Prosperity Lost

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Calling the 1980s ``a decade of denial,'' Mattera ( Inside U.S. Business ) scrutinizes the widening gap between rich and poor, the shrinking middle class, increasing feminization of poverty and declining black enrollments in college. Opposed to Reaganite trickle-down ideology, he favors the rebuilding of federal housing programs decimated during the '80s, tax-law changes to end merger mania, ceilings on incomes of the rich. Some of his proposals seem utopian or sketchy--for instance, a guaranteed income plan, or the large-scale creation of noncapitalist, worker and consumer cooperatives--but Mattera grounds his blueprint for change in an astute analysis of the past decade of laissez-faire greed. In timely, hard-hitting arguments, he urges that corporate polluters pay a penalty, and that adverse environmental impacts of production be made part of the accounting process at both the national and corporate levels. (Sept.)

Library Journal

Mattera, a former writer for Fortune , presents an eye-opening and depressing look at the way most Americans now live. Through anecdotal evidence and shrewd economic analysis, he shows how ``the American dream is becoming the impossible dream.'' Much of this book details the ``cruel legacy'' of the Reagan years: shrinking wages, trickle-down economics, the greed factor, electronic sweatshops, the rollback of unionism, and crises in health, housing, education, and the quality of life. Mattera argues that bold socialist methods are needed to turn the country around. He calls for not only a redistribution of income, but a redistribution of work and power as well. This troubling, but also challenging, book can be read as a companion piece to some of Michael Harrington's last theoretical writings (e.g., Socialism: Past and Future , LJ 6/1/89). An extensive section of notes is included. Recommended for academic and large public libraries.-- Thomas A. Karel, Franklin & Mar shall Coll. Lib., Lancaster, Pa.