Toward a Better America

If the argument that has been built up in this volume has any merit, it suggests that, for the long-term economic and social health of us all, those who govern us in the United States need to do three extremely difficult things and to do them with as much speed and determination as they can muster. They need to rebalance the economy, enhancing the weight of manufacturing and diminishing that of finance in the overall economic mix. They need to address and reduce the enormous inequalities that now divide one American from another; and they need-more than anything else-to begin to phase America out of the empire business. If the argument here is correct, the question before us now is not whether these vital changes are necessary. The question rather is how, over a series of generations, these vital and necessary changes can be brought about. Changes of this scale are never easy, which is why debate about them now is so necessary. In truth, each will be phenomenally difficult to effect, but all are essential. Their achievement, therefore, must now become America’s overriding concern.1