America: Do It Yourself

Bootstrapped: Liberating Ourselves from the American Dream
Alissa Quart, 2023
City and County libaries each have 4 books, an audiobook, and an e-book available
276 Pages

Strong reviews, reasonable book length, and the subject prompted me to post this for our June reading. This covers American notions of individualism and self-reliance, and how these help drive conservative politics, parties, and economic systems.

• Publisher's Summary: Examines the American obsession with self-reliance and how it has led to inequality, self-blame, and shifted the responsibility for survival onto the backs of ordinary people."The promise that you can "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" is central to the story of the American Dream. It's the belief that if you work hard and rely on your own resources, you will eventually succeed. However time and again we have seen how this foundational myth, with its emphasis on individual determination, brittle self-sufficiency, and personal accomplishment, does not help us. Instead, as income inequality rises around us, we are left with shame and self-blame for our condition. Acclaimed journalist Alissa Quart argues that at the heart of our suffering is a do-it-yourself ethos, the misplaced belief in our own independence and the conviction that we must rely on ourselves alone. Looking at a range of delusions and half solutions--from "grit" to the false Horatio Alger story to the rise of GoFundMe--Quart reveals how we have been steered away from robust social programs that would address the root causes of our problems. Meanwhile, the responsibility for survival has been shifted onto the backs of ordinary people, burdening generations with debt instead of providing the social safety net we so desperately need