Coming Apart - The State of White America 1960-2010 (Charles Murray, 2012)

This book received lots of attention when it came out.

The author sifts through lots of data (such as it is) and provides a pretty compelling discussion about the separation of "white America" into two significant classes between 1960 and 2010. There was of course always an upper class - but it is interesting to consider how small that group was c. 1960 (and prior), and how similar everyone else was.  The modern upper class, to use that term, is much larger and has segregated itself into neighborhoods; its members are educated, knowledge workers, government workers, professionals, etc.

None of that would come as much of a surprise to anyone.

The part of the book that generated controversy is the discussion of how the lower class is increasingly afflicted by destructive behaviors that look very different from America's founding virtues - while the upper class tends to have a much higher retention of traditional values.

I think this is behavior that we all can pretty much see with our own eyes, but I think this book was new in being so forthright about the situation - in politically correct circles (including virtually the entire media), it is highly impolitic to speak of the poor outcomes for children born to single moms, to discuss the ridiculously high disability rates and reduced rates of men seeking work, etc..  So by calling this out, the book attracted lots of criticism from the left-liberal-progressive sphere.  Plus it's written by a white male with ties to the American Enterprise Institute - meaning attacks on the messenger rather than evaluation of the message   And yes, the data (much of it from surveys, so inherently non-definitive) used by the author is of course open to criticism and interpretation - but directionally, the message is worth taking seriously.

Murray reviews how America was founded on four principal virtues:  industriousness, honesty, marriage and religiosity.  (One can debate the specifics of the list, but something along these lines is at least roughly correct.)  He discusses how those virtues have for the most part disappeared among the lower classes (and weakened among the upper, though appearing to be stabilizing).

Interesting discussion based around excerpts from writings by the founding fathers and the amazingly perceptive de Tocqueville . . . that the U.S. didn't need a lot of laws or a detailed Constitution because its people were so tied into the four virtues . . . and that the system devised in the 18th century wouldn't work absent those virtues.  Looking at how poorly the system functions these days, one is inclined to agree.

Murray ends up sounding a positive note - he thinks things will get better, in part because they are so obviously unsustainable in current form (see quote below).

I don't think I agree with his outlook.  Quite likely the four founding virtues were out of date in various respects and required some significant tweaking - but we have moved so far away from them that I don't think we will be coming back.  Just look at two examples from the recent election results - 2012 presidential race, 2012 California state results - dependency and victimhood (a/k/a pitting group against group) are increasingly our country's new virtues.  The more sober virtues are very difficult to build and maintain - they are the exception.  They have seldom been duplicated anywhere in the world throughout history, as far as I know.  So America changes, and I don't think for the better.  (Though that doesn't change the fact, if one can so call it, that we still have lots of advantages over the rest of the world.)

By the way:  the book focuses on white America.  But the author states (and I guess there is some survey data) that the principles apply across the races.

A quote indicating optimism of the author (I agree with the sentiment but don't see reversal of the trend):  ". . . sooner or later, at some budgetary figure, the amount of money we are spending to achieve easily achievable goals will eventually persuade everyone that using armies of bureaucrats to take trillions of dollars, spend a lot of it on themselves, give back a lot of it to people who don't need it, and dole out what remains with all sorts of regulations and favoritism is not reasonable or necessary.  Wealthy nations can accomplish the core goal of the advanced welfare state - the economic wherewithal for people to provide for their basic needs - without the apparatus of the welfare state."