Upward Dreams, Downward Mobility

Booklist

Larger economic history collections will want to add Upward Dreams, Downward Mobility.

Choice

A very personal perspective on what has happened to the middle class in America. For academic and general readers interested in U.S. economic policy.

Journal Of Economic Issues

...it provides the reader with a wealth of information....stimulating reading for those concerned with questions of economic theory as well as current policy issues.

The Journal of Consumer Affairs

Stroble has written a provocative book which may stimulate a more systematic investigation into the consequences of past and present economic public policies on the American family.

Library Journal

Strobel asserts that the middle class (made up of those who depend primarily on their labor for their income) has been in retreat since the end of the New Deal. This retreat has accelerated since the Reagan years, due to Reagan's favoring of capital over labor. Economic and political events such as reductions in labor regulations, reductions in the growth rate of the money supply, and failures of traditional labor constituencies (documented by the author, who teaches money and banking at Kalamazoo College) have contributed to the falling fortunes of this group. The result: the shift of tax burdens to and government spending programs from the middle class. Strobel proposes some solutions to arrest the middle class's decline. His book is especially timely given President Clinton's emphasis on reviving the middle class. Recommended for all libraries.-- Richard C. Schiming, Mankato State Univ., Minn.

Booknews

Strobel traces the rise of the economic middle class from the New Deal through the 1960s, critiques its decline over the past two decades, accelerated by the misguided policies of Reaganomics, and outlines a program to restore a strong and vibrant middle class. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Mary Carroll

"Without an economically sound middle class. 20. 20. 20majority," Strobel declares, "the American democratic and capitalist system cannot survive." Kalamazoo College money and banking professor Strobel uses factors of "distribution" (rather than "production") as a basis for analyzing the economic condition of the middle class, distinguishing between the labor-dependent majority (workers and small-scale farmers and business owners) and the capital-enhanced minority (individuals whose wealth would provide continuing income if they ceased to work). FDR's Second New Deal balanced the relative economic power of these factors, Strobel argues, by increasing the incomes of labor-dependent Americans while regulating the economic behavior of the capital-enhanced. Since World War II (and particularly since the election, with middle-class support, of Nixon and then Reagan), the New Deal balance has been largely destroyed. Strobel blames failures of key institutions (labor, the Democratic Party, the economics profession, and political accountability) for the declining state of the middle class, and offers recommendations--and analysis of 1992 presidential campaign issues from a middle-class perspective--as steps in the long, arduous struggle to restore the healthy balance FDR substantially achieved. Larger economic history collections will want to add "Upward Dreams, Downward Mobility".