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Suicide of the West

How the Rebirth of Tribalism, Populism, Nationalism, and Identity Politics Is Destroying American Democracy
Jul 17, 2018DavidSpencer99 rated this title 3 out of 5 stars
I read this book because I heard Goldberg on NPR and thought he sounded like a reasonable spokesperson for the conservative viewpoint. I agreed with many of the general points about tribalism etc. damaging our incredibly lucky and privileged way of life. I found Chapter 4 on the “Birth of Capitalism” interesting. But some of his cheerleading goes way too far. How could anyone other than a partisan accept a statement like this one? “The free market is the greatest anti-poverty program in all of human history…the only anti-poverty program in all of human history.” [p. 161] I have to agree with Park MacDougald’s NY Magazine review that this is a “book that can only be taken seriously by people for whom ideas matter less than the idea of ideas mattering; that is, for whom intellectualism is an exercise in branding and PR.”