George Packer on the disappearance of the American Dream.
The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America, George
Packer’s absorbing account of the 35-year shakedown of the U.S. economy
by “organized money,” follows the life stories of three everymen
struggling against mounting odds to make ends meet, economically and
existentially. The Unwinding’s
narrative begins in 1978—soon after 5,000 steelworkers lost their jobs
to the abrupt closure of Youngstown Sheet and Tube—and demonstrates that
in the subsequent collapse of the “Roosevelt Republic,” the money
elites may have killed off the American democratic experiment for good.
“He was angry on behalf of the American people,” Packer says of Jeff
Connaughton, one of his three lead characters, “not the poor, to be
honest, who were always with us, but the people in the middle who had
…worked hard and played by the rules and saw half their 401(k)s
disappear in their late fifties just when they thought they’d saved for
retirement and now were fucked.” Connaughton’s story frames the larger
narrative of institutional disintegration and comes closest, one
suspects, to reflecting Packer’s own moderate political bent. After a
modest but solidly middle-class upbringing in Alabama, Jeff majored in
business at the state U and, as a sophomore, was inspired to enter a
life of public service by a characteristically charming, outsider-y
debate performance by 36-year-old Senator Joe Biden in 1979. From that
point on, he was determined to follow Biden all the way to the White
House, which young Jeff regarded “the summit of American life.”
Read on...
No comments:
Post a Comment