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The Great Stagnation: How America Ate All the Low-Hanging Fruit of Modern History, Got Sick, and Will( Eventually) Feel Better Hardcover – June 9, 2011

by Tyler Cowen (Author)

117 customer reviews

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America has been through the biggest financial crisis since the great Depression, unemployment numbers are frightening, median wages have been flat since the 1970s, and it is common to expect that things will get worse before they get better. Certainly, the multidecade stagnation is not yet over. How will we get out of this mess? One political party tries to increase government spending even when we have no good plan for paying for ballooning programs like Medicare and Social Security. The other party seems to think tax cuts will raise revenue and has a record of creating bigger fiscal disasters than the first. Where does this madness come from? As Cowen argues, our economy has enjoyed low-hanging fruit since the seventeenth century: free land, immigrant labor, and powerful new technologies. But during the last forty years, the low-hanging fruit started disappearing, and we started pretending it was still there. We have failed to recognize that we are at a technological plateau. The fruit trees are barer than we want to believe. That's it. That is what has gone wrong and that is why our politics is crazy. Cowen reveals the underlying causes of our past prosperity and how we will generate it again. This is a passionate call for a new respect of scientific innovations that benefit not only the powerful elites, but humanity as a whole.--This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

--This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

The Great Stagnation: How America Ate All the Low-Hanging Fruit of Modern History, Got Sick, and Will( Eventually) Feel Better

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"As Cowen makes clear, many of this era's technological breakthroughs produce enormous happiness gains, but surprisingly little economic activity." ---David Brooks, The New York Times --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

About the Author

Tyler Cowen is a professor of economics at George Mason University. He is the author of Discover Your Inner Economist and The Age of the Infovore, and he coblogs at www.marginalrevolution.com, one of the world's most influential economics blogs. He writes regularly for The New York Times and has been a contributor to The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Wilson Quarterly, and Slate, among many other popular media outlets.

Product details

Hardcover: 128 pages
Publisher: Dutton; Eventually edition (June 9, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0525952713
ISBN-13: 978-0525952718
Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.5 x 7.9 inches
Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
Average Customer Review: 117 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #392,771 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #202 in Books > Business & Money > Management & Leadership > Planning & Forecasting
- #751 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Politics & Government > Specific Topics > Political Economy
- #1108 in Books > Business & Money > Biography & History > Economic History

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The Short Unhappy Economic Life of Modern America

ByDakotadocon January 3, 2014

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

In September 2008 I taught a graduate social policy course at Arizona State University West. The economy was going into a crazy spiral and I felt obligated to explain why to my students. They sat back in total disbelief as I predicted massive unemployment, a rapid decline in the stock market, a serious decline in public revenues resulting in a loss of public sector jobs, and very high rates of foreclosures. For them, America had always been a great horn of plenty and now, suddenly, it wasn't. They were mystified. This being Arizona, many were beginning to go into foreclosure as payments on sub-prime mortgages were increasing beyond their means. Like so many Americans, their homes were now under water and unaffordable and the public sector jobs they had anticipated getting, had all but disappeared..

For anyone who feels mystified by what's happened to America's economy, Taylor Cowen's "The Great Stagnation: How America Ate All The Low-Hanging Fruit of Modern History, Got Sick, and Will (Eventually) Feel Better" is a good place to start. It's a short book and, certainly, there are books that go into greater detail about the recession, but for the underlying causes, this is a good place to start. It's Cowen's contention that America has prospered without much effort through cheap labor, plentiful resources, and the positive impact of immigration, to name several. He sees an America where all the indicators point to a steady decline including the dumbing down of education so that our increasingly smart children are receiving educations that fail to prepare them for the responsibilities of democracy let alone a job market that heavily relies on technology. He also sees in both parties a political class unwilling to take on the challenges of turning things around. You'll have to decide whether his optimism that we will ultimately elect leaders who don't kick our many national challenges down the road is realistic, but as a basic primer in the social and economic reasons for our decline, this is a short, easy to read book which will help you understand why, without major changes in the way we resolve problems in America, the recession of 2008 will continue on indefinitely.

0Comment 7 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

Short, potent, and valuable

ByAlex Bushon June 20, 2015

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

I didn't read this book until 2015 and still found a great deal of valuable lessons. Tyler Cowen is one of my favorite applied economics writers because of his ability to convey complex concepts in easy-to-understand forms. I have minimal economics training but this book helped me better understand why our (American and the world's) economic situation is the way it is and how to be better prepared for the future. Obviously this book doesn't get into the complexities of many contemporary economic issues (it's less than 100 pages), but it conveyed its big, bold concept (that the economic slowdown of the last decade is an inevitable process) in a clear and persuasive manner. I really liked the metaphor of low-hanging fruit (which is used repeatedly throughout the book), as it helped me conceptualize the rather abstract concept of national/global economics in a tangible, visceral manner.

I would highly recommend reading this, either in kindle or hardcover form.

0Comment 3 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

Nice Framing of Something Many of Us Knew

ByMike Cookon December 17, 2013

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

I always enjoy pieces that have that "the emporor has no clothes" flavor and this one certainly does. Right now I am concerned that America has too many defenders operating from ideologies that have little to do with the original ideas that led to the formulation of the Constitution, not really Americans in the truest sense. Cowens piece brackets the reality of the pile of riches early Americans stumbled onto when the country was young and point out that we have now reached a place in our history where the ideas of our foundrs will be put to the truest test.

If you have ever run a business you know it is easy to think you are smart when a rising tide is floating all boats. You find out not only how much acument you have but what your true values are when the going gets tough. We are there, our adolescence is complete, it is time to grow up as a nation and see whether we are really worthy of the vision we have inherited. Cowens short essay and likely the book that follows points out that we are in dire need of the development of the collaborative skill that our forefathers displayed when they created the foundation for the country. In that regard we are sort of like the children of riich parents who have never had to really earn a living, we are now early in our real education as citizens.

I'd also recommend George Packer's the unwinding of America as a way os eing what the larger patterns discussed by Cowen look like at the level of the individual in the country today.

0Comment One person found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

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