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Our Kids

The American Dream in Crisis

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Our Kids

Von: Robert D. Putnam
Gesprochen von: Arthur Morey
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 A New York Times bestseller and “a passionate, urgent” (The New Yorker) examination of the growing inequality gap from the bestselling author of Bowling Alone: why fewer Americans today have the opportunity for upward mobility.

Central to the very idea of America is the principle that we are a nation of opportunity. But over the last quarter century we have seen a disturbing “opportunity gap” emerge. We Americans have always believed that those who have talent and try hard will succeed, but this central tenet of the American Dream seems no longer true or at the least, much less true than it was.

In Our Kids, Robert Putnam offers a personal and authoritative look at this new American crisis, beginning with the example of his high school class of 1959 in Port Clinton, Ohio. The vast majority of those students went on to lives better than those of their parents. But their children and grandchildren have faced diminishing prospects. Putnam tells the tale of lessening opportunity through poignant life stories of rich, middle class, and poor kids from cities and suburbs across the country, brilliantly blended with the latest social-science research.

“A truly masterful volume” (Financial Times), Our Kids provides a disturbing account of the American dream that is “thoughtful and persuasive” (The Economist). Our Kids offers a rare combination of individual testimony and rigorous evidence: “No one can finish this book and feel complacent about equal opportunity” (The New York Times Book Review). Nord-, Mittel- & Südamerika Politik & Regierungen Soziale Klassen & wirtschaftliche Ungleichheit Soziologie
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The book consists of primary moving and interesting stories about young Americans with very diverse social and class backgrounds. It would be too easy just to reject the book on the basis of saying, it’s just anecdotal evidence. But I do, in fact, believe that the chosen cases are representative for huge sections of the American populace.
Where I do differ with the great Putnam, is in his assessment of the importance of the family and race.
We have known for decades now from behavioral genetics that the family only explains 0-10% of the variance for almost any measurable outcome. Yet, when listening to Putnam, you gain the impression that (social) science tells us, they make a world of difference. Putnam cannot be ignorant of this research, I think, but the omission and lack of discussion of that research undermines the credibility if his position and reasoning. That is a pity and a shame.
Living on the other side of the Atlantic, I’m pleased that we have a welfare society that takes better care of the needy. Better education and welfare for the poor isn’t exactly enabling them to be a boon for the economy, but it does give them, I believe, less miserable and difficult lives than those in the US.
10-15 % percent, though, of the working population will remain, unfortunately, unproductive and mostly unemployable in a modern, knowledge economy for various and diverse reasons, despite the best efforts to improve the family situation, the educational opportunities etc.

Engaged, moving, but ultimately not quite convincing

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