The Price of Civilization_ Reawakening American Virtue and Prosperity - Jeffrey D. Sachs [118]
Of course, America’s decent public values are also under threat, because of the loss of confidence in government and the waning of trust among the public. The leading scholar of the shriveling of public trust is the sociologist and political scientist Robert Putnam. Putnam’s masterpiece, Bowling Alone, carefully documents and helps to explain the loss of “social capital” in the United States in recent decades.
Monitoring the actual values held by Americans, rather than the slanted claims about American values made by pundits and propagandists, has become easier to do through the mass availability of public opinion surveys. In addition to the important survey results from polling firms such as Gallup and Rasmussen, the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press offers a continuing stream of online, first-rate survey data. Another notable monitor of political views is the University of Maryland’s innovative Center on Policy Attitudes.
The Complexity of Problem Solving
In my two recent previous books, The End of Poverty and Common Wealth, I emphasized that solutions to complex problems such as those facing America today need to be holistic, adaptive in design, and goal oriented. In short, we need “complex systems thinking” to move forward. There are no magic bullets and few shortcuts to success. The need for systems thinking will probably be most urgent in the near future in addressing the simultaneous challenges of energy security, environmental safety, and economic prosperity. A number of recent books show how to engage in such complex systems thinking about the sustainable development challenge, including Steven Cohen’s Sustainability Management, Peter Calthorpe’s Urbanism in the Age of Climate Change, Charles Weiss and William Bonvillian’s Structuring an Energy Technology Revolution, Lester Brown’s World on the Edge, and William Mitchell and co-authors’ Reinventing the Automobile.
NOTES
Part I: The Great Crash
Chapter 1: Diagnosing America’s Economic Crisis
1. U.S. Census Bureau, “Current Population Survey: Annual Social and Economic (ASEC) Supplement.” According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are roughly 44 million people, or 14.3 percent of Americans, who live below the poverty line. Another 60 million people live between the poverty line and two times the poverty line, a zone that may be considered the “shadow” of poverty.
2. Plato, “Apology,” in Five Dialogues, transl. G.M.A. Grube (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2002), p. 41.
Chapter 2: Prosperity Lost
1. Gallup Poll, “In general, are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the way things are going in the United States at this time?,” May 5–8, 2011.
2. Rasmussen Reports, “Right Direction or Wrong Track,” March 2011.
3. Rasmussen Reports, “65% Now Hold Populist, or Mainstream, Views,” January 2010.
4. Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002); Robert D. Putnam, “E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty-first Century: The 2006 Johan Skytte Prize Lecture,” Scandinavian Political Studies 30, no. 2 (June 2007).
5. Richard Easterlin, “Does Economic Growth Improve the Human Lot? Some Empirical Evidence,” in Paul A. David and Melvin W. Reder, eds., Nations and Households in Economic Growth: Essays in Honor of Moses Abramovitz (New York: Academic Press, 1974).
6. Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers, “The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness,” NBER Working Paper Series, No. 14969, May 2009.
7. Tom Rath and Jim Harter, Wellbeing: The Five Essential Elements, Appendix G: “Wellbeing Around the World” (New York: Gallup Press, 2010). Gallup asked respondents whether they were “thriving,” “struggling,” or “suffering.” The U.S. ranked nineteenth in the proportion