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Is it possible to move up in this world? Are Americans stuck? Our guest today is Yoni Appelbaum, an American historian and staff writer at The Atlantic magazine. His new book, Stuck: How the Privileged and the Propertied Broke the Engine of American Opportunity, explores the various ways the American dream has been stymied — by the consolidation of property and wealth, the abuse of environmental regulations, the legacy of redlining, among other factors. But the book is not a diatribe; it offers a hopeful program for how we can make America better. Samuel Kimbriel and Damir Marusic engage in a lively conversation with Yoni that will leave you looking at America in a different, more hopeful way.

Yoni’s book is personal in its inspiration: he found himself living in a working-class neighborhood — a so-called “zone of emergence,” where underprivileged immigrants once gained a foothold on the American dream — that was no longer affordable to middle-class families. But it is also a political book. Yoni got the sense that something had gone profoundly wrong in America: “This was a contrarian thought in the Obama era. Now it is conventional wisdom.”

What can be done to help the American dream become real again? Is mobility a “central American value”? Do policies that help communities stay alive and stable actually worsen inequality and class stratification? Should the Democratic Party become a party of economic growth, rather than regulation or even “degrowth”? These are the questions that Damir and Sam invite Yoni to wrestle with in a lively and deeply informed episode.

In our bonus section for paid subscribers, Yoni discusses how to harness market power in a way that “centers mobility”; the three talk about the gap between intent and impact in environmental regulations; Yoni explains why technocrats will always be needed but will never be enough; and Yoni speculates as to why Americans long for a strong leader — for better or worse.

Required Reading and Listening:

* Yoni Appelbaum, Stuck: How the Privileged and the Propertied Broke the Engine of American Opportunity (Amazon).

* Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (Amazon).

* Reihan Salam, “Want Abundance in Housing? Acknowledge that Greed Is Good” (City Journal).

* Frederick Jackson Turner, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History” (Project Gutenberg).

* Jeffersonian democracy (CrashCourse).

* Podcast with Martha Nussbaum (WoC).

This post is part of our collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Governance and Markets.

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