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The Case for Big Government

Jeffrey Madrick

3.56 · Rating details · 43 ratings · 10 reviews

Political conservatives have long believed that the best government is a small government. But if this were true, noted economist Jeff Madrick argues, the nation would not be experiencing stagnant wages, rising health care costs, increasing unemployment, and concentrations of wealth for a narrow elite. In this perceptive and eye-opening book, Madrick proves that an engaged

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Hardcover, 216 pages

Published October 26th 2008 by Princeton University Press (first published October 6th 2008)

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Sep 03, 2010 Michael rated it liked it

It has taken me several months to read this book, not because it's poorly written, or because it's not interesting: it is both. The problem is, when I read economics, my eyes glaze over. Economics is incredibly foundational for understanding damn near anything that's been happening in America over the past three years (or the past three hundred years), so I try to be well-read in this area...but it is frigging painful for me.

I picked up this book because it was well-reviewed, and I heard it ref It has taken me several months to read this book, not because it's poorly written, or because it's not interesting: it is both. The problem is, when I read economics, my eyes glaze over. Economics is incredibly foundational for understanding damn near anything that's been happening in America over the past three years (or the past three hundred years), so I try to be well-read in this area...but it is frigging painful for me.

I picked up this book because it was well-reviewed, and I heard it referenced a few times (I can't recall where). Essentially, the author's thesis is this: in times of economic change, government is necessary to ease the transition from one type of economy to another. When our nation first developed, for example, governments built roads, canals, and helped to create navigable rivers in order for farmers to get their goods to market. When our economy began transitioning from an agrarian economy to a manufacturing economy, governments built schools, railroads, and other forms of infrastructure, as well as providing necessary regulation for industries, worker protections, etc. Now, as we change from a manufacturing economy to a service/knowledge economy (the argument goes), it should be the role of government to provide things like health care, support for higher education, stronger financial regulation, etc. If, for example, our economy needed workers with a higher level of education to work in the 20th century economy, and government helped to create an education infrastructure, it only makes sense for government to assist when the economy calls for a college educated workforce.

The markets, the author argues, do not provide quality education, health care, public infrastructure, or social security programs (unemployment insurance, welfare, an income for the elderly and disabled, etc.) broadly enough across all socioeconomic levels. It is the role of government to provide these things, and--when the basics are in place--Americas at all incomes will thrive. The book provides comprehensive data to show how income inequality has grown, wages have become stagnant, and how narrowly gains in the economy have actually been since the 1970s.

What the author also argues--and I thought this was the most compelling part of the book--is that we now know things that we did not know when, for example, the Constitution was written, or when the New Deal was put into place. Specifically, we know how essential early childhood interventions are. We know how important preventative medicine is. We know how damaging our industries can be to the environment. We also know--and I add this myself--how difficult our transition will be from fossil based fuels and energy to more renewable sources. Knowing these things, our government's polices should reflect their importance, and fostering sane policies is the place of government, not the 'free' market.

As I read this book, I was put in mind of Hillary Clinton's book from the 1990s It Takes A Village. She, too, made a powerful case about what needed to be done, but her prescription was exactly the same as this authors: a powerful, tax payer funded central government. And not just tax payer funded: funded at the levels of the European social democracies, which both authors hold up as paragons of social and economic organization. If we only had a larger government in Washington, these arguments go, everything would be okay. If we only had a properly manged, tax-payer funded federal program, our citizens would be educated, healthy, hard-working, and happy.

This, to me, is the fatal flaw of modern liberalism, or--perhaps more accurately--the Neo-Progressives. They simply cannot imagine any alternative to a larger government. Don't get me wrong: I am not a Tea Party guy. I do believe that Washington has an important role in our economy. But, as recently as the President's last State of the Union Address, I find myself grinding my teeth in frustration when we are told over and over and over again about how this program will fix it all, and that program was simply underfunded/poorly implemented/not broad enough. If we just do this thing, all will be well. If we do more of that thing, everything will be better. "Investments" are what's needed now! All of these programs and ideas ignore the unimaginable costs of all the LAST programs and policies which didn't solve the very problems we are now trying to fix again!

I have said before that Republicans look at complex problems and say, "Well, that didn't work. Let's do nothing." Democrats, on the other hand, say, "Well, that' didn't work. Let's do the same thing again but spend more money on it."

There were some very good ideas, and excellent insights, in this book. Unfortunately, the same tired solutions were offered in response to the same problems. For what it's worth, I think everything in America--everything--needs to go back to being more local and more personal. I'd rather pay high taxes in the town where I live, and lower taxes to Washington with the understanding that it is in my local community, I would need to find the solutions to my problems. Not everything, of course...but most things.

I recommend this book as a well written, fair, and thoughtful discussion of America's modern economy. ...more

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Nov 04, 2009 Rachel rated it it was ok

Jeff Madrick sets out in this book to make -- you guessed it -- the case for big government. Madrick seems to have an acute sense of where Americans as a nation are headed, and the changes we need to make socially and culturally to set ourselves up for future success. One of his most intriguing discussions concerns the shift from luxury to necessity of technological devices such as phones, medicine, and even cars. He never quite seems to arrive at the point of really making a case for big govern Jeff Madrick sets out in this book to make -- you guessed it -- the case for big government. Madrick seems to have an acute sense of where Americans as a nation are headed, and the changes we need to make socially and culturally to set ourselves up for future success. One of his most intriguing discussions concerns the shift from luxury to necessity of technological devices such as phones, medicine, and even cars. He never quite seems to arrive at the point of really making a case for big government, though. While he makes some very interesting observations, he does a poor job explaining them, and his convoluted writing makes it difficult to get at the underlying socioeconomic issues he's evaluating. Ultimately, he never fully constructs the connection between social reform and requisite government involvement.

On the whole, his perspective seems just as myopic as those he's railing against. For example, he uses as evidence for his case the declining average and median wage of males with a college degree over the past three decades. But he fails to address the perceived value of a college education as rates of degree-holders have risen from 14 to 40% in that same time. His charts offer interesting comparisons, but they don't seem to consider the whole picture. John Allen Paulos, author of Innumeracy , would have an absolute field day with Madrick's statistics, inventive as they are.

His Agenda, laid out in Part III, is both sweeping and amazingly simplified. To read this agenda, one might almost suspect these social reforms to be practicable. In fact, why not give them a try? Of course, there's no evident discussion of prioritization -- we can't do everything all at once, so where to we start? How do we move from theory to implementation? At the end of the day, this book is just another example of political hogwash: the ideas are great, but they're thoroughly impractical without some distinct plan of action.

Madrick raises some interesting points, and the book overall offers an interesting historical perspective. But the inefficacy of his Agenda, coupled with his questionable statistics, really weakens this book overall. ...more

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Feb 18, 2009 Elaine Nelson rated it liked it

Shelves: history, non-fiction, politics, economics

I'm just going to quote Obama's speech of Feb 24 2009:

"History reminds us that at every moment of economic upheaval and transformation, this nation has responded with bold action and big ideas. In the midst of civil war, we laid railroad tracks from one coast to another that spurred commerce and industry. From the turmoil of the Industrial Revolution came a system of public high schools that prepared our citizens for a new age. In the wake of war and depression, the GI Bill sent a generation to ...more

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Sep 06, 2009 Chris Aylott rated it liked it

Guess what? Taxes may be good for you. At least they might be, spent proactively by a well-run and reasonably honest government.

Madrick makes a convincing, statistics-driven argument the last thirty years of laissez-faire government have been an earnings disaster for anyone not in the top 1% of wealthy Americans -- that health care costs and educational costs are spiraling out of control while there has been almost no gain in wages. What's interesting, though, is he treats the last thirty years ...more

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Aug 17, 2012 Jason Knoll rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Madrick provides a compelling case for an increase in government spending and oversight. While the first two "Parts" of the book give the reader a brief history of the subject, it's the third, and final, "Part" that should receive the most attention. Titled, "What to Do," Madrick lays out an agenda for future government spending and regulation. I happen to agree with most, if not all, of Madrick's assertions. His argument that the US government needs to spend more on education was spot on as was ...more

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Feb 15, 2009 Dave Golombek rated it really liked it

Madrick is clearly writing this book to help start the fledgling reaction against the conservative movement of the last 25 years, trying to add intellectual clout to the ground surge against the republican mindset. He takes on a lot of the core ideas of the conservative ideology, showing how little basis they have in economic history. Clearly, economics on both sides of the aisle are heavily influenced by the politics of the researcher, and I'm sure that some of Madrick's numbers are as fuzzy as ...more

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Sep 09, 2011 Paul Frandano rated it liked it

Shelves: political-science-govt-politics

A brief book in three parts: a useful, if somewhat hectoring, thumbnail history of the many ways US government spending has advanced overall well-being and generated economic growth, from the founding days to the present; a helpful debater's cheat sheet - with numerous citations - in responding tit-for-tat to the arguments of those who would make the opposite case; and a set of remedial recommendations that seldom transcends the category of "tired Liberal bromide" and, with Madrick's cost estima ...more

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Jun 15, 2013 Robert rated it it was ok

There is a good case to be made for big government, but unfortunately this book doesn't make it. Instead it rambles without direction or focus through America history and stagnating wages without discussing why this is the case or why government is the solution. All it does is list of economic problems without explaining why they occur or why increasing the size of the government will make things better. ...more

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Sep 11, 2009 Mary rated it did not like it

I wanted so badly to finish this book, but it was way too densely written and his thoughts were not organized in a way that made sense to the reader.

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May 09, 2010 Chad Kulas rated it really liked it

This book made much more sense than Goldwater's. ...more

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About Jeffrey Madrick

Jeffrey Madrick

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JEFF MADRICK is a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books, and a former economics columnist for The New York Times. He is director of the Bernard L. Schwartz Rediscovering Government Initiative at the Century Foundation, where he is a Senior Fellow; editor of Challenge Magazine; and visiting professor of humanities at The Cooper Union.

He has written for many other publications over the ...more