotion, social and religious connectedness which would help them back to lives of greater dignity.
As one who strongly believes in the unique and guiding role the United States plays in the world I am troubled by this picture of such a large share of Americans who are not sharing in the American Dream.
Usually it is analysts from the Left who worry about Inequality as a major issue but here someone regarded as a Social Conservative is underlining how serious this issue is.
As commentators as diverse as David Brooks and Niall Ferguson have said this is a 'must read' for those who would understand American Social Reality today.

Don't let Mr. Murray controversial Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life or the criticism you might already heard from this book from keep you away from this brilliant work. As opposed to most recent books dealing with America's decline, this book looks at the cultural and sociological reasons behind the decline, rather than the pure economics view. And another key issue is that the analysis is done using only white Americans as a sample, so there the results are free of any racial bias, and the results are extended to the entire population only near the end of the book.

Nevertheless, Mr. Murray, a declared libertarian, closes the book with a chapter totally biased by his political and moral beliefs. Actually, some of his conclusions are so outrageous, I stopped reading the book short of a few pages to the end (but I did finish it after all). You just wondered how come someone can deliver such a brilliant analysis and reach such wishful thinking, biased and subjective conclusions completely ignoring the effects of globalization and technological change (thus the four star rating instead of five).

Several of the conclusions are so disconnected from reality, that instead of Europe, Mr. Murray just need to look at any of the dozens of developing countries with the same problems among the poor who do not enjoy the welfare benefits Americans do. In fact, just look at the Brazilian example and the well-known "favelas" as the perfect real life example in contradiction of one of his key conclusions. And by the way, the recent cash transfer programs developed by the Brazilian government have lifted millions of poor people to the middle class, and their children now have a better education and health care than their parents. Unfortunately Mr. Murray is blinded by his libertarian ideology and his romantic view of the 200-year + old philosophy embedded in the U.S. Constitution and the philosophy of the founder fathers. The upcoming book The Great Divergence: America's Growing Inequality Crisis and What We Can Do about It presents plenty of evidence (from the social and economical point of view) that rebuts and shows many of Mr. Murray's myths, misconceptions, and wrong assumptions about the American Dream and its exceptionalism.

Due to its contribution from the social and cultural perspective, I think that Mr. Murray's book, other than the caveat regarding the final chapter, is an excellent complement to the other books dealing with America's decline, in particular The Price of Civilization: Reawakening American Virtue and Prosperity, Aftershock: The Next Economy and America's Future, and That Used to Be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back.

When I came on Amazon I was confused as to why there were so many 1 star reviews for this book. The science and statistics are solid, and the recommendations and predictions are not radical or unreasonable.

The reason that this book receives negative press, is because it presents facts that are a threat to a certain worldview. The only way to hold onto a 'communistic' or 'socialistic' world view is to deny certain tenets of human nature discussed in this book. I would strongly reccomend this book to anyone who is looking for a thoughtful answer as to why we are seeing an increase in social inequality. For those of us who aren't satisfied with the answer "The rich are evil! We need to take the huge chests of gold they are hiding and give them back to the poor people who deserve it by birthright," this book provides a scientific and logical answer.

Charles Murray is one of the most distinguished and insightful social scientists of our time. His work over the past few decades has systematically and methodically probed into some of the most consequential and momentous societal and policy issues. Unfortunately, due to the highly politicized and contentious nature of many of such topics, he and his work have been subject to some very severe and withering criticism over the years. It's a testament to Murray's courage, integrity, and intellectual honesty that he stuck to his guns and pursued his research and intellectual interest, often paying a pretty high price in his professional career.

"Coming Apart" is intended as Murray's valedictory. It's a book that crowns his professional career, recapitulates certain points and topics that have long been at the center of his interest, and offers his views of what the future may hold - both for the society and for the research into these issues. It is also a sequel of sorts to "Losing Ground", Murray's seminal 1980s book that explored the consequences (intended and unintended) of various welfare policies between the 1960s and 1980s. That book has pretty much launched Murray's career as a public intellectual, making his influence well beyond the academic and scholarly circles. "Coming Apart" explores the consequences of those same policies over the period of another thirty years of their implementation, ending roughly around the year 2010.

The first two parts of the book are primarily scholarly and descriptive. Here Murray lays down the facts in a very straightforward and informative way. He has always been incredibly adroit at presenting even the most arcane social science data in a way that makes them seem almost effortlessly intuitive. Using all the statistical and methodological tools that are at his disposal, Murray paints a very grim picture of the drastic divergence of the classes in American society. In order to avoid the false impression that the class division is in fact the racial division, Murray concentrates primarily on the divergence of the "white" classes in America. At a later point in the book he actually includes the figures for other ethnic group, but only to make the overarching point that the class divergence has very little to do with the racial and ethnic factors. Murray concentrates primarily on cultural and sociological measures in which the classes have grown apart, such as out-of-wedlock births, religious attendance, etc. One of the more interesting pieces of insight in this book was that, aside from the few large metropolitan areas (New York, Los Angeles, Washington, Chicago, San Francisco), the elite neighborhoods are in fact very evenly split along the cultural and political lines.

The last part of the book is largely discursive and polemical in nature. Here Murray tries to give his own interpretation of the social forces that have driven America apart over the course of the past half a century. His overwhelming message is that America needs to go back to instilling its "founding virtues" in order return to the kinds of social cohesion and solidarity that was prevalent until the 1960s. (He indirectly blames LBJ for the start of the decline, although he never spells this outright.) The four virtues that he has in mind in particular are industriousness, honesty, marriage, and religiosity. I particularly give him credit for including the latter two, especially considering that most libertarians have largely avoided (at best) promoting them. This is one of the main reasons why I have long held Murray in the highest esteem when it comes to discussing policy and social issues.

The founding virtues have in fact never gone out of fashion, and are significantly much more likely to be practiced by the wealthy educated elites than they are by the rest of the society, particularly those in the "underclass." This is very unfortunate, as these virtues are exactly what had enabled many of those in elite circles to obtain their high status. For this state of affairs Murray blames in large part the cultural norms of "inclusivity" and "acceptance," where it has become unfashionable to think that certain cultural norms and behaviors are, in fact, better in every meaningful sense. In Murray's words, it is high time for the elites to start preaching what they practice.

Even though this book is filled with a lot of sobering and depressing statistics, the saddest part for me was in the acknowledgment section. Murray refrained from mentioning ANY of the social scientists that he had consulted while researching and writing this book, because this could prove extremely harmful to their academic careers. It is a really sad that someone who I consider the foremost intellectual giant of our time has to be treated as toxic in the highest intellectual circles. It further highlights how much more someone of far lesser stature must be thought of as unpalatable by the same academics.

This is an outstanding, magnificent work that ought to be read by anyone interested in public policy and the cultural forces that are driving Americans away from each other.