The Once and Future Worker: A Vision for the Renewal of Work in America
(Encounter, $26) No matter your political allegiances, “this is a book you’re not going to want to miss,” said Yuval Levin in the National Review. Oren Cass’ argument for radically reorienting America’s economic priorities “has something in it to make everyone uncomfortable,” but it also offers a ground-shaking central insight. Cass, who served as policy director for Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign, dares to question a principle Democrats and Republicans both accept: that the measure of a nation’s economic health is how much its citizens collectively can consume. Cass argues that we should instead be asking what share of the population has work that’s satisfying and sustaining. The proposal is heresy to free-market purists, but unlike anything else Republicans have been peddling, it’s “actually responsive to the challenges and pressures the country confronts.” The political failure Cass wants to reverse “has been thoroughly bipartisan,” said Jeff Spross at TheWeek.com. Democrats, too, have put the pursuit of growing GDP above preserving jobs in small towns and rural America. But Cass’ partisan bias does color his analysis. He advocates strong immigration limits because he mistakenly assumes immigrants drive down wages. He also disparages the Dems’ college-for-all mentality rather than questioning the absurd demands put on potential hires by employers. Some of Cass’ “more exotic” proposals might not ever fly, said Charles Fain Lehman in FreeBeacon.com. He supports Danish-style labor co-ops—organizations that workers join voluntarily and that represent members in contract negotiations and provide training and income support when a member is out of work. But Cass’ particular ideas about remedies are less important than the goal: “the core idea that a man or woman with a high school education should be able to feed his or her family.”
If you want to end the anger that’s tearing the country apart, Cass’ “absolutely brilliant” book is the place to start, said David Brooks in The New York Times. We members of the college-educated minority “have built a culture, an economy, and a political system that are all about ourselves.” That’s made it nearly impossible for everyone else to find secure jobs that pay well enough to support their families and communities—to find work that provides a sense of worth. GDP is up and unemployment numbers are down, but “this is still a country in which nearly 20 percent of prime-age American men are not working full-time,” and they represent a broad class whose America is broken. “Working-class voters tried to send a message in 2016,” of course. “They are still trying to send it.”