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Oren Cass
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The Once and Future Worker: A Vision for the Renewal of Work in America Kindle Edition

by Oren Cass (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 154 ratings
“[Cass’s] core principle—a culture of respect for work of all kinds—can help close the gap dividing the two Americas….” – William A. Galston, The Brookings Institution

The American worker is in crisis. Wages have stagnated for more than a generation. Reliance on welfare programs has surged. Life expectancy is falling as substance abuse and obesity rates climb.

These woes are not the inevitable result of irresistible global and technological forces. They are the direct consequence of a decades-long economic consensus that prioritized increasing consumption—regardless of the costs to American workers, their families, and their communities. Donald Trump’s rise to the presidency focused attention on the depth of the nation’s challenges, yet while everyone agrees something must change, the Left’s insistence on still more government spending and the Right’s faith in still more economic growth are recipes for repeating the mistakes of the past.

In this groundbreaking re-evaluation of American society, economics, and public policy, Oren Cass challenges our basic assumptions about what prosperity means and where it comes from to reveal how we lost our way. The good news is that we can still turn things around—if the nation’s proverbial elites are willing to put the American worker’s interests first.

Which is more important, pristine air quality, or well-paying jobs that support families? Unfettered access to the cheapest labor in the world, or renewed investment in the employment of Americans? Smoothing the path through college for the best students, or ensuring that every student acquires the skills to succeed in the modern economy? Cutting taxes, expanding the safety net, or adding money to low-wage paychecks?

The renewal of work in America demands new answers to these questions. If we reinforce their vital role, workers supporting strong families and communities can provide the foundation for a thriving, self-sufficient society that offers opportunity to all.
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  1. Print length
    254 pages
  2. Language
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    Encounter Books
  4. Publication date
    November 13, 2018
  5. File size
    5.2 MB
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Oren Cass has accomplished the rare feat of not only saying something truly new and innovative about our society, but also doing it in a readable, engrossing way. The Once and Future Worker is a wake-up call to our political class, and indeed the whole country, that rising consumption can’t replace that most basic of goods―a job. A brilliant book. And among the most important I’ve ever read.”
- J.D. Vance, author of Hillbilly Elegy

“No one has better articulated the conservative argument for why work matters to America's long-term prosperity than Oren Cass. Oren’s insightful prescription for what ails us should be required reading for those who endeavor to create a labor market in which workers can create and support strong families and communities.”
- Mitt Romney

“Oren Cass has written the essential policy book for our time. His diagnosis cuts to the heart of what’s troubling our political economy, and his prescriptions chart the way toward a more constructive politics. A must-read.”
-Yuval Levin, editor of National Affairs

“Through an unflinching indictment of the mistakes that Washington has made for a generation and continues to make today, Oren Cass forcefully draws out the contradictions of a consensus that has actively displaced Americans from their national inheritance of good jobs and thriving hometowns. The Once and Future Worker offers much-needed clarity for how to make the American Dream possible for the many.”
- Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL)

“Oren Cass’s focus on the importance of work―and making work pay―offers welcome common ground for policy debates across partisan and ideological lines. His core principle―a culture of respect for work of all kinds―can help close the gap dividing the two Americas that the 2016 election so starkly revealed.”
- William A. Galston, Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution

Review

“Oren Cass has accomplished the rare feat of not only saying something truly new and innovative about our society, but also doing it in a readable, engrossing way. The Once and Future Worker is a wake-up call to our political class, and indeed the whole country, that rising consumption can’t replace that most basic of goods―a job. A brilliant book. And among the most important I’ve ever read.”
―J.D. Vance, author of Hillbilly Elegy

“No one has better articulated the conservative argument for why work matters to America's long-term prosperity than Oren Cass. Oren’s insightful prescription for what ails us should be required reading for those who endeavor to create a labor market in which workers can create and support strong families and communities.”
―Mitt Romney

“Oren Cass has written the essential policy book for our time. His diagnosis cuts to the heart of what’s troubling our political economy, and his prescriptions chart the way toward a more constructive politics. A must-read.”
―Yuval Levin, editor of National Affairs

“Through an unflinching indictment of the mistakes that Washington has made for a generation and continues to make today, Oren Cass forcefully draws out the contradictions of a consensus that has actively displaced Americans from their national inheritance of good jobs and thriving hometowns. The Once and Future Worker offers much-needed clarity for how to make the American Dream possible for the many.”
―Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL)

“Oren Cass’s focus on the importance of work―and making work pay―offers welcome common ground for policy debates across partisan and ideological lines. His core principle―a culture of respect for work of all kinds―can help close the gap dividing the two Americas that the 2016 election so starkly revealed.”
―William A. Galston, Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution

“Working-class voters tried to send a message in 2016, and they are still trying to send it. The crucial question is whether America’s leaders will listen and respond. One way to start doing that is to read Oren Cass’s absolutely brilliant new book.”
―David Brooks, New York Times

“Oren Cass has one of the sharpest policy minds in this new vanguard. . . . Cass’s book, timed for publication the week after the midterms, could either be the battle orders for a second Trump term or a to-do list for a successor stamped in the same mold.”
―Sam Tanenhaus, Time

“Oren Cass talks about a lot of these policy solutions that nobody wants to talk about. . . . Go check it out right now. It’s a sophisticated take on a lot of deep policy issues.”
―Ben Shapiro, The Ben Shapiro Show

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B079617VFZ
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Encounter Books (November 13, 2018)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ November 13, 2018
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 5.2 MB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 254 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 154 ratings

About the author

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Oren Cass

Oren Cass

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Oren Cass is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. He worked previously as the domestic policy director for Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign, a management consultant at Bain & Company, and an editor of the Harvard Law Review.

He lives in Western Massachusetts with his wife and two children.

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
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Top reviews from the United States

  • wsmrer
    5.0 out of 5 stars A needed inquiry
    Reviewed in the United States on November 15, 2018
    Verified Purchase
    This is an interesting effort to solve the imbalance created by globalization, automation, falling education, and ill-conceived public policy than has rendered a society out of balance with some very fortunate winners and a mass of losers. Oren Cass’s presentation is extracted from various previous publications in National Review, National Affairs, and City Journal in recent years.

    “American public policy has lost its way. Since the middle of the last century, it has chased national economic growth, expecting that the benefits would be widely shared. Yet while gross domestic product (GDP) tripled from 1975 to 2015, the median worker’s wages have barely budged. Half of Americans born in 1980 were earning less at age thirty than their parents had made at that age. Millions of people have dropped out of the labor force entirely.” (p. 1)

    What he does well is to examine what can be done to regenerate WORK as a solution worth pursuing. Here he takes apart government agencies that enhance the cost of production such as the E.P.A. whose rulings if ignored would lower cost and thus raise demand and job opening using analysis based on cost-benefit calculations. How important is ‘clean air’ and how much does it cost in lost output? There are sound elements to such critiques of existing governmental actions all totaled on the Libertarian side that would raise job opening.

    What is more interesting is his critique of Education as it has been modeled with collage entry as a goal but the weak outcomes in terms of percentages of completion and fit to the world as it is in process. He picks up European models of ‘tracking’ and vocational training linked to apprentice programs with business, labor and governmental support as well fitting youth to economic needs if instructor can be found.
    More exciting is his opening of redoing the labor markets where unions, he see a ‘relic of the Great Depression’ and in demise, reinstituted as Co-ops with worker input and management cooperation seeking production solutions and with worker rather the OSHA determined safety standards. Here he joins a topic that is bubbling up to the surface right and left, Gar Alperovitz’s, America Beyond Capitalism as a classic example for the left. Co-ops too could be linked with educational programs fitting youth’s needs for employment.

    The Once and Future Worker leaves little un-discussed on the topic of jobs and their creation but is heavy on philosophical views that wander away from the topic and have the paradoxical quality of condemning government agencies, but making proposals that would require them as well. He hopes for a change in national attitudes.

    He concludes: “…the nation’s long-term prosperity, is more important than climate change and transgender rights and a ban on semiautomatic rifles, surely it rises at least to that level. People should treat it as such.” (p. 214)
    Could we have them all?
    An enjoyable read for social scientists.
    53 people found this helpful
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  • David
    5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book with thought provoking ideas
    Reviewed in the United States on December 25, 2018
    Verified Purchase
    This book is well written and filled with observations, analyses, and possible solutions to improve the plight of workers in the United States. Do not believe the reviews that unfairly claim the book is filled with right-wing propaganda. Some of the ideas are at odds with past policies, but the proposals are well reasoned and are supported with enough facts to make them worth considering as better ways to encourage a healthy job market and worker safety net. Read the book for yourself and I believe you will agree.
    9 people found this helpful
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  • Kindle Customer
    4.0 out of 5 stars Helpful loosening of ideological blinders
    Reviewed in the United States on April 28, 2020
    Verified Purchase
    Useful and imaginative. Helps to lay a path forward out of current ideological dead ends. In the end though insufficient to actually achieve progress, which will only be made possible through radical reform of the USA constitution to introduce authentic representative democracy in the form of a parliamentary system with proportional representation and constitutional protection of subsidiarity.
    One person found this helpful
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  • AliReda Jeafar
    5.0 out of 5 stars A truly transformative work
    Reviewed in the United States on November 29, 2020
    Verified Purchase
    A true classical work. This book fundementally helped me to reimagine my perspective on work and what it means to be "a productive member of society" in a very positive way. There were so many realizations I had about what it means to work and what work means that I'm honestly so much better off for it. While I do have my disagreements about the arguments against UBI made in the ending of the book, this book is incredibly indespensable about how proper steps can be taken to improve our society and it's reliance (or over-reliance) on work. So glad to have picked it up and read it. It truly gave me so much to both consider and reconsider.
    One person found this helpful
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  • John E. Pepper
    3.0 out of 5 stars A Mixed Bag But Worth Reading
    Reviewed in the United States on November 21, 2018
    Verified Purchase
    Worthy in its major contention that we should recognize the importance of "work" not just economically but socially and that we should design our policies in all areas (education; environmental, support for the poor) accordingly.

    He marshals the well worn point of view that we should put more emphasis on the path of vocational technical training rather than on insisting that all should go to college. I found his discussion of what would be the right trade policies to balance "free trade" and proper protection for the domestic worker to be insightful and persuasive. I also appreciated his nuanced position on immigration. His critique of environmental policies failed for me to recognize the pernicious long term impact of global warming. Similarly, he failed to come to grips persuasively with how workers can gain greater leverage and have a stronger voice in negotiating terms of their labor.

    His advocacy of a "wage subsidy" is conceptually appealing to me; actually making it happen is very problematic. I believe he dismisses "minimum wage" too cavalierly but represents a good argument.

    He levels a devastating and persuasive critique of our multitiered, dysfunctional, complex set of programs and income streams to help the disadvantaged, including how in many ways it is a disincentive to find gainful employment and offers a very constructive path forward. It is the kind of transformative change that should be undertaken on a State wide basis.
    36 people found this helpful
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  • Cactus Jack
    5.0 out of 5 stars A wonky 'sequel' to Hillbilly Elegy
    Reviewed in the United States on November 29, 2018
    Verified Purchase
    The Once and Future Worker is an engaging and provocative read. Cass presents a fresh account of the major social and economic challenges confronting America (as anecdotally conveyed in Hillbilly Elegy) and advocates for a new policy platform that elevates workers and domestic production.
    11 people found this helpful
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  • Amazon Customer
    5.0 out of 5 stars great book that explain Trump victory.
    Reviewed in the United States on May 9, 2023
    Verified Purchase
    I liked the focus on prime age 25 to 54.
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  • John Graney
    4.0 out of 5 stars A stretch for Liberals
    Reviewed in the United States on January 26, 2019
    Verified Purchase
    There’s a lot of conservative orthodoxy here but also some thinking that liberals like myself will find worthwhile. We all want people to have the chance to work and to have their work adequately compensated. This book looks at our past and current policies and suggests how we might reorient our goals from growth in consumption to growth in jobs and how best to achieve this.
    6 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

  • Edith Wenzel
    5.0 out of 5 stars Imformative
    Reviewed in Canada on December 24, 2024
    Verified Purchase
    I will use it for my studies on the future workers and how to plan for it.
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  • M Clark
    4.0 out of 5 stars A useful description of the problems marred by its arm-waving advocacy of remedies
    Reviewed in Germany on December 10, 2018
    Verified Purchase
    Oren Cass deserves praise for his advocacy of the social value of work as well as his description of the many problems in our current system. He is, however, weak on the description of remedies. He advocates something called "productive pluralism" which is some kind of utopia where everyone has a great job with good wages. His path to getting there tends to be a recital of the typical conservative, libertarian proposals to abolish regulations, etc. He claims, without any support, that the removal of regulations will release a flood of new investment which will create good jobs for everyone. His arm-waving reminded me of the advocates of supply-side economics when they preach that all tax cuts will pay for themselves.

    It is worth reading to understand a conservative's view of the problem.
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