Third World America by Arianna Huffington, Current Affairs Book – Economic Collapse of the US Middle Class.
Arianna Huffington, founder and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post, the sixth most popular online news source, details the state of the nation’s middle class. Her new book is titled “Third World America: How Our Politicians Are Abandoning the Middle Class and Betraying the American Dream.” She read her perspective and see if she agrees.
Third World America it is presented in five sections, with Chapter One echoing the book’s title. It is packed with stories and statistics highlighting the decline of the American middle class. How do you define “middle class”? Self-definition is called upon, says Huffington. “If you consider yourself middle class, are middle class.”
The nation’s vanishing industrial base, eroding education system, and decaying infrastructure contribute to the decline; as is high unemployment, where one in six Americans is either unemployed or underemployed. He meets Dean B., who, at age 35, was laid off from his IT job in February 2009 and is still unemployed. Kimberly B. sold her wedding ring on Craigslist to pay her family’s utility bills.
Huffington further explores the plight of the middle class, citing fear as a predominant emotion. Expunged 401(k)s, dwindling pensions, prolific foreclosures and hints of a future Social Security collapse; feeds the anxieties Many now believe that reaching the middle class is a matter of luck, not unlike a winning scratch-off lottery ticket.
America’s infrastructure is crumbling, Huffington declares, with insufficient state and federal funding. Highways, power grids, waterways, railways, and bridges are some of the victims. Some water pipes, originally laid during the Civil War, function dangerously.
Think back to August 2007, when the Interstate 35W steel truss bridge over the Mississippi River in downtown Minneapolis collapsed; killing 13 people and injuring 145. Earlier patchwork repairs proved insufficient.
The nation’s school system is anemic, with the US ranking 25th in math and 21st in science among thirty developed countries; according to the classification of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. In 2009, the United States’ broadband connection ranked fifteenth among industrialized countries.
The decline of the American middle class has been brewing for decades. In the late 1980s, technology, outsourcing, and manufacturing job losses launched a middle-class economy reeling with stagnant wages.
Ronald Regan’s election saw the proliferation of free-market beliefs: less government intervention could better determine society’s winners and losers. Regan also ushered in the era of the great divide between wealthy Americans and the middle class; which continues today.
Huffington says that an unregulated free market sooner or later becomes corrupted by fraud and excess. He witnesses the bank bailouts and the Wall Street debacle of 2008.
American politics is broken as powerful American lobbyists and corporations rule Washington. In 2010, three examples of regulatory failure due to corporate pandering were the explosion at the Upper Branch mine in West Virginia; the BP oil explosion in the Gulf of Mexico; and the ongoing aftershock of the financial collapse, including fraud charges against Goldman Sachs. The voice of the middle class is but an echo in the Capitol chambers.
Huffington writes animated analogies to prove his points. When he talks about influential lobbyists, he says, “And like a swarm of termites reducing a house to sawdust, moneyed interests and their lobbyists are eating away at the foundation of our democracy.”
Each chapter concludes with a profile of a once-successful middle-class American now struggling financially. His stories offer gems of 21st century perspective, including “Stability is long gone, so you better be doing something you love!”
Third World America The title is extreme, Huffington admits, used to emphasize our nation’s possible future, without serious reform. She optimistically concludes that our descent into a Third World nation “is not a done deal.”
Americans are known to be positive, progressive people with a can-do attitude. Halting the decline to a Third World nation will not be easy. It will require bold initiatives from the public and private sectors and personal responsibility. Now, more than ever, we must tap into the least-used leadership resource available: ourselves. We will continue to need the raw energy that only great government and appropriations can provide.
Ultimately, change happens on a local and personal level. Today it is up to us to help each other and ourselves. She advocates breaking up the big bank of hers. Executives accepted the government bailout, record bonuses were paid; however, they are not sympathetic to Americans facing foreclosure. Work instead with community banks and credit unions. The greatest antidote to despair is action; and resilience is key to surviving and thriving in the 21st century.
Huffington reflects the message of Robert B. Reich, said in his book published at the same time, Replica: The nextEconomy and the future of America. Reich, a former Clinton administration labor secretary, also supports Third World America.
A book, presents a voice. Although some will dispute Huffington’s perspective, Third World America It is a reading that invites reflection on the present and future state of the nation.
To stay up to date on Huffington’s Third World America view, visit http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/third-world-america/