Reviving the American Dream: A Path Forward

David Leonhardt, writing for the New York Times this morning, discusses “Reviving the American Dream” He points to rising economic inequality, political polarization, and Republicans, as the main culprits.

His Heroine, is the American labor movement. And his solution to the problems that plague us is the government. The left often sees government as the solution. And the right often sees government as the problem. Neither is entirely right or wrong.

Society needs a functional and faithful, “representative” government, free of special interest influence. If only we had one.

He states, “For nearly a half-century, our economy has failed to deliver on the basic promise of the American dream — that living standards meaningfully improve over time for most citizens.”

He then goes on to say, “History does not suggest that the political system is hopelessly broken. It instead suggests that the U.S. doesn’t have a broadly prosperous economy largely because the country has no mass movement organized around the goal of lifting living standards for the middle class and the poor. If such a movement existed, it might well succeed. It has before.”

He concludes, “In short, the American political system helped create today’s problems, and only (emphasis added), the American political…