That Used to Be Us

That Used to Be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back is a work of nonfiction by Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman, and Michael Mandelbaum, a writer and Johns Hopkins professor. It was published in 2011 and explores four problems that the authors see facing the United States. The problems are globalization, the revolution in information technology, chronic national deficits, and energy consumption.

The authors call on Americans to consume less and save more. They encourage an increase in the work ethic and in attention to education. Their ideas stem from both ends of the political spectrum. Their proposals are not without controversy. They suggest an increase in taxes, although caution that such an increase needs to be carefully planned out. Investing in education and infrastructure is cited as a significant need along with particular attention to research and development. Further, they suggest being open to attracting talented immigrants and to amending the governmental regulations that serve to guide the economy. They support significant change as the only way to fix what they see as contributing factors to the downfall of the nation.

That Used to Be Us attempts to show how partisan politics, as well as a level of apathy, or at least complacency in the country, has led to a dysfunctional political system and a loss of faith in the American dream. The authors point to governmental spending without the foresight to plan for the future. Spending on research and development is far outpaced by frivolous consumerism. American levels of education are shown to fall short of the standards of other nations. After pointing to additional ills in American society, the book goes on to present factors that have led to the decline they are addressing. The text addresses a lack of focus in times when there is not a threat that breeds concentration. A failure to address what the authors see as obvious problems like energy, education, and changes in climate is cited. Further discussed is what the authors see as a straying from the formula on which the nation has traditionally built itself, which includes industry, investment, and innovation. And finally, it is suggested that hostility has obscured consensus building.

Globalization, according to Friedman and Mandelbaum, has led to the loss of millions of white and blue collar jobs. They recognize that manufacturing does have jobs and such employers are profitable, but that recovery no longer brings employment. Employment, in the form of new jobs, comes only from new ventures and creative approaches to new ideas. They believe the world created by Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush needs to be left in the past. The authors talk of rekindling the ideas of The New Deal through collaboration and making sacrifices for the common good. They stress that raising taxes to pay down debt and to fund wars is a necessity. The tenets of the book are meant to apply not only to a superpower such as the United States, but to places like the United Kingdom where the same problems and lack of solutions also exist. Friedman and Mandelbaum contend that there is a wide lack of recognition about the seriousness of the situation. Other facets of the situation surrounding the decline of America and the ways to help it return to its former status include a look at China, which the authors cite as a major competitor economically and militarily, but at the expense of personal freedom. Friedman attended the World Economic Forum in 2010 and observed the superiority of Tianjin, China’s infrastructure. With respect to party politics it is stressed that the Republicans have to accept that tax cuts are not a path to recovery, and the Democrats have to accept cutting spending, even at the risk of decreasing social programs.

Critical reaction to That Used to Be Us was decidedly mixed. The Wall Street Journal, while appreciating the overall optimistic tone of the book, says, “Friedman can turn a phrase into cliché faster than any Madison Avenue jingle writer…the authors' frustration is unoriginal and ill-defined.” On the other hand, The Christian Science Monitor said of the authors that they “do a masterly job of explaining just what's wrong and why our nation is on the brink of tragedy…They employ lively examples and telling statistics to make their points, and buttress them with incisive quotes from those inside America’s political system.” The New York Times called the book “compelling, engaging and enlightening...The authors provide a thoughtful and balanced corrective to critics on the left who believe that our present economic troubles demonstrate the fundamental failure of the liberal democratic capitalist ideas on which American society is built, and the critics on the right who believe that only a return to 19th-century small government policies can save us.”