Screwed: The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class - And What We Can Do about It (BK Currents (Paperback))
Nationally syndicated radio host and bestselling author Thom Hartmann exposes the covert war conservatives, and corporations are waging against America's middle class?a war that's reducing the rest of us to a politically impotent working poor. This book asks: How did this happen? Who's benefiting? And how can we stop it?Product Details
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Beginning with the Reagan administration, the U.S. government has steadily instituted policies and legislation that favor corporations over citizens, argues Air America host Hartmann (The Ultimate Sacrifice). Analyzing the rhetoric and policies of the current administration's "compassionate conservatism," Hartmann goes on to detail the ways in which safety nets for working people (from progressive taxation to antitrust legislation to Social Security) have been steadily weakened, and argues that an empowered, educated middle class is crucial to a functioning democracy. Chapters detail the ways in which what gets called "the free market" is not really free (for good reason, he notes), how "We the People create the middle class," how the policies of the Founding Fathers and figures like FDR still have a lot to teach us, and ways for "Leveling the Playing Field." Though far from comprehensive, and despite its sensationalist title, Hartmann's latest is an intelligent critique of the contemporary plight of the middle class.
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About the Author
National radio host Thom Hartmann is the award-winning, best-selling author of fourteen books currently in print in more than a dozen languages on four continents. Hartmann is also an entrepreneur, an internationally known speaker on culture and communications, and an innovator in the fields of psychiatry, ecology, and economics. The former executive director of a residential treatment program for emotionally disturbed and abused children, he has helped set up hospitals, schools, famine relief programs, and communities for orphaned or blind children in India, Africa, Australia, South America, Europe, Israel, Russia, and the United States. His national radio program, syndicated by Air America Radio, is carried on more than eighty stations across the United States and on Sirius Satellite Radio. He lives in Portland, Oregon, with his wife, Louise, and his attack cat, Higgins. You can find him on the Web at www.thomhartmann.com.
From AudioFile
Starting with Ronald Reagan and accelerating under George W. Bush, American policy makers have waged an assault on the middle class, the very foundation of American democracy, as seen by the Founding Fathers. Hartmann's book chronicles this assault and suggests actions people can take to end it. Anthony Heald is perfect as the narrator. His voice is steady as he discusses economic theory, delivering key concepts clearly and often slowing his pace so listeners can absorb the points. But he lets the emotion in his tone rise as he reads about inequities. When the author points out obvious irrationalities, Heald adopts a tone of incredulity. It could have resulted in caricature, but Heald adopts just the right level, which nicely fits the material. R.C.G. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine
Customer Reviews
overly gracious reviews
Given the amount of praise written here in the reviews I think it would be fair to say that this book must preselect its audience. I did not find this book enlightening. Not that it did not have many good points it certainly did. I was just amazed at the flood of sloppy assumptions and illogical conclusions that it presented. Much of the evidence for arguments provided in the book relies on quotations from someone else. Should I assume that their (whomever being quoted) statement it a fact? The book spins "history" (as selectively presented)into a tangled web of accusation and muddy logic. If you consider yourself a progressive, this book you will find filled with platitudes you'll love. As an individual rights person you can both find much to hate and love in this book (though little of use). The conservatives and neo-conservatives should read this it may give them some perspective of the other side of the argument.
Timely defense of democracy and regulations
"Screwed," by Thom Hartman
Book Review
October 13, 2008
By George Fulmore
With the recent financial turmoil (Oct 2008), the word "socialism" is being thrown around like the word "communism" was being used in the `50's. "Socialism" is being used in opposition to increased oversight and regulation by the federal government. But Hartmann uses the term "cronyism" as a retort to claims of "socialism." He says the former is much better in describing the economic policies during the George W. Bush administration.
I think that Thom Hartmann's book is all about the virtues of government oversight, involvement and regulation in a modern economy. He gives us the history of regulation, much of it being implemented in the New Deal. And his thesis would appear to be that the current U.S. economy puts profits before people, while in earlier times, it was the other way around. His thesis would be appear to be that government regulation is needed to keep the economy in balance and to maintain the presence of a strong middle class. His thesis would appear to be that Reaganomics gave government regulation a bad rap and that this led us to a widening between the rich and the poor, a significant increase in our national debt, and the shrinking of our middle class. He urges middle class Americans to take back its country.
Hartmann argues that the founders of our country based our form of government on the principles of the Iroquois Confederation. He says that up until the founding of our nation, the idea of a dominant "middle class" was considered "unnatural" by most pundits and philosophers. But our founding founders concluded that a democracy was a "natural" state of humankind. And the reason that much of the Constitutional Convention was held in secret was because most of the wealthy delegates were betraying their own class by moving in favor of a democratic nation. Per Hartmann, America was an experiment, the likes of which the Western world had never seen.
He thinks that our country has experienced two eras of a dominant middle class. The first was with the earliest settlers through the formation of the country and into the Civil War era. In the earliest times, land was taken from the Indians essentially for free, which allowed the settlers to become self-sufficient and relatively prosperous. The basis of America's first middle class was based on land and the Family Farm. But by the end of the 19th century, we had entered the "Gilded Age" of manufacturing and centralization that produced a group of extremely wealthy Americans, without regard for the maintenance of a middle class. It was not until the New Deal, per Hartmann, that a second era of middle class prominence began, created, primarily, by a government spending stimulus.
FDR used deficit spending to put people to work and to build public works projects that gave Americans a return on investment for decades: new roads, bridges and other infrastructure.
But two primary goals of the New Deal also were 1) to rebuild the middle class and 2) to establish tools that would KEEP the middle class as the dominant class, tools such as progressive taxation, Social Security, fair trade laws, and the vigorous enforcement of antitrust laws. Hartmann links these actions back to the philosophies of Thomas Jefferson, the founder of the Democratic Party, who felt that unless government sets the rules for business, there can be no middle class. ("Socialism" this is not.)
Additionally, Roosevelt established the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), and he imposed regulations on stock sales. Thousands were put to work by the Public Works Administration and the Works Progress Administration. Public education was supported and enhanced.
The New Deal worked. Well-paid workers bought goods and services from other workers. Returning veterans took advantage of the GI Bill. The economy recovered and thrived.
But the cons are winning the battle of late. In 2001, for the first time since the New Deal, Americans spent more than they earned. Pension plans are disappearing. The rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer, and too many Americans are just "holding on," says Hartmann. What drives many of the cons is that greed is good. What drives others is the simplistic belief that if government would get out of the way, everything would be just fine. These folks, he terms the "true believers," naming Ronald Reagan as amongst their midst.
But the result of the "trickle down" economic system introduced by Ronald Reagan has been that the rich have gotten richer, while the middle class has shrunk, and the federal deficit has increased to record levels, making the United States the most indebted nation on earth.
Per Hartman, smaller government espoused by the "cons" is not really smaller government; it's a different government, one that is essentially government for the rich. And it is the aftermath of Katrina that exposed the gap between the rich and the poor and the lack of government readiness.
Per Hartman, the cons will not change on their own. Leadership needs to arise to take back the government for the good of a dominant middle class. There is nothing wrong with businesses making money, but it is not to be done via workers making less than a living wage. And, at the heart of Hartmann's arguments is that there are a plethora of services provided by government for the public good.
Privatization has not worked well in the health care industry, he would point out as an example, feeling that after Reagan deregulated the industry, only the wealthy could be guaranteed a good product. Public hospitals lost the support they had in earlier eras, when the dominant middle class was happy to pay taxes for these public facilities and services. The post-Reagan era saw the major health insurance companies prospering, with the giant pharmaceutical companies joining in on the high profits.
Per Hartmann, we're once again entered a new Robber Barron era, with a limited number of oil companies making record profits and the average middle class family finding their purchasing power stagnating. When people complain about the rising gap between the rich and the poor, the "cons" say that it is the fault of the workers, who are less educated and less willing to work as hard as others around the world. (An extension of this can be the current arguments that too many workers were able to buy homes in the subprime market and/or that the health care system cannot "afford" to cover everyone, especially the "illegals," or that not everyone can afford to own cars or live a middle-class lifestyle.) Thus, when systems fail, the cons continue to blame the workers, while they, at the same time, fight an inheritance tax and tax increases for those who earn the most.
On war, Hartmann says that even this has become a big business in America. But he points out that war is NOT an effective way to stimulate the economy. All money poured into armaments is lost once used. In contrast, building or rebuilding a bridge or road or levee or other public structure serves the public for a long time and gives us a significant return on investment.
As for the Iraq War, Hartmann claims that President Bush found this to be a way to funnel public money to Halliburton, Bechtel, Fluor and other large politically connected private entities. And by convincing many that the private sector would do a better job in supporting the troops than government employees, the Bush administration oversaw the elimination of public jobs in the hundreds of thousands, in favor of private-job replacements - and at a much higher total cost. Says Hartmann, "Privatizing the military is just another way for the cons to transfer hundreds of billions of tax dollars from We the People to the corporatocracy."
Hartmann covers too many areas to review in one swat. He claims that health care has been redefined as a privilege, rather than a right. He favors a single-payer, universal health care system and the strengthening of our labor unions. And there is an excellent chapter on the Social Security Trust Fund, with Hartmann pointing out the realities of a Trust Fund full of worthless IOUs. He claims the cons are purposely trying to destroy Social Security.
I think the only area that I disagree with Hartmann is in the area of foreign trade and immigrant labor. He calls for us to pull out of NAFTA, CAFTA and the rest. He is for enforcing the laws against hiring illegal immigrants. He thinks, in turn, the labor done by the illegals will be done by current Americans, probably at a better wage. In this area, I find his advice simplistic and without compassion.
In summary and conclusion, some other quotes from the book: "Our country has plenty of money, but the money is going to the corporatocracy, to the richest amongst us, instead of to the millions of people who - as Abraham Lincoln pointed out - actually make the country work....It's all about power....We've been conned (and screwed) enough. It's time to take back America."
Thom provides a readable explanation of a complex subject, so timely in today's economic climate
Thom reveals the history of this country and how our economy has devolved away from the intentions of the founders. He explains how democracy is dependent on a strong middle class and that the founders created it to prevent the moneyed and powerful from controlling government. The book was an eye opener, illuminating, exciting, and empowering. Very easy reading. This is particularly important given our current economic crisis. It provides context for a productive society and hope for changes. We can do better...other countries are already there.
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