The Paradox of Progress: Can Americans Regain Their Confidence in a Prosperous Future?

Product DescriptionThings have never been betterand tomorrow theyll be better still. So argues Richard B. McKenzie in this provocative new book, The Paradox of Progress. Despite all the press stories of layoffs and stagnant wages, despite all the talk of economic insecurity, says McKenzie, Americans havenever lived so well, or had so many opportunities. The question, he writes, is not why things arent better, but why does everyone keep complaining.In The Paradox of Progress, McKenzie demolishes the idea that the nation is in economic declineand explains why we still feel so insecure. Writing with tremendous passion and insight, he marshals an array of data to show that the American standard of living has never been higher in realterms. Our perception of decline, he argues, comes from the press, which has long since learned that bad news sells; but he demonstrates how the 1980smuchmaligned by the mediain fact heralded a new age of prosperity and opportunity. The corporate downsizing of recent years signals the change:the old monolithic firms of the past are adjusting to an era of smaller companies, mobile capital, and new entrepreneurship. A new economic frontier is opening upthe New West, as he calls itas the rapid growth of electronic technology creates fresh room for growth and creativity. Governmentneeds to get out of the way and accept the shift in economic tectonics. And the message for workers, McKenzie writes, is clear: Become more productive. Work harder and smarter. Get more education and skills. Get competitive. Do more than others have been doing or will likely do. Stopcomplaining.Public anxiety is justified, McKenzie adds, but it is misplaced: for if the shift in economic tectonics is ultimately a positive development, it has been accompanied by a moral tectonics earthquake that has been highly destructive. McKenzie attacks this moral earthquake head on,passionately echoing the words of Nobel Laureate F. A. Hayek, arguing that it is essential that we follow rules of social conduct, even if we dont like them or cant explain them rationally. Sweeping changes in the economy, and wrongheaded government programs, have undermined personalresponsibility. The real social divide, he writes, is not between haves and havenots, but between those who play by the rules, and those who refuse to. Members of the first group will eventually get ahead; those of the latter wont, and will blame everythingand everyoneexcept themselves.Writing with tremendous wit, personality, and force of mind, Richard McKenzie offers a provocative and deeply optimistic book. In it, he presents a bold vision of a new era in which Americans can and will compete and win, if they simply seize the opportunities that await them.Amazon.com ReviewAmericans have never had it better. Compared to today, the standard of living for the average American just a century ago was dismally low, almost on the level of a Third World country. Now life expectancy is greater, real income higher, and technology superior. Contemporary pessimism (We wont be as prosperous as our parents, etc.) springs from an unlikely source: too many opportunities, not too few. The economy is restructuring itself in dramatic fashion, and this fosters uncertainty about the future. But when things are put in perspective, argues Richard B. McKenzie in this important book, its clear that the good old days are now.From BooklistReaders who liked the relatively moderate dose of freemarket economics in Newsweek columnist Samuelsons The Good Life and Its Discontents may also relish this more hardcore attack on public pessimism by economics professor McKenzie, who has previously defended markets, as coauthor of Failure and Progress (1993) for the Cato Institute, and in What Went Right in the 1980s (1993) for the Pacific Institute for Public Policy. The heart of the economic plight and angst that Americans face is not limited opportunities, b