Barlett and Steele's "Betrayal of the American Dream'

Remember the good old days, when every American had a steady job and a house in the suburbs, when the nation's social fabric was solid, when a genuine social contract existed between citizen and government and employer and employee, when computer programmers could look forward to programming computers for the rest of their lives?

I didn't think so. Neither do I.

But the investigative journalists Donald Barlett and James Steele remember. Hoo boy, do they remember. In college, when most of us studied logic, philosophy and analytical thinking, these guys majored in seeing the past through rose-colored glasses and the present through a glass darkly. They yearn for the good old days when the typical U.S. worker spent his life in a regimented assembly-line job and drove a carburetor clunker that got ten miles to the gallon and required replacement every three years.

And now they're bitter. God, are they bitter. They've been perpetually pissed off at least since 1971, when they first teamed up at the Philadelphia Inquirer, where they discovered their own personal formula for surviving the ups and downs of a cyclical economy: a seemingly endless succession of multi-part newspaper series and books bearing such subtle titles as "America: What Went Wrong?" (1991) and "America: Who Stole the Dream?" (1996), all dedicated to the proposition that we're in terrible, terrible trouble, and it's not your fault.

"America: Who Stole the Dream?" suffered the misfortune of appearing just before the "Clinton boom"— America's longest period of sustained economic growth in the previous 50 years. Did that tidbit deter our boys? I should say not!

"'Economic scrap heap'

Now they're back, with The Betrayal of the American Dream— a book that, according to its prologue, recounts "how a small number of people in power have deliberately put in place policies that have enriched themselves while cutting the ground out from underneath America's greatest asset: its middle class. Their actions, going back more than three decades, have relegated untold numbers of American men and women to the economic scrap heap."

More than three decades back? Let's see— that was the late 1970s and the early 1980s. Americans back then were traumatized by double-digit inflation. Money was tight and interest rates were going through the roof, so no one could afford a house. Consumer confidence was collapsing, and with it industrial production. Chrysler Corporation was on life support. Americans were so desperate that they voted Jimmy Carter out of the White House and replaced him with a movie actor.

About the time the movie actor took office, the U.S. economy entered a recession— our eighth recession since World War II, and one that lasted for nearly two years. Thirty years ago this month, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell to 777, or 22% below its 1966 peak— the worst fall since the Great Crash of 1929-32. (It's now above 13,000.)

Who elected Reagan?

Ah, yes— the good old days. We were all so happy. If only those doggone greedy power people hadn't gone and deliberately relegated us to the economic scrap heap.

Actually, in 1980 or thereabouts the whole U.S. economy seemed to be going down the drain. People were so miserable that somebody had to do something. And surprise! Some of the things people did— like electing Reagan, deregulating business, securitizing mortgages, liberating savings and loan associations— produced unintended consequences.

When bad things happen to good people, most of us retreat to a church, synagogue or ashram to reflect on the inscrutable mysteries of life. But life's inequities are never a mystery to Barlett and Steele— it's all the fault of "Washington," with an assist from "lobbyists, special-interest groups, executives of multinational corporations, bankers, economists, think-tank strategists and the wheeler-dealers of Wall Street" (as they put it in 1996), or "the wealthy and the powerful who have become this country's ruling class" (as they've refined their rhetoric today).

To read Barlett and Steele, you would think someone is holding a gun to Americans' heads and forcing us to buy foreign-made cars, computers and cell phones. You would think there are no by-products from global trade (like peace and lower defense spending) or immigration (like a much needed influx of resourceful and optimistic new citizens) or foreign prosperity (like less dependence on and resentment of the U.S.).

Pandering to anger

When Americans find themselves caught in the gears of a transition from a domestic manufacturing economy to a global technology economy, they can be excused for embracing scapegoats. Journalists can set them straight (which requires some courage) or pander to their anger. Barlett and Steele consistently choose the latter course.

Full disclosure: I haven't read The Betrayal of the American Dream. I did read the two excerpts published so far in the Sunday Inquirer. (Two more follow on Aug. 12 and 19). I would read more, but the U.S. Constitution's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment precludes me from doing so. (To read the first excerpt, click here.)

And I will spare you similar suffering (and the $27 cover price) by summarizing the essential four-point message of every Barlett and Steele project:

1. Your problems are somebody else's fault.

2. The past was better than the present.

3. The people presently on top know exactly what they want, are in total control of everything they do, and never have any problems of their own.

4. Your glass is always half-empty, never half-full.♦


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