Leonhardt and the American Dream

In a collaboration between Tuck Business School, the Center for Business, Government, & Society, and the Nelson A. Rockefeller Center, New York Times reporter David Leonhardt was welcomed as a Special Guest of Tuck Dean Matthew Slaughter.  Mr. Leonhardt was at Dartmouth at a standing-room-only event to discuss his book, Ours Was the Shining Future: The Story of the American Dream. David Leonhardt has been at the New York Times in various roles since 1999. In 2011, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary.

Leonhardt first pitched his book as a story of people and their experiences but chose only briefly to highlight them. He opted for a unique aspect to situate the ideas of the book into the broader context of the American public. He began his talk by proposing his ideas directly to the largely business school audience by immediately quipping, “I am a capitalist.” Immediately, the audience seemed entertained by the remark and grew visibly at ease. 

Leonhardt continued his contextualization of capitalism with the idea that it is the only economic system with a recorded history of being successful. He positioned a critical  point for a different turn of capitalism which he calls a bipartisan turn, dubbed “a purer version of capitalism.”

Leondhardt claims the American public was sold a new vision during the 1900s. He ascribes some of this to less regulation and less pro-worker advocacy. He presented graphs of life expectancy harking back to 1980 in which the U.S. life expectancy dropped from middle of the pack to the lowest among developed countries. He showed these graphs with a view that this “is the best measure of how a society is performing for its people.”

Leonhardt proceeded to tie together other of what he called negative factors in the United States. Unsurprisingly, he jumped to presenting figures of income inequality, showing that inequality was increasing due to lower- and middle-income families staying the same despite the top percentages rapidly increasing. Following this, he connected even broader societal factors on American satisfaction with the state of affairs in the U.S. As shown on Gallup, this satisfaction has been decreasing since the ’80s, and alarming negative trends are seen in both the increase of single-parent households and incarcerated citizens. He wove these negative trends together by linking them to capitalism.

Leonhardt attempted to connect these ideas to broader trends of the rapid decline of federal funding on research and development. We are ceasing to invest in our future, Leonhardt posits, while the government continues to pour money into the plethora of current crises. He used the example of travel to illustrate his point. Travel from New York City to Washington, D.C., takes thirty minutes longer than it did fifty years ago. All technology should be transforming and improving, not just the technology that is outstandingly profitable. 

Admittedly, Leonhardt spent too much time glorifying all unions without the recognition of the nuance, that is, some of the negative impacts of unions. First, he claimed that people must have checks in hand to hold any bargaining power, so unions empower people to possess capital. 

His point that the sectoral bargaining model of unions needs further reform did not go unheard, but it diminished his idea that current unions wholly benefit low-income citizens. To state that the service economy holds the most opportunity to empower workers with bargaining power because it “can’t be your local coffee shop if it moves somewhere with cheaper wages,” felt minimalistic to the arguments on unions. 

He characterized President Biden as someone who should understand the need for labor reform. Biden initially ran and got elected to the Senate despite George McGovern and the elite left. This view Leonhardt himself recognizes is from a long time ago. Despite the deserved age joke, Leonhardt recommended that Biden work on making labor law reform a legislative priority. Yet the viability of any such proposal would be slim to none considering the current political status quo. At least Leonhardt understands that labor reform was the only part of Lyndon B Johnson’s reform he couldn’t advance despite large political capital.

Leonhardt harkened back to a time where “we used to have a corporate culture that was full of less corporate greed and more patriotism.” He referenced famous leaders like George Romney as examples of this better type of corporate culture. In this study of leadership and cultural changes, he explained that his optimism for today derives from the willingness of people to change things by organizing and fighting for them. He argued that grassroots politics are powerful, but that they have not had a measurable impact on living standards in the United States.

Leonhardt took care in explaining the particular instances of the power of grassroots politics. He spoke to the victories in the movements for disability rights, same-sex marriage, and abortion. While Leonhardt offered fair critiques of both parties, he affirmed their successes. He mentioned that Democrats have become the party of suburban, educated Americans and fail to represent the working class; Republicans have begun to remove large swaths of their electorate with their move to the far right.

I appreciated his final remarks that he “would much rather live in a world with our policy …  than many other countries.” He brought a willingness to critique from a perspective that acknowledges the American system is the best, which is a perspective that both sides of the political spectrum could use these days. He took a much broader view of America and the changes he perceived, some very politically slanted, but it was largely an optimistic vision amidst something in which many Americans struggle to find hope. Leonhardt brought a view that was perhaps too critical, but thankfully he recognized that America does much (we can debate on what exactly) incredibly well.