(Note: Readers are treated here to a sneak preview
of the write up which is printed on the hardcover version’s front and
rear dust jacket inside flaps. A formal press release
announcing the book’s publication will follow.)
Is there a practical solution to preserve the
American Dream which empowers ordinary citizens to do it themselves? Life
among the Ordinary is the product of comprehensive, multi-year study to
find out.
Happiness is the aim of
life, and virtue is its foundation. Hamilton’s plan uses the
forces of human nature to create an artificial class of wealth with privileges
to its benefactors which are not the right of every citizen. Jefferson
says the system flows “from principles adverse to liberty” and is “calculated
to undermine and demolish the republic,” narrowing the government into fewer hands and approximating it to a
hereditary form. Washington’s fateful decision under man’s creation envisions the greatest
good for the greatest number.
Jackson stakes his popularity
on a common man oath. Government must
grant no privilege that aids one class over another and act as an honest broker
between classes. Prosperity abounds in a land of opportunity. But the new standard of worship for American society is
and remains money, moral issues aside, as the war which Lincoln so deplores came.
The Industrial
Revolution produces enviable
physical results. But at the dawn of the American
century, Theodore Roosevelt reflects that there have been “two great crises in
our country’s history: first, when it was formed, and then, again, when it was
perpetuated … .” The third great crisis is
upon us, the struggle “to achieve in large measure equality of opportunity.” He concedes the vitality of faith:
Friends,
perhaps once in a generation, perhaps not so often, there comes a chance for a
people of a country to play their part
wisely and fearlessly in some great battle of the age-long warfare for human
rights. The doctrines we preach reach
back to the Golden Rule and the Sermon on the Mount. They reached back to the commandments
delivered at Sinai. All that we are
doing is to apply those doctrines in the shape necessary to make them available
for meeting the living issue of our own day.
A
handicapped president helps vanquish a Great Depression and restore the
ordinary citizen’s faith in democracy, making capitalism more humane. Some
criticize F.D.R., calling him a socialist and his New Deal socialistic.
But the aim is merely
to multiply the number of American shareholders. “Is this socialistic?” he asks with a hearty
laugh.
Yet despite the achievement, what has really changed, if anything?
“For the many,” Robert Kennedy observes, “roots of despair all feed at a common
source. … Our gross national product … measures
everything, in short, except that which makes life worth while.”
America enters the 21st century with
record wealth and income disparity. The
fight for change among people who can't speak for themselves appears to be no
match against the power of the entrenched status quo to restore the failed, old order. At the crossroads the great crisis is in full view.
It’s along the “dimension of economic
opportunity,” President Obama notes, “the chance through honest toil to advance one's station in life,” that the goals of the civil rights era “have
mostly fallen short.” The “measure of progress” is “whether our economic system provides a fair shot for the many ... . To win that battle, to answer that call --- this remains our great unfinished business.”
Is there a practical solution to restore
meaningful equality of opportunity which empowers ordinary citizens to do it themselves? The book sets upon a course to take the
reader on a journey to that place.
-Michael D'Angelo
Note: To learn how to purchase the new book in the reader's choice of hardcover, paperback or digital formats, see links to the right.
