The Complacent Class: The Self-Defeating Quest for the American Dream

by Tyler Cowen Narrated by Walter Dixon

Overview

Since Alexis de Tocqueville, restlessness has been accepted as a signature American trait. Our willingness to move, take risks, and adapt to change have produced a dynamic economy and a tradition of innovation from Ben Franklin to Steve Jobs. The problem, according to legendary blogger, economist and best selling author Tyler Cowen, is that Americans today have broken from this tradition-we're working harder than ever to avoid change. We're moving residences less, marrying people more like ourselves and choosing our music and our mates based on algorithms that wall us off from anything that might be too new or too different. Match.com matches us in love. Spotify and Pandora match us in music. Facebook matches us to just about everything else. Of course, this “matching culture” brings tremendous positives: music we like, partners who make us happy, neighbors who want the same things. We're more comfortable. But, according to Cowen, there are significant collateral downsides attending this comfort, among them heightened inequality and segregation and decreased incentives to innovate and create. The Complacent Class argues that this cannot go on forever. We are postponing change, due to our near-sightedness and extreme desire for comfort, but ultimately this will make change, when it comes, harder. The forces unleashed by the Great Stagnation will eventually lead to a major fiscal and budgetary crisis: impossibly expensive rentals for our most attractive cities, worsening of residential segregation, and a decline in our work ethic. The only way to avoid this difficult future is for Americans to force themselves out of their comfortable slumber-to embrace their restless tradition again.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

12/19/2016
In recent decades, the U.S. has been overtaken by complacency, declares economics professor Cowen (The Great Stagnation). He categorizes complacent Americans into three classes: the privileged, “those who dig in,” and “those who are stuck”; all three may want to change their lives in the abstract, but the will to do so has been replaced by acceptance of the status quo. He cites a “not in my backyard” mentality for why the revolutionary tendencies of the 1960s gave way to stasis. A society that once thrived on “Big Projects” such as going to the moon and constructing the interstate highway system has slowed down. Even the booming tech sector has become focused on convenience rather than ambition; Cowen contrasts Spotify with the 1970s’ supersonic Concorde. He also takes a (de rigueur) page from Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America to analyze current American indifference. He concludes that such otherwise very different phenomena as the protests in Ferguson, Mo., and the rise of Donald Trump threaten this complacency and suggest that societal change is on the way. Cowan’s predictions take on a different coloring with the results of the 2016 presidential election, and it will be fascinating to see whether and how they come true. (Feb.)

From the Publisher

[The Complacent Class] provides an open invitation for the reader to think deeply.” —Derek Thompson, The Atlantic

“‘The Complacent Class' is refreshingly nonideological, filled with observations that will resonate with conservatives, liberals and libertarians. ... a useful corrective to the conventional wisdom that American ingenuity, sooner or later, will revive a low-growth economy.” —The Wall Street Journal

“One of the most important reads of the new year.” —National Review

"Tyler Cowen's blog, Marginal Revolution, is the first thing I read every morning. And his brilliant new book, The Complacent Class, has been on my nightstand after I devoured it in one sitting. I am at round-the-clock Cowen saturation right now."—Malcolm Gladwell

"Tyler Cowen is an international treasure. Endlessly inventive and uniquely wide-ranging, he has produced a novel account of what ails us: undue complacency. No one but Cowen would ask, 'Why Americans stopped rioting and instead legalized marijuana.' He admires risk-taking, and he likes restlessness, and he thinks the United States needs lots more of both. Don't be complacent: Read this book!"—Cass R. Sunstein, Harvard University, and author of #Republic: Divided Democracy in the Age of Social Media

"A book that will undoubtedly stir discussion"—Kirkus

Praise for The Great Stagnation:

"Cowen’s book… will have a profound impact on the way people think about the last thirty years."—Ryan Avent, Economist.com

"Tyler Cowen may very well turn out to be this decade's Thomas Friedman."—Kelly Evans, The Wall Street Journal

Kirkus Reviews

2016-11-09
An influential economist seeks to persuade readers that American citizens have gotten overly complacent, that a crisis point is near, and that a widespread rebellion may alter the existing order.Using data from a variety of sources, extrapolating from that data, and mixing in large dollops of admitted speculation, Cowen (Chair, Economics/George Mason Univ.; Average Is Over: Powering America Beyond the Age of the Great Stagnation, 2013, etc.) claims that the population at large is resisting changes in the economy that could improve the social order. The author, who runs Marginal Revolution, "the "most-read economics blog worldwide," divides the population into three complacent categories: "The Privileged Class," who are comfortable and usually wealthy; "Those Who Dig In," roughly equivalent to the traditional middle class; and "Those Who Got Stuck," who, Cowen maintains, have pretty much given up trying to rise economically and socially (many were never given the chance to do so). The author focuses on a variety of issues, including the downturn in Americans moving to different regions to seek improvement, increased racial and/or ethnic segregation, decreased innovation in the business sector, stagnation within pop culture, and failure to challenge authority in an organized manner. As he builds his argument against complacency, Cowen regularly employs metaphors and analogies that help illuminate his positions; he is a skilled stylist and polished debater. In the final analysis, though, whether he is persuasive will depend heavily on how willing readers will be to accept sweeping generalizations about the American populace. In conclusion, Cowen describes how a dynamic society should look and feel, and then he shifts his pessimism about the present to a sort of ersatz optimism about the future, when current structures collapse and chaos improves American democracy.A book that will undoubtedly stir discussion—as many of Cowen's books do—with readers divided about how they stand based on where they currently sit.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169699289
Publisher:	Ascent Audio
Publication date:	04/01/2017
Edition description:	Unabridged

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