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Title details for The Free-Market Family by Maxine Eichner - Available

The Free-Market Family

How the Market Crushed the American Dream (and How It Can Be Restored)

by Maxine Eichner
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US families have been pushed to the wall. At the bottom of the economic ladder, poor and working-class adults aren't forming stable relationships and can't give their kids the start they need because of low wages and uncertain job prospects. Toward the top, professional parents' lives have become a grinding slog of long hours of paid work. Meanwhile their kids are overstressed by pressure to succeed and get into good colleges. In this provocative book, Maxine Eichner argues that these very different struggles might seem unconnected, but they share the same root cause: the increasingly large toll that economic inequality and insecurity are taking on families. It's government rather than families that's to blame, Eichner persuasively contends. Since the 1970s, politicians have sold families out to the wrongheaded notion that the free market alone best supports them. In five decades of "free-market family policy," they've scrapped government programs and gutted market regulations that had helped families thrive. The consequence is the steady drumbeat of bad news we hear about our country today: the opioid epidemic, skyrocketing suicide and mental illness rates, "deaths of despair," and mediocre student achievement scores. Meanwhile, politicians just keep telling families to work a little harder. The Free-Market Family documents US families' impossible plight, showing how much worse they fare than families in other countries. It then demonstrates how politicians' free-market illusions steered our nation wildly off course. Finally, it shows how, using commonsense measures, we can restructure the economy to work for families, rather than the reverse. Doing so would invest in our children's futures, increase our wellbeing, reknit our social fabric, and allow our country to reclaim the American Dream.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    December 11, 2019

  • Formats

    • Kindle Book

      • ISBN: 9780190055493

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9780190055493

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9780190055493
      • File size: 2301 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Library Journal

      September 1, 2019

      Eichner (law, Univ. of North Carolina; The Supportive State) claims that Americans are unhappy because economic forces are disrupting the family, an institution central to her view of human flourishing. The first part presents extensive, data-driven support for her argument that the country's market-based family policy is inconsistent with child development research on the value of stability and caretaking. The next section describes the history of welfare policy and reform. International comparisons feature prominently, and profiles of struggling families bring the material to life. Later chapters lay out a profamily policy agenda organized around principles of public investment in childcare, moderation of extreme inequality, a strengthened social safety net, and labor market policy emphasizing work-life balance. VERDICT Covering similar economic themes as those in Jacob S. Hacker's The Great Risk Shift but in a more personal and maternal voice, this work is likely to resonate most with readers interested in the case for profamily social policy.--Jennifer M. Miller, Univ. of Southern California, Los Angeles

      Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Formats

  • Kindle Book
  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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