Customer Reviews

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

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This was one of the most intelligent, original, and colorful books that I have read this year. Most of the author's points are right on the mark. The great mystery of our time for political analysts is the large gap between peoples' evident satisfaction with their own life and their overwhelming disappointment with public life. Mr. Samuelson not only is perceptive enough to point out this overlooked paradox but diagnoses it well. This will be certainly a bold challenge for the next generation of public leaders.

It is quite easy to enjoy this book. By presenting relevant statistics Samuelson provides logical, however preliminary, conclusions as to why we are disillusioned as a nation. His ideas in regards to the promise of prosperity are particularly interesting. Finally the border of the puzzle has begun to form from the implications inherent in Samuelson's contentions. Most importantly, this book provides a framework full of hypotheses and statistical starting points for future social psychological research.

This book is excellent! It is a well written book about how even though we have more than any other culture in the history of civilization we are beating ourselves up because we haven't solved every problem. It also has an interesting discussion of the impact of technology on our society and our expectations of what technology will give to us. If you are interested in politics, technology, or the psychology of the nation as a whole this is an awesome buy.

It has a ton of tables and figures in the back that back up the (sometimes controversial) ideas. For example, most people are relatively happy with their life today, yet think that the majority is unhappy.

My review is based on the first edition of this book.

I found out about this book when I happened upon an old issue of Newsweek I had kept around, from 1996. Its cover story was an article made up of excerpts from it, and was titled "Great Expectations". I read the article and found Samuelson's analysis just as prescient today as when he wrote it. I wanted to see more of what he had to say, and so I got this book.

I was not disappointed, at least in the analysis department. The book is part economic history, and part sociological/political analysis. He starts with the Great Depression, describing what happened. I'm in my 30s, and I had not heard a detailed history of the Depression in school. Just that the economy was in the dumps for about 10 years, and that tons of people were poor, hungry, and unemployed, and it inspired FDR's New Deal agenda. He fleshes this out some, giving quotes from sources of the time, describing what conditions were like, and how people felt about their predicament and their future. He tries to give a psychological picture of what the Depression did to the people who lived through it. He also provides analysis about what caused the Depression, how the institutions of power groped for a solution to the problem, and that some of what they did worked, and some of it didn't. Interestingly, what he says worked was not necessarily what a lot of people thought fixed the problem.

Then he moves into the post-WW II boom, the world that the Baby Boomer generation grew up in, and the psychological change this caused in people's minds about what was possible. His main thesis is that this period of time, the economic expansion from the end of WW II to the early 1970s, produced an exaggerated, somewhat distorted view of economic expectations. Part of this view was formed by what Samuelson would call mistaken notions of what got us out of the Depression. It was this time period which produced the idea that in the future, each generation would be financially and materially better off than the generation that preceded it. He calls this notion a myth, and proceeds to give his own explanation of why the expansion occurred, why it petered out in the 1970s, and why the notion that each generation would just get richer and richer has not held true. He does not blame government for failing to do its job to "make" things better. In fact he points out that government's attempts to shape the economy were based on flawed policy thinking anyway. He explains that the economy changed over time, more competitors entered the marketplace, and the idea that the entreprenuer was a dying figure in the U.S. economy did not hold true. He gives an alternative view of what has happened: that while incomes and living standards have not rapidly risen for all concerned, products that consumers buy have gotten cheaper, so in effect we've traded our former vision for making things more affordable to more people in the U.S.

He also comments on the politics of the U.S. since WW II. He stresses that while government can do little to shape the economy, public figures, when running for public office, keep saying that they can. He gets into a realm of wishful thinking here. Election after election, the public keeps having this expectation, based on a notion that he contends is not real, that the government can control and shape the economy so that we can have rising wages and higher living standards, and whoever runs for public office keeps pandering to this mistaken view. The problem always occurs that when they get into office, the public realizes that they have not changed the direction of the economy, and so they become disillusioned and angry with the politicians for failing to accomplish something that was never realistic in the first place. He expresses a wish that somehow the public would disabuse themselves of this notion, and the politicians would choose to educate the public, rather than pander to their mistaken notions. It's a nice thought, but it isn't going to happen. Politicians know that it never helps their election chances to tell the public they're wrong.

Where Samuelson falls down is in providing a clear vision about what we as Americans should do, or how we should think, in order to adjust well to the wrenching changes that have shaped the way in which we work and make money. He grasps at some possible things the country could do (policy changes) that would make dealing with this easier, but his suggestions are incoherent. So I give him good marks for analyzing what's happened to us and why, but he comes up short on solutions to the problems that we as workers face. Nevertheless, I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is serious about understanding our economy, and why our collective notions about it are not necessarily based in reality.

As someone who has to deal with many of the issues that Samuleson addresses, I can vouch for his central thesis that people have come to take progress for granted and have forgotten that there's "no such thing as a free lunch."

On January 11th, 1944 -- about fifteen months before his death -- American president Franklin Roosevelt gave an address to Congress outlining what became known as his "economic bill of rights." Cleverly interwoven into Roosevelt's harangues about more sacrifice for the (still ongoing) war effort was a startling list of new guarantees for the American people that he hoped would avoid future conflicts: the *right* to a job, to decent housing, to adequate health care, extending to protection for businessmen from "unfair competition," and the right of farmers to sell products "at a decent return." Roosevelt outlined his program very clearly and effectively: "The one supreme objective for the future ... can be summed up in one word: security."

I mention the highlights from this underappreciated speech because it serves as a perfect introduction to Robert Samuelson's thesis: that lavish and unrealistic promises from large American institutions (primarily government) have created a public -- not to mention a body politic -- weaned on entitlement. Roosevelt didn't exactly say who was going to provide all this employment, housing, health care and "protection", but I doubt his listeners had many doubts. I'm rather surprised Samuelson doesn't mention Roosevelt's address since the author places huge emphases on the Great Depression and World War II as the defining historical events of his "age of entitlement."

Samuelson begins this (1997) work by trying to address an odd -- and certainly still-relevant -- paradox: pollsters consistently show Americans fairly happy with their *individual* lot but witheringly cynical about the state of the country. How could this be? How did it come about? (Clues above.) And what does it mean for our future politics, culture, and industry?

His argument is as clearly organized as it is novel: a first section explains the issue, the next two delve into the business and political encouragement and fallout of this phenomena and the last suggests approaches and solutions. This sounds simple, but given the vast tangents possible in his thesis Mr. Samuelson must be admired for his focus. I found my only minor complaints with his perspective in the last section, where he triumphs "responsibility" and other rather vague cure-alls for our entitlement hangover. I agree with the general idea, but it appears slightly tacked-on, as if the author was wary of simply defining a great problem without a solution.

A few other points could stand a firmer basis. Samuelson at times certainly has axes to grind: he heads an entire chapter "the myth of management" and proceeds to trot out the usual big business shibboleths (myopia, inertia, bureaucracy, lavish corporate pay) to justify his attack on the very concept of management ("To `manage' is to run something. Beyond that, the word does not mean much."). This glibness is not uncommon. In a section on America's "colliding ideals", Samuelson concludes that the growth of huge companies in the late 19th century "undermined [the] confidence that individuals, with hard work and self-discipline, could control their own destinies. On the contrary, they seemed increasingly at the whim of massive enterprises that they could not influence *as individuals*." (Italics mine.) That aspects of the industrial revolution were de-personalizing is historically well-founded, but to invert the argument to say that individuals were unable to control their very destinies due to the "whim of massive enterprises" is pushing the rhetoric a bit far on a critical point.

Still, Samuelson makes excellent points throughout and -- more importantly -- keeps a laser focus on his overall thesis. His only other major omission is hardly his fault: the events of September 11th 2001. The impact of the terrorist attacks doesn't dilute all his points, but some of them (e.g., balanced budgets, government appointees) grow a little paler through the lens of a global terrorist threat.

Finally: Can you, dear review-reader, honestly answer the question: what do I expect government to do for me? Do you feel *entitled* to anything from your government -- much less "big business" or other large institutions -- based on what you believe they've promised? If you have any hesitation in answering - or are curious about the relevance of these questions in 21st century America - I heartily suggest you read this book.

Samuelson, an energetic and erudite writer, has a fascinating thesis: Amercian's standard of living has not declined, our expectations of life are unrealistic. With a gifted, if somewhat imaginative use of statistics, he purports to explain our problem as our misplaced expectations to "entitlements". These include a rising standard of living, a prosperous economy, opportunity for all and so forth. We need only realize our limits and everything will be all right. Mr. Samuelson needs to leave his office and conduct his research somewhere beyond the beltway to gain a realistic appreciation of the decline of living standards, and the realities of late 20th Century American society.

Samuelson covers the causes, history, effects and cures for today's entitlement mentality. He argues that we have come to expect to much from government and hence are doomed to be perpetually disappointed with it. Samuelson's prose is extremely readable and his tone is of a voice of reason. This book is must reading for anyone who wants to understand how we let government get so big

Samuelson writes about what Hayek called the "fatal conceits" of our public policy system - the idea of entitlements. Entitlements are neither attainable (we won't ever be successful in eliminating the problem we are trying to solve) nor are they capable of being financed (demands beget demands). This is one of those rare books which provides plenty of food for thought across the entire political spectrum

I read "The Good Life and its Discontents: The American Dream in the Age of Entitlement" way back in 1997, and thought it was a good book at the time. I didn't fully grasp how good it was, though, and recently started leafing through it - having retrieved it from an obscure corner of my library - while reflecting on the current situation. From the perspective of mid-2010, it is clear that many of the key drivers of the Great Repression (2007-?) arose out of the mentality of entitlement we developed over the latter half of the 20th century.

The "entitlement" of housing is the most obvious. This is why we have Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the FHA and a seemingly neverending housing crisis. I feel no need to describe the insanity once referred to as the housing "market" - if you are reading this, you know what I mean.

It's been so long since I've read the book I had to go back and reread parts. The chapter on the "Real Economy" explains why recessions are both inevitable and healthy, although Greenspan and Bernanke continued to claim for a decade that they could and should be prevented. The "Myth of Management" will ring true in examining the performance of many major corporations in recent years which failed to see what now seems to obvious. Two chapters in the next section - "Colliding Ideals" and "Borrow and Spend" - are relevant to the public sector debt crisis and the (likely) coming national debt crisis.

If you've never read this book, go back and read it now. It's old, but it is still quite relevant.