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Title: The Next Progressive Era
Subtitle: A Blueprint for Broad Prosperity
Author: Phillip Longman, Ray Boshara
Narrator: Walter Dixon
Format: Unabridged
Length: 8 hrs and 52 mins
Language: English
Release date: 06-17-09
Publisher: Poli Point Press
Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 3 votes
Genres: Nonfiction, Politics
Publisher's Summary:
Much of their program we must reject today, yet Americans at the turn of the last century confronted issues so eerily like our own that their experience provides many useful lessons. More so than during the New Deal, the major challenges of the Progressive era included a globalized economy, predatory consumer lending, deepening income inequality, rapidly shifting demographics, networks of violent non-state actors, a dangerous and ineffective health care system, transportation bottle necks, a tainted food supply, a deepening threat of contagious diseases, and a spreading awareness of the need for thrift, conservation and behavioral change.
Longman and Boshara maintain that if modern-day Progressives are to overcome America's deep political divisions, they will have to focus on building the strength of the family, local communities and small-scale institutions, including small-scale banks and producer networks empowered with new infrastructure.
Critic Reviews:
"...This is not a lofty blueprint but an astute policy guide, communicating the urgency for reform in health care, banking and transportation without resorting to shrillness or stridency." Publishers Weekly
Members Reviews:
A Must Read
Drawing on the wisdom of the Progressive Era, the authors recast the insights of this tradition for the 21st century. What emerges is a sensible and inspiring vision of progressive politics for our day.
Among other things, the authors call for a renewed national effort to boost the national savings rate and expand ownership in ways that are realistic, responsible and inclusive. Like earlier progressives, Longman and Boshara understand that excessive concentration of wealth and widening inequality are a threat to both democracy and to real economic development. They also understand, as did earlier progressives, that the development of a strong middle class in this country did not just "happen"; nor was it produced by a purely laissez faire approach to economics. Rather, the middle class was built and supported (at least in part) by public policies and social practices that encouraged, facilitated, and rewarded savings and ownership. It follows that extending the reach of such policies and practices to all--not encouraging ever greater concentrations of wealth--ought to be the goal of public policy going forward. In this era especially, the progressive era of old has something new to teach contemporary progressives (and, for that matter, present day "conservatives.")
Their discussion of the health care crisis is at once disturbing, surprising, and reassuring. It puts the lie to the tired conservative argument that government-run health care is inherently problematic and that market-based solutions are always better than public alternatives. Their proposal for health care reform is so sensible and politically savvy that you will wonder why it has not dominated public debate (perhaps this book will change that?).
Throughout the book, which also includes an important critique of modern day usury and a constructive argument on how to reduce energy consumption), the authors' arguments join insights from the Progressive Era to more recent research in the social sciences (particularly behavioral economics and sociology), medical science, environmental science, as well as to significant debates within public policy circles.
