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12 8 Measuring America in the Twenty-first Century We can measure G.N.P. . . . But we know that they are not the most important characteristics of a nation’s life. Jimmy฀Carter, 1979 A decade into the twenty-first century it is difficult to see the appeal of framing U.S. identity in economic terms. At this juncture in our nation’s history, why would Americans embrace such a framework for thinking about their country, its success and greatness, and their personal success? The economic failures that began in 2008, extreme and seemingly surprising , came in the wake of a U.S. economy that has performed unevenly at best for several decades. As we have seen, the moderate economic growth of the quarter century beginning in the early 1980s has masked widening inequality, a growing middle-class “squeeze,” increased privation and economic insecurity for millions, a ravaged industrial base, a tattered “social contract,” and diminished U.S. economic clout in a rapidly globalizing economy. The Wall Street, asset-bubble, and credit-market catastrophes of 2000 and 2008– only make the picture more grim. As poll upon poll have revealed for more than a generation, Americans are cynical, anxious about their futures, more angry than happy, and more inward-looking and alienated from the public sphere than David Riesman or Christopher Lasch could have imagined. As is often noted, many believe that the historic American promise of our children living better lives than their parents has become a thing of the past. Postwar ideas about America as an economy had to do with the nation ’s identity—defining what the United States was, what made it tick, and what made it unique. Some threads of identity are more central than others—and the preceding pages have laid out the argument that, after the Depression and World War II, the United States wove a new garment with which to drape itself with threads that emphasized things economic and measurable. Like most healthy conceptions of identity, these ideas 13 Measuring America in the Twenty-first Century focused on the positive—what was good and great. It is important to understand what was emphasized, why such emphases were placed, what psychological and cultural meanings they had for Americans, and what effects these messages about America had on U.S. politics, policy, and the economy itself. The postwar economic “measure of America”—never monolithic, always nuanced, often challenged—nonetheless profoundly changed how the American people saw their country and themselves in both positive and less positive ways. The abundant economy and rising economic indicators defined national and personal identity and self-worth, and framed conceptions of the United States during the latter part of the twentieth century. Long after economists were lionized as “masters of abundance,” the idea that economics is how you score America certainly has not disappeared. The United States was a remarkably growing and rich nation beginning in the 1940s. By most aggregate economic measures, it still is. But this measure of America never primarily has been an economic story, even though it was infused with the language and metrics of economics. Instead, it has been largely about culture and a conception of the United States that permeated the thinking of the American people. Such ideas didn’t arise sui generis. Opinion-shaping elites helped give voice and credibility to them, but they were not imposed on Americans. The American people were not victims of propaganda, brainwashing, or what Marxists have called “false consciousness.” The United States was, and is, an open society, with differing views; ideas and beliefs are cast into the mix. Some messengers have more cultural power than others, but some ideas also simply have more truth value than others. They are plausible, compelling, and appealing, and thus are adopted by large segments of the population. This is merely how a culture works. During the mid-twentieth century, broad-based abundance and the quest for it united Americans. This was the essence of the postwar social contract, not only politically—in terms of the liberal consensus on the “mixed economy”—but also as a cultural motif. The postwar ethos of a mighty economy providing better lives for all Americans was the cultural expression of the social contract and a revamped American dream that endured from World War II until at least the early 1970s. Since then, the United States has lost the near unity of purpose—the alliance of business , workers, and government, Republicans and Democrats...

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