Elsewhere, U.S.A.: How We Got from the Company Man, Family Dinners, and the Affluent Society to the Home Office, BlackBerry Moms, and Economic Anxiety

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  This is the best book on socioeconomics that I’ve read this year and in my shortlist for best overall of 2009. If Soros addressed the current economic world at systemic and financial levels, Conley does so at the sociological and technological. The Internet, Blackberries, social networking, knowledge work replacing the creation of stuff, working at home, the upward spiral of education, earnings and status, equal earners, raising kids, how people can feel more fragmented despite greater connec... (show more)

  This is the best book on socioeconomics that I’ve read this year and in my shortlist for best overall of 2009. If Soros addressed the current economic world at systemic and financial levels, Conley does so at the sociological and technological. The Internet, Blackberries, social networking, knowledge work replacing the creation of stuff, working at home, the upward spiral of education, earnings and status, equal earners, raising kids, how people can feel more fragmented despite greater connectedness…Conley identifies and puts into words what many may feel but are unable to characterize, where it's coming from, and how it all fits together.

  Conley is an academic, but does not write here with cautious academic rigor. The work reads more like a free wheeling, cokehead rant from someone who isn’t actually full of shit. He peppers his positions with enough footnotes and every day facts to keep the credibility level high. All done with entertaining verve. Still, the pacing can be somewhat exhausting and tangential as he relentlessly strings one point to the next from start to finish.

  Many of the points made will not be news, but their current relevance and the way they’re woven together is what makes this such an enjoyable and persuasive read. A factual jam session of social and economic observations with an especially lucid player. If you liked the way all the strings were woven together in The Wire to paint a complete and current social picture, you’ll dig this. (show less)

   

   

  by Deep on Apr 24, 2009 at 04:04AM

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  Preface: This book was penned before the recent market crash.

  Clay Shirky's 'Here Comes Everybody' was the best book that I read in 2008. Dalton Conley's 'Elsewhere, U.S.A.' may prove to be the best book that I read in 2009. [And it's only February 1st!] [Interestingly enough, both Clay Shirky and Dalton Conley are both affiliated with NYU.]

  The two central questions that Dalton Conley raises and attempts to answer are these:

  Given that:
  - When Mr. 1959 (depicted in William Whyte's ... (show more)

  Preface: This book was penned before the recent market crash.

  Clay Shirky's 'Here Comes Everybody' was the best book that I read in 2008. Dalton Conley's 'Elsewhere, U.S.A.' may prove to be the best book that I read in 2009. [And it's only February 1st!] [Interestingly enough, both Clay Shirky and Dalton Conley are both affiliated with NYU.]

  The two central questions that Dalton Conley raises and attempts to answer are these:

  Given that:
  - When Mr. 1959 (depicted in William Whyte's 'Organization Man') attained a dignified level of professional success (i.e. established one's own dentistry practice, become a vice-president at a tire company, etc.), he often parlayed the accompanying level of income and wealth into more leisure time for he and his family.
  - Whereas when Mr. (or increasingly Mrs.) 2009 attains a comparable level of professional success (i.e. rises to the rank of marketing executive for a multinational corporation, joins a prestigious law firm, etc), he (or she) increasingly does *not* parlay the accompanying level of wealth into more leisure time. Instead, he or she winds up working more hours with more economic anxiety.

  - How and why did this happen?
  - What are the ramifications of this change?

  Throughout, Conley asserts that it was not one thing, but many that led us to this economic reality:

  Here are just a few:
  - Rising economic inequality between high and low wage earners, and self-imposed pressure to “keep up with the Joneses” in a post-materialist society.
  - Technology that enables a 24x7 work week.
  - Females earning more and remaining in the work force for longer spans of time.
  - A lower marginal income tax rate for the top bracket.
  - A greater recognition of the opportunity cost associated with “not working”.

  At the book’s conclusion, Conley cautions the reader that it would be unproductive to use one’s entire energy to rally against our new reality. In fact, Conley never labels the new reality as universally bad. Instead, he urges the reader to recognize the tradeoffs between what once was and is today. (show less)

   

   

  by Jim Gorman on Feb 01, 2009 at 06:50PM

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