What Went Wrong: How the 1% Hijacked the American Middle Class... And What Other Countries Got Right

In his first book, Tyler, a former Clinton administration deputy assistant Treasury secretary, slams popular acquiescence to low wages, imperious CEOs, and diminished national net worth. He contrasts the pursuit abroad of “family capitalism”—a doctrine of healthy compensation, job retraining, and productivity growth—with the increasing income disparities in the U.S. that destroy economic mobility and perpetuate poverty. Tyler identifies the Reagan era and its free-market dogma as the beginning of the reversal of middle-class growth, but sees little change since then. He argues that a first step toward recovery would be to boost the wages of lower-income households; he cites Australia and Europe as examples showing that prosperity and living wages are complementary, not contradictory. Whatever the merits of his proposals, the array of data he presents justifies popular apprehension about America’s future. The key issue is not big government vs. small government, he maintains, but rather the distribution of wealth. While Tyler’s recommendations seem hard to achieve, he provokes outrage with his impassioned portrait of an America where job security is a relic of the past. Agent: Howard Yoon, Ross Agency. (July)