Product Description

America emerged from Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal with strong democratic values and broadly shared prosperity. But for the past thirty years American politics has been dominated by a conservative movement determined to undermine the New Deal’s achievements.

Now, the tide may be turning–and in The Conscience of a Liberal Paul Krugman, the world’s most widely read economist and one of its most influential political commentators, charts the way to reform.

Krugman ranges over a century of history and shows that neither the American middle-class nor the baby boomers grew up in the increasingly oligarchic nation we have become over the past generation evolved naturally: both were created, to a large extent, by government policies guided by organized political movements.

The Conscience of a Liberal promises to reshape public debate about American social policy and become a touchstone work for an entire generation.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #668055 in Books
• Published on: 2007-10-02
• Released on: 2007-10-02
• Formats: Audiobook, Unabridged
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 8
• Binding: Audio CD

Features

• ISBN13: 9780739358665
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
Economist and New York Times writer Krugman expands on the angry-liberal economic perspective of his newspaper columns, documenting the shrinking of the middle class and the increase in American economic inequality with statistics and well-chosen examples. Krugman's polemic is read by soap-opera actor Culp with unassuming ease. Culp reads like he imagines an economics professor might sound, but jazzes up the learning with a bit of actorly pizzazz. Having never met a sentence he didn't like, Culp turns Krugman's pessimistic diatribe into an oddly jaunty march through economic theory. This isn't necessarily a bad thing; Culp's voice is pleasant and makes for a nice accompaniment to Krugman's tome. Without him, consciences might not have been quite so stirred. Simultaneous release with the W.W. Norton hardcover (Reviews, Sept. 17).
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author
Paul Krugman, who was named Columnist of the Year by Editor and Publisher magazine, writes a twice-weekly column for the op-ed page of the New York Times. A winner of the John Bates Clark Medal, the most prized award given to American economists, he also teaches economics and international affairs at Princeton University.

Customer Reviews

Worth Every Penny
As baby boomers, we grew up with products "Made in the USA" and scoffed at trinkets from Japan. Our parents enjoyed life-long employment, health care, affordable education, Social Security and pensions that made the golden years more golden. This is what author Paul Krugman describes in his new book "Conscience of a Liberal." He calls this the "Great Compression" where the politics of equality was borne from the New Deal in which Franklin Delano Roosevelt defied the laws of Adam Smith and his invisible hand, and redistributed the wealth of a nation, effectively killing the "Gilded Age" where society was comprised of the very wealthy and the poor.

FDR's New Deal saw the minimum wage becoming half of the average wage earner, the rise of unions, and the mansions of the nation's wealthiest becoming museum attractions. This was the creation of the middle class that was vehemently opposed by Republicans who believed that government intervention would turn the country communist and ruin the economy. It didn't.

By the time Dwight Eisenhower, Republican, became president most in the party had made their peace with the New Deal and only a fringe of an extremist element, known as movement conservatives, still opposed it.

These conservatives made a brief, unsuccessful surge with the nomination of Barry Goldwater in 1964. They got a break when Democrats embraced civil rights, which broke the Solid South away from them. Racism and the wrath of the angry white male were exploited, and the message of Ronald Reagan could not be missed when he launched his campaign in Philadelphia, MS. Sound familiar?

Through skillful marketing of ideas, conservatives were able to exploit racism and frame themselves as strong on defense, tough on crime, and opponents of big government and taxes, even though they lacked the record to support any of these assertions. Once again, we returned to a Gilded Age with a rising disparity between the have's and the have nots, and a declining middle class. Middle class income is less than it was under President Lyndon Johnson, and bankruptcies and mortgage foreclosures have increased because of crushing medical debt and jobs being shipped overseas.

And this is where Paul Krugman claims that conservatism is running on its last pint of gas. With record low unemployment and a booming economy, Americans are still uncertain about the their future and their prospects. They have had no tax relief, no job security, income failing to keep pace with cost of living increases, rising health care insurance costs, no end to an unpopular war, rising education costs, and companies repudiating their pension promises. With forty-five million Americans having no health insurance and sixteen million being under-insured, conservatives are no longer able to convince them that they are better off with tax relief going to the richest companies, while they are trying to dismantle Medicare and Social Security, in other words, the New Deal.

In spite of the current widening gap, Krugman sees an optimistic future, a demise of movement conservatism and a return to the politics of equality through universal health care. He points out that this is not socialized medicine but socialized insurance. The government program, Medicare operates efficiently with smaller administrative costs than major insurance companies, which have considerably higher operating expenses. The author's second point is that while racism still exists, it is not as deep as it was twenty years ago, and can no longer be exploited by movement conservatives. Equally important, he believes that Americans will eventually see that conservatism is of no advantage to them, only to the corporations and the wealthy.

Writing in a style and vocabulary that will not require the reader to carry a dictionary, this award-winning columnist and economist provides an interesting background of American populism, political history of America in the 20th century, and the remedy for the current politics of inequality.

It was a thoroughly enjoyable reading experience. It is worth every penny.

Truth clearly told
As a southerner (transplanted from Michigan), retired engineer, and a citizen very worried about my country under the conservatives, I welcome with a full heart Krugman's lucid, so truthful expose of the conservatives' motives and methods. Having perused most of the sources he names, I welcome the beautiful analysis and synthesis of the US predicament. He gives hope that we can shake off the traps and enlighten the people about their mistaken voting habits, especially those dictated by racism, which I daily see here in the southern states. Thank you so much, Paul.

The Politcal/Economics Book of the Decade
Krugman does it again with an impeccably reasoned history of the interaction between US politics and economics. I wasn't expecting much new, but Krugman repeatedly opened my eyes by putting our current political conflicts in the context of 140 years worth of economic and political history. He documents how the distribution of economic resources are guided not only by Adam Smith's invisible hand but also by politics. He describes how we achieved relative equality with high productivity growth during the 1940-60s, analyzes how political decisions led to our current moderate growth with most of the benefits accruing to a small fraction of the population, and discusses the way movement conservatives have achieved and maintained political power while furthering the economic interests of a small minority. The second half of the book suggests a modest plan for liberals to achieve when they regain political power--beginning with universal health insurance.

I've often found it hard to understand what motivates conservatives. I now understand their history and ideas much better. Compromising with them isn't going to work. It will be interesting to see how conservatives respond to this book. They will clearly quibble, attack, and distract, but it is hard to see how they could counteract Krugman's carefully documented main points.

This book is a must read for everybody concerned about the direction our country is moving. The timing is propitious as it arrives just as the radical conservative movement is beginning to falter. It refutes essentially every argument radical conservatives use to advance their cause and distort discussions. And it will be the book of the decade if it does begin the process of getting our political discussions about the undoing our social safety nets back to where they were in the 1950s. Krugman quotes Eisenhower as writing of those who would "attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs...." that "Their number is negligible and they are stupid." Radical conservatives will always be with us, but they do not need to remain in political power.