Quotation of the Day…
by Don Boudreaux
on March 9, 2020
… is from pages 3-4 of Michael Strain’s excellent new (2020) book, The American Dream Is Not Dead (But Populism Could Kill It):
A country as large as ours, in which citizens have such varied experiences, makes generalizing difficult. But today’s prevailing narrative is so stark that the task of generalizing becomes much easier. The narrative is wrong. America is upwardly mobile, particularly for those nearer the bottom of the income distribution. Incomes aren’t stagnant. Workers do enjoy the fruits of their labor. The argument that life hasn’t improved for typical households in decades borders on the absurd.
DBx: Yes. And yet because those seeking to increase the power of the state often are more likely to achieve this goal if acceptance of the absurd is widespread, the absurd is never in want of peddlers from across the political and ideological spectrum. (It must be admitted that many of the people who insist on the truth of the absurd seem to be sincere.)
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